I was pleasantly surprised last night while watching the Sioux Falls City Council meeting. The councilors were actually voting on principals and rules rather than rhetoric or pressure from the adminsitration. And not just the newbies, it seems the votes went in several different directions, even with the older council members.
The 4 PM meeting got off to an interesting start with open discussion. When councilor Neitzert brought up revisiting the administration building proposal, mostly crickets responded. Greg is persistent though, and don’t expect this to be the end of the topic.
Councilor Stehly brought up the thermostat (temperature) at the informational meeting and how it is turned down to low during the 7 PM meeting. She told me last night after the meeting that it seemed ‘more comfortable’ in Carnegie.
Theresa also brought up inviting a third rotating councilor to the Mayor’s leadership meetings that he occasionally has on Fridays, and if not possible a council staffer like Jim David to take notes to give to the other councilors, for the sake of transparency and communication.
Rolfing and Erpenbach were not having it. Rolfing claimed he could take good notes (God help us) but the real fight came from Michelle claiming that somehow Theresa was inferring some conspiracies were taking place behind closed door meetings with the mayor.
First off, that is NOT what Theresa said. Secondly, in order to stop the appearance of conspiracies is to let the sunshine in. That’s all Stehly was asking for. Michelle also went on some strange tirade about the two councilors in leadership were in some kind of special club with the mayor, and it was more of a social meeting then anything, and that is why she felt uncomfortable with staff being in the meeting.
WOW, she sure has a jaded view of how municipal government works and the duties of elected officials. First off, the chair and vice chair have no special powers. They do go to more meetings and chair some meetings, but they are equal to their peers when it comes to ‘power’ and ‘social standing’. Their votes count the same.
It was rather elitist of Michelle to claim there was some kind of special bond between leadership and the mayor. She sounded and looked ridiculous. The only conspiracy is the growing paranoia of the new council members.
Besides councilor Neitzert schooling everyone on the precedent of zoning and planning last night (I think he actually lead the vote on a couple of the issues). But one of the most interesting was an item he voted NO on that still passed. Him and councilor Starr both voted no to the new casino wall fiasco. I think for the same reasons. While the casino owner has finally complied to build a wall to separate two businesses, it doesn’t change that he has had to come back three times wasting hours of the council’s time and the planning department, lying about how he runs his other casinos (he got busted by councilor Erickson on that one last night and the mayor admonished him about it) he has also been in trouble for smoking violations. At the end of the day, Starr and Neitzert had enough of his half-truths. While Starr didn’t say why he was voting NO, Neitzert did, he said he felt compelled to deny the permit because the gentleman applying wasn’t a ‘suitable person’. A legal term in SD law that I assume applies to people who are dishonest.
The new council dove right in last night, that at times dumbfounded the older councilors. As I said before the election and in my endorsements, I supported certain candidates because they could hit the ground running. Starr, Stehly and Neitzert didn’t disappoint in their inaugural meeting.