Lots of odds and ends going on at the city council meeting this next Tuesday.
• In item #1, approval of contracts, we are paying about $71K for a land purchase agreement. That’s a whole lot of cashola to draw up a purchase agreement.
• Items #15-17, Badlands Pawn is asking for a malt beverage license, a liquor license and, you guessed it, video lottery terminals. BIG SURPRISE!
• Item #33, zoning signs have to be bigger. It’s about time.
• Item #40, exemptions to inspection fees. While I agree totally with the list of entities, I’m curious about one of them;
Section 41.007. EXEMPTION FROM PERMIT AND INSPECTION FEES.
Habitat For Humanity of Greater Sioux Falls, Incorporated; Make-A-Wish Foundation; Repair Affair Projects of the Home Builders Association of Sioux Falls; and the Home Modification Wheelchair Ramp Program of Independent Living Choices; South Eastern Development Foundation; and Community Development Department Neighborhood Revitalization Program projects are exempt from payment of fees for plat and/or plan reviews, permits and inspections from the following major organization units:
(a) Planning and building services; (b) Public works; (c) Fire prevention division; and (d) Police.
Am I missing something? Why would the Make-A-wish foundation need this exemption? Just curious.
• Item #41. Approving ‘complete streets’ in a resolution. While I support this proposal, I am curious why this did not go through an ordinance process instead of just a ramrod resolution process? Let’s pray about it.
• Item #43-44, oddball annexations.
• Item #44, Notice the overbid on the re-roofing of the Pavilion took over $400K from other projects planned at the Pavilion (this does not come out of the Pavilion operating subsidy, this comes out of our CIP).
• Item #45, the beat down of Councilor Dr. Kermit Staggers. Each year when Kermit wants to go to a conservative municipal government conference, he gets scrutiny. Yet none of the other councilor trips get this kind of scrutiny. As I told Kermit today, while I don’t agree with every aspect of this conference, it is always good to get different perspectives on municipal governing. I have often said, maybe he will learn ‘what not to do’ at this conference?
The Mayor’s ‘Shut Up & Listen’ session, June 29, 2015
(FF: 26:50) A resident of Prince of Peace asks a question about better education funding in rural Minnehaha county. The mayor says it is out of his control, which is NOT true. The more TIF’s the city approves, the more it affects education funding. Also, the recent vote with school boundaries at West Central was very much a city issue. Some very close Huether supporters were VERY involved with the campaign to uphold the school board’s decision to allow SF to suckup West Central school boundaries. Mike might want to say he isn’t involved, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The interesting part of the West Central campaign is that they didn’t need to financially report their donors. I would be curious to see how much Hizzoner donated to the campaign?
(FF: 43:40) A resident says she is dismayed about eliminating the free pool passes. The mayor blames no fee increases, and then blames the poor (52% swim for free). He also is troubled about the program ‘growing to large’. Then he starts to talk about the indoor aquatic center, and how ‘we’ need to pay for it. Then he brings up being the beer can collecting poor kid from Yankton. He calls the 52% free passes as an ‘imbalance’. DAMN RIGHT IT IS! People are broke in this town, we don’t have a jobs issue, we have a WAGE issue.
He ends the discussion by saying ‘Nothing is for FREE’. Hypocrite. You mean like the $500K of public dollars that went to a tennis club that bares your name for 102 members? You did not pass up that ‘freebie’. He talks about ‘working for it’. What amount of ‘work’ did you do to swindle the taxpayers of Sioux Falls out of $500K for your ultra-wealthy membership of the Huether Matche Pointe? It’s good to be King.
UPDATE: One resident gets up and chews his ass about the importance of FREE swimming for the poor children and learning how to swim.
It seems like I heard on the news, fairly recently, that there are several towns in the general area that have completely free swimming in their city pools. Why aren’t we rushing to “keep up with the Jones” in that respect? We seem to have to keep up with them when it comes to event centers, indoor pools, etc.
The one thing we will learn in this year’s budget process is how mmm and turbak have been cooking the 1st penny sales tax revenue spending. There may not be enough 1st penny revenue to pay the bills coming due for all the city playthings.
To much substance for one council meeting. To me it looks like an opportunity to muscle through lots of BS that should be challenged. Strong mayor has become ‘Bully Mayor’ such that the needs of citizens have become disassociated and replaced with special interests. Councilors should try and table some of this so it can be researched and better addressed later. Wishful thinking, it can’t happen with Home Rule Charter.
The Denny Dome area is becoming a DMZ. There’s gonna be guns, boos, gambling, and pawn. There’s no residential nearby so this is the right place. This is a good spot for a new jail. The sheriff wants to expand the present one. Why not locate it close to crime where sexual predators will not be within 1,000′ of a school or church? The jail will be close to criminal enterprise facilitating prisoner transport.
The crime of the century was tearing out a good outdoor pool. There was demand for 2 more pools and now we need 3. Recreation dollars are going into an exclusive upper class wate feature We got used to paying 500k for friends of Huether private tennis. What happened here is 2 million building an exclusive bathhouse citizens can’t afford. To rub it in our faces, they deny impoverished children summer swim activities. I’ve noticed the rise in drownings at lake recreation areas. Kids didn’t learn how to swim. It’s gonna get worse. It’s an indirect way to drown out citizens who don’t agree with the mayor.