South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

June 2016

Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council ignores the Shape Places Expert in the room, and blindly takes advice from the Planning Staff

l3wis 2Comments

campfire1

Of course, I am talking about city councilor Greg Neizert who helped as a citizen create Shape Places, fought for it in a ballot initiative to prevent revoking it, helped tweak it when it came to billboards and has served on the planning board of adjustment. But hey? What does he know? He actually gave a real simple piece of advice to his fellow councilors before him and Stehly were the only two to vote against a deferral instead of a reprimand back to the planning commission. Greg said, “If any substantial changes to the development plan are made, it has to go back to the planning commission anyway. That’s the law.”

Doesn’t get more simpler than that, yet you heard nothing but crickets from planning staff and the city attorney. So now we have to depend on part-time city councilors to bring us back to reality?

The rest of the council who voted for deferral seem to be delusional if they think the developer is going to make the changes the neighborhood wants them to ON THEIR OWN. Won’t happen. And now the council just threw the flaming football to September without a real solution except a blind hope the neighborhood residents and the developer will gather around a campfire and sing hymnals together to hammer it out.

I have been saying for weeks this is deja vu of the SON neighborhood and Southside Walmart. That case is now pending in SD Supreme Court because of an inept council and planning department. The Oakview neighborhood better lawyer up, and they better do it soon.

 

Paramedics Plus SF City Council Sioux Falls

After being dragged over the coals, MED-Star is being asked to bail out Paramedics Plus

l3wis 17Comments

amblan

Angela Investigatnecke over at Stormland TV decided to take a cue from Detroit Lewis and start digging around at Paramedics Plus. Even though there was ten million red flags when they were awarded the contract, like stomping all over MED-Star’s reputation because they didn’t fill out a couple forms correctly, then after getting the contract, employees stealing from dead people (maybe that is why the calls take so long? They have to finish robbing peoples homes before going on to the next call)?

While Angela reveals many interesting issues with the service, like how many times a guy running an ambulance service can lie in a TV interview (and our 911 and health director), I found this part about a ‘supposed’ contract with MED-Star hypocritical;

“Angela, we do not have a contract in the City of Sioux Falls, but interestingly enough, we’ve been called twice in the last couple of weeks to come into town to be mutual aid. But we haven’t transported anybody as of this date,” Jay Masur of MED-Star said.

The City says MED-Star has been “sent” the contract for mutual aid and Masur tells us he’s been trying to meet with Michael Bureau of Paramedics Plus to finalize the agreement.

So the company that was dragged thru the coals during the vetting process is now being asked to bail out the #1 choice for ambulance service in Sioux Falls. It doesn’t get anymore hypocritical than that.

Employment SF City Council Sioux Falls

Forward Sioux Falls swindles city council into a $2 million/5-year contract

l3wis 2Comments

jobsbull

Unlike other non-profits in Sioux Falls, Forward Sioux Falls set a precedent last night by getting the city council (Item #56) to approve a 5 year contract (instead of year to year) for workforce development and the management of siouxfallshasjobs.org.

But not without opposition.

Erpenbach pulled her typical ‘skeptical’ routine at the beginning of the discussion, than voted for it anyway. Which was too bad, because she had a great argument about signing off on a 5-year contract that would affect future councils. She must have forgotten what she was voting on, someone should have ‘REMINDED’ her.

Not only did Stehly, Starr and Neitzert vote against the contract, Greg added that if he had an opportunity he would ‘Defund’ the jobs site. I couldn’t agree more. Tax payers shouldn’t be subsidizing a employment site when there are many successful job sites in the private sector, that, and our low unemployment rate. This is a ruse to bilk tax payers into paying for classified employment ads for private industry, while doing nothing to address our real issue in Sioux Falls, WAGES!

Want to move Sioux Falls FORWARD, use the money to bring in industry that wants to pay a living wage.

Public Utilities Public Works Road Funding SF City Council Sioux Falls

Ignore the crappy roads, they will always be crappy

l3wis 2Comments

road01

At the Sioux Falls city council informational meeting yesterday we had a presentation about the conditions of our roads in Sioux Falls from a consultant who studied them last year. They put in a rating system on the roads.

After Councilor Stehly asked why we will not be putting more focus on the worst of the worst streets, Mark Cotter explained that we must focus on the fair streets more to keep them resurfaced before they get bad. Which I am in partial agreement. He concluded that it cost 8x more to replace a bad street then to just resurface. Stehly argued that we should be doing more to fix the bad streets.

Of course the naysayers came out in full force. First they complained the money wasn’t there, than in classic ‘make stuff up Michelle’, Erpenbach basically claimed we were driving on streets of gold.

I will agree with her partially. Anybody visiting our community will see our arterials and main routes are in very good shape, our residential streets in Sioux Falls central and proper, not so much.

I encourage anyone to either drive, or better yet take a bike ride starting at Nick’s Gyros on 41st street and zig zag through the neighborhoods towards 14th and Minnesota. Some of the roads are in such bad shape there are weeds growing in the center cracks. They are so bad, you can tell they are not only in need of replacement, but full curb and gutter, sidewalks, drainage and probably pipe upgrades, that is why the city is scared the death of opening that can of worms. They are willing to let the central part of our community suffer (where they are building a brand new swimming pool) in the name of urban sprawl.

Erpenbach goes on to say that roads become an issue in the Spring because of potholes, but no one talks about it any other time. Huey. This coming from a councilor who hasn’t talked to a constituent since she was elected. People complain about our roads 24/7, 365 days out of the year. It’s not just during campaign season.

So how can we fix the really bad roads while maintaining our urban sprawl? I have suggested a 1-2 year moratorium on quality of life projects, (façade) maintenance on entertainment facilities, flat line the parks budget, subsidizing non-essential non-profits, etc. I bet we could easily squeeze out an extra $20-30 million dollars for streets (you know, the original intention of the CIP to begin with).

This would of course take planning and courage, something that is in short supply at city hall these days.

 

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Public Input, June 21, 2016

l3wis 1Comments

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTZ0CxVl19I[/youtube]

Those pesky Oakview neighbors wanting to save their neighborhood and all the icky stuff a beautiful apartment house complex could change. Flower, horses, apple trees, kids walking to school and more will go away if the Planning Office succeeds with Item 38. How dare they not believe uncontrolled drainage is a good thing. Why don’t they just go away and leave us alone?

This is the message da Mayor of Sioux falls was letting the audience feel at the June 21, 2016 City Council meeting. The only place this neighborhood feels they can get their message out is in front of the Council during Public Input.

As Jon Solberg was speaking about the uncontrolled drainage damage, our thoughts turned to 14,000 floating caskets if this project is approved as presented..

« Previous Page — Next Page »

You Missed

Employee Free Choice Act Employment Sioux Falls Unemployment

The Smoke & Mirrors of the City of Sioux Falls recruitment efforts

Christ christmas Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

The Year in Review, oh, and Merry Christmas!

1st Amendment Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls religion Riverline District SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Why is the city lending a religious organization $500K?

Music USD Vermillion

F’ing USD