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.
l3wis 
