The meeting will be at the Main DT Library in meeting room A. Organizer Theresa Stehly will be talking about the drive and asking for volunteers to help with it.
The Petition was filed today so they will need to garner enough signatures by February. She thinks she needs 4,800 VALID signatures so she will try to get at least 5,500.
I plan to post updates about the drive here on DaCola, and if you have any questions feel free to comment here or email me for more information.
Here is a copy of the initiative language;
MUNICIPAL INITIATIVE PETITION
IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF SIOUX FALLSWE, THE UNDERSIGNED qualified voters of the municipality of Sioux Falls, the state of South Dakota, petition that the following ordinance be submitted to the voters of that municipality for their approval or rejection pursuant to law.
The proposed ordinance in proper form is as follows:
AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA TO MANDATE THE USE OF SNOW GATES FOR REMOVING SNOW FROM PUBLIC STREETS:
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA:
The City of Sioux Falls shall use snow gates or other devices to prevent snow, in an amount that prevents usual access, from being plowed or placed into driveways or their openings to public streets from and after November 1, 2013. This section shall cover City employees and contract employees. Snow gates are discretionary upon the declaration of a snow emergency on routes that have been declared snow emergency routes.
Just for clarification also, it has always been Stehly’s idea to move forward with this petition drive. Neither, Rath, Staggers or myself proposed this to her.
There is going to be some ‘mis-information’ being spread by ‘certain’ people that ‘someone’ put Theresa up to this, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
How many times were the snow gates used last winter?
To me, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that the city wants to test snow gates another winter considering what a anomaly our last winter was.
Considering how mild our last winter was, did the snow gates get a true test?
I’m not against snow gates, but I’m also not against more testing.
That is what is wonderful about the timing of this petition drive, they will still be testing these units this winter, so we will have even more results this Spring. Not sure how city hall feels about the drive, but I do know that the mayor supports using snowgates city wide. I just don’t think he has the support of the full council. I do know that 2 possibly 3 councilors like them, but that’s about it.
I see, so this would come into play after another winter of testing.
Thanks for the info.
The petition language reads……
The City of Sioux Falls shall use snow gates or other devices to prevent snow, in an amount that prevents usual access, from being plowed or placed into driveways or their openings to public streets from and after November 1, 2013.