South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

June 2012

Elections Open Government Open Meetings Secretary of State

Misc.

l3wis 6Comments

I have a few tidbits I wanted to share, so I thought I would just throw it all into one post.

MUSICAL PRECINCTS

I sent this email out today to the entire SF school board, Minnehaha county commission, SF City Council, city clerk, county auditor and mayor. I have already gotten two responses that are very positive;

Normally I do not email my elected officials, especially the entire city council, the county commission, the school board, the mayor, the city clerk and the county auditor all at once, but I did a recent post about the ‘musical precincts’ this city continues to play with elections and the mass confusion it has on voters. It’s time you all sat down in a room and figured out a standard already, this has gone on long enough!

As soon as most of them get back to me about it, I will do an indepth post about it.

LATE FILINGS

Ellis blogged about the supposed investigations the SOS’ office is going to conduct AFTER the election (yeah, that makes a lot of sense);

Secretary of State Jason Gant said his office will begin investigating a number of campaign finance violations as soon as Tuesday’s primary is concluded.

“We will begin investigating Wednesday morning,” he said while touring a polling place at Hawthorne Elementary in Sioux Falls.

Some groups have not filed required campaign finance reports, even though they’ve sent out flyers. Other committees have sent out illegal mailings that do not include the appropriate disclaimers.

“Tomorrow we are full steam ahead on working out those issues,” he said. “If they are not filing, we’re going to find out.”

I have often thought instead of fining late filings (of candidates) they should just leave their names off of the ballot. If you file late, you lose your opportunity to run. To heck with silly fines, if you can’t follow the rules you don’t get to play the game. As for the PAC’s I think you should revoke their status.

ARE EMAIL’S OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS PUBLIC RECORD

Ellis also blogged today about his battle with city hall over public records from an administration of ‘one of the most transparent’ mayor’s ever 🙂

“The law includes data, data fields and e-mail in its definition of public records, and it lets citizens bring their own devices to a government agency to make electronic copies. Georgia thus joins a growing number of states that explicitly open electronic communication to and from government officials to the public.”

I’ve written before about how backward South Dakota’s open record laws are. Many states make emails among government officials public records. South Dakota is also the rare state in which police reports aren’t available to the public. Oh, and mugshots.

As for data fields, I’ve been fighting to get the names of data fields used by the city of Sioux Falls in a database since December.

Ellis makes a good point. Why can’t we see emails? It would put rumors to rest about how involved the mayor is in local politics and his supposed quest for higher office. As for the data fields, I know what this is about, but I will let Ellis break this story, that is if he gets the data.

 

 

 

 

Sioux Falls Washington Pavilion

Pavilion Night Life?

l3wis 10Comments

Over the years, I have watched how things don’t change much at the Pavilion.

While they do try new things here and there, they really struggle with providing real adult entertainment. I know in the past when they have tried adult themed events they have gone over very well.

In no way am I telling the Pavilion what to do, and I certainly have not contacted them about any of my ideas. But with downtown Sioux Falls becoming more hopping and popular with younger people I think it is time the Pavilion tap into that energy.

My ideas are simple, gear Friday and Saturday night programs towards young adults 18-35.

You could set-up Leonardos as a lounge that also serves appetizers and you could put on laser light shows in the Cinedome. You could also do tours through the art galleries. There is also a ton of other combinations of different events you could try. Small local band performances in the Belbas or Schulte theaters, comedy acts or even indy films.

I know the Pavilion has tried some of these things on a ‘One-Tier’ level, but never a combination of events. I know Larry Toll has asked me to contact him, maybe I just will.

Developers Sioux Falls

How are the arterial streets being funded?

l3wis 21Comments

Guest Poster found this from 3 years ago;

When the city council decided to raise our taxes last Semptember they promised two things. 1) That the extra revenue of .08% would go into a special fund that would only be spent on arterial roads 2) That the developers would be paying 50% of that tab through platting fees. Even with the economy down and the city not being able to raise $10 million for the roads doesn’t mean that developers should be off the hook for their half of the bargain. But it seems like they think they are, and the city isn’t doing a damn thing about it.

If you look at the April financial report you will find that platting fees are still dismal: april-finance

While the platting fees are pretty measly when compared to the $15 million contributed by taxpayers, I am wondering what (Contributions/Other) is? If you follow the numbers across, you will see that it looks like the (.92) is contributing to the (.08) fund. Interesting.

Guest Poster had this to say;

I know this is an oldie but there is still the question about the need for the 69th St viaduct, roundabout and 4 lane highway in front of the 2 ‘Christian’ run businesses called schools.

There still is no need for this expenditure.  If WalMart would have been able to be built on this street, we the taxpayers would have been able to start recouping some of the costs.  As of now, the only traffic for this multimillion dollar street extension are TeaBaggers paying to send their children to private church schools.  If I mistaken, these ‘church’ schools are tax free and as such do not pay any taxes or street upkeep.

The funds should have been used to build a much needed 26th street / Southeastern / Sioux River, or Cliff Avenue bridge or both.  The traffic jams at both of these intersections has been needing attention for 20+ years.

No matter what or how the downtown rail yard discussion plays out, infrastructure changes need to be made in the core of town.  Trains are still going to be traveling on these tracks, in fact we recently learned BNSF is planning more trains per week.  What is the city’s plan?

Why doesn’t the developers look at a development plan to actually consider the railroad a tourist attraction?  Travel the roads of America and see how railroads have been a must see thing.  I have been very happy with the city’s failure with the railroad.  If the developers want to rework the railyard for their profits, let them pay for the costs.

Just because developers keep stretching out the the town’s boundarys doesn’t mean, we the citizens must pay for their ability to make more money on the taxpayer’s backs.

We are getting tired of socialism for costs and privatized capitalism of profits.

Sculpture Walk Sioux Falls

DT Sculptures are not ‘Play Things’

l3wis 24Comments

IMAGE: SculptureWalk

From a reader’s email;

I was driving down Phillips on Saturday afternoon and there were a bunch of people downtown looking at the sculptures, etc and there were two ADULT women on the bicycle having their picture taken.

They were SITTING on it like it was a play thing.  Then on the 0ther side of the street there were three younger females and one looked around before climbing on top of the stone/rock to have her picture taken with the rabbit.

This is not an adult playground…it is ART.

Some of the pieces are probably durable enough to do stuff like this, but like the reader said, they are not play things. Please appreciate them from a distance.

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