The things you find out while watching the council meetings. During the informational yesterday, councilor Staggers asked about the rippling siding on the Events Center. After viewing the structure on Sunday, he asked what the city plans to do to fix the issue, wants to be sure the city won’t have to pay for the fix, and would like an update.
He also asked about what is being done to alleviate the situation of the exploding fire hydrant at 12th and Phillips in February. Cotter said that he would have to talk to Risk Management first (while he was saying this, the director of that department, Reagan Smith, was sitting right behind him, and could have easily gotten up and answered the question) Then Cotter said, “Not sure if a claim was filed?” Yeah, right.
At the regular council meeting, during public testimony, several items were addressed;
– I talked about the outrageous amount of money being spent on municipal elections by candidates, especially Walmart and the Mayor and how the city council needs to look at limiting campaign financing.
– Citizens for Integrity asked why we are not doing more to alleviate drainage in Sioux Falls, especially not using money for Levee Bond repayment on these projects instead of on the indoor pool.
– Greg Niezhert (sp?) talked about the issue with the new billboard regulations in Shape Places, and how the council needs to take another look at that section of the ordinance, and revise it. Good luck with that Greg. As I told him before the election, that is why Shape Places needed to be voted down, so the council could go back and totally review the entire ordinance properly. Since it passed, there is NOTHING forcing the hand of the planning office or the city council to go ‘fix’ it.
– Lastly, was another story of how the SFPD can be reckless sometimes in fighting crime. Things happen, totally understand. The problem is they are taking no responsibility for it. A landlord comes and tells her story of how a fugitive came into the laundry room of her apartment building and in order for the police to capture him, they shot smoke bombs through the windows (breaking them) destroyed the door getting in, and tore up her lawn with the SWAT vehicle. All that being said, that is not the issue, the issue is that the city refuses to cooperate with her (they are ignoring her) about paying for damages.
Surprise, Surprise. Ask Touch of Europe how that works.
‘we dodged a bullet’ because of our piss poor planning (mmm)
Mr. Staggers is stepping up.
Cotter has done a decent job. It’s to bad he must be political cause I believe him to be a good engineer.
SFPD is out of control. There’s no internal affairs section and no way to make a complaint. I’ve learned a few things about them I can’t share here. Basically, they’re bullies who work both sides of the law.
As much as I agree with your point on limiting campaign financing…heck,as much as I would say that around 250,000,000+ Americans agree with you about limiting campaign spending, we can’t.
With respect to Wal Mart – The Supreme Court (who are, like it or not, the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional) have basically open the floodgates. They have prohibited the government from putting any spending limits on corporations. They can spend pretty much any dollar figure they want, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.
For the mayoral election – because they have decided that Money = Speech (which is bullshit…you know this, I know this, everybody knows this, except justices on the Supreme Court), and as the government can’t limit political speech, so long as the money is legally raised, their isn’t much that they can do.
You’d think those businesses insurance companies would be hounding the city. Or didn’t they have any?
Hi Scott, just for the record the spelling of my last name is ‘Neitzert’ for what its worth. Mine is mispelled and mispronounced probably as much as yours is – so I’m used to it. 🙂
I actually enjoy your public input usually and Bruce’s as well. Don’t always agree for sure, but many times there are good points in there. I generally share the concern in regards to spending, debt, and using so much capital funds for entertainment facilities rather than true infrastructure. Being on the west side of town, I’m watching the future plans for the Kuehn Park pool. I’m wondering how many on the east side know the proposed plan from the consultant was replacing Frank Olson with a spray park. I certainly wouldn’t be thrilled if I lived over in that area.
We obviously disagree on Shape Places, but that’s ok. I think we’re going to see movement on the billboards, its a concern for a lot of different people, council included. There will also be some other things coming down the pike that I know are in the works in regards to Shape Places.
Greg n. I don’t believe it for a minute that anyone will fix Shape Places because if council didn’t read it and make corrections before, they won’t after now that it is “old business”. Citizens must still watch what council is doing.