March 2016

Is a new administration really needed, or is cost savings better with leasing?

l3wis March 1, 2016 3Comments

Here come the cry baby stories in the media about our poor public employees who have to work in a basement. Heck even the Argus endorsed the boondoggle of a new administration building on Sunday. But is all this hub-bub about nothing?

Up to a dozen city engineers report to work each day in the tight-quartered, dimly lit, sometimes damp basement of City Hall.

“We have made the necessary improvements to City Hall to ensure it remains viable into the future,” said Sue Quanbeck Etten, Sioux Falls central services director. “Even with those improvements, we still have engineering staff in the basement of City Hall because there’s not room for them on second floor.”

I find it ironic that we continue to hire more engineers as we hire more consulting engineers. Heck, 2 years ago, the engineering department had to hire outside counsel to draw up plans for a guardrail on a pedestrian bridge. A guardrail! Maybe we don’t need MORE engineers, maybe we need QUALIFIED engineers.

Either way, it seems from watching last week’s informational meeting about the building that the city really doesn’t need the extra space, they just want everyone under one roof, while we will abandon other city buildings that we are not going to sell, but repurpose. As I said to someone the other day, this reminds me of when Governor Rounds had a fleet of state planes at his disposal, he said he needed them to do business. Ever heard of tele-conferencing? Skype? Internet? Fax? Email, or this thing called a phone? City employees don’t have to be under the same roof to work together.

Also, it seems the city is actually saving money by leasing until we sell off our unneeded property, then we can figure out what we will do. Always a good idea to count the eggs before putting them in the basket.

Like the indoor aquatic center, this is just another project the mayor is trying to ram through before anyone notices he is paying back friends in the construction/development business.

I think the council should permentantly delay the 2nd reading until city staff can prove the economical benefits of having a new building built, while finding a way to sell off unneeded city property. This would be a good legislative issue for the new council to tackle.