The lst reading passed 3-5 tonight to 2nd reading. Hopefully that momentum can keep going forward for second reading. But even if the appeal passes by the same number of votes at 2nd reading, it still doesn’t make it VETO proof by the mayor (needs to be a 2-6 vote). VETO is something mayors rarely do. I think Munson only did it once, and I can NOT recall Huether ever using his veto power, though he has chosen once to not to sign a piece of legislation (free youth bus rides). Should be interesting to see how this plays out in the end.
I personally testified tonight that a new building is NOT needed at all whether refurbished or from scratch. With advanced technology the city should be focusing on cutting it’s workforce and having highly trained workers.
It was silly of them to ram this through the way they did back before the new members took office.
With Home Rule Charter, this is not democracy. The council are puppets the dictator mayor can ignore. It’s near the end of his term. This will be like the events and aquatics centers. He’ll award contracts before it’s approved at his choice of location. There’s no competitive bid process so it’ll be overpriced. Then, it’s later condemned because of the inferior design and materials. For the mayor this is not about city needs. It’s about he getting a developer bonus, aka bribe. Realistically, with the next mayor, city debt must be addressed. There will be city layoffs and a third of services will be private contractors. The new admin building will be mostly vacant and (probably) left unfinished.
What’s silly is the report from the same architect and contractor who were to build the new building claiming it would cost within a few hundred thousand dollars to refurbish the 300 building as it would to cost to build new and expect people to believe that crap.
How dumb do Huether and his minions think the ‘good folks of Sioux Falls’ are?
There should be repercussions for a stunt like that. Quanbeck-Etten should be fired and those companies banned from doing business with the City for the rest of this Mayor’s term.
Who would be willing to explore option and then work to press ethics complaints against the individuals involved in these processes?
Isn’t it time to let the administration directors know we are tired of the abuse of their positions? We have an almost worthless Ethics Board and for some reason it scares the staff to be brought before it.
The constant use of twisted versions of data needs to be prosecuted.
It would be a waste of time to pursue any action if the council is going to do nothing but sit back and rubber stamp the same directors every year and give consent to the Mayor’s board choices.
If the Council decided to not give consent to reappoint a director (say one that has been incompetent in getting technology to work, making poor choices in selecting vendors, local and otherwise, providing misinformation to the council on multimillion dollar projects) that would go a long way in getting this ‘us versus them’ mentality to stop and help abate this ‘restrict the flow of information’ Huether has created.
Right now the department heads are only worried about Huether taking away their jobs so he is the only person they care about keeping happy. So as some of them have proven, they won’t hesitate to lie, withhold information, or pad budgets, or mislead the council, as long as that’s what Mike wants.
think I’m exaggerating? Before Huether, have you ever seen (some) directors treat Councilor Staggers as disrespectful as he was treated as he was at times? Who’s their boss that allowed that?
Any change will be tough. There are at a minimum 2 councilors who can’t think for themselves. They are more interested in supporting Huether than the citizens.
After watching the July 12th Council meeting, I’m guessing Mike & Co. are working on Selberg and/or Starr to cave!
If he’s not successful in getting the votes he needs, he’s going to VETO it.