Just another echo chamber . . .
My guess is the mayor will veto the decision purely on arrogance and ego, I hope I am wrong.
What was incredibly ridiculous was the testimony supporting the facility.
A city director felt we needed the new building so he didn’t have to fear urine coming through his current city hall office in the basement.
Another guy testified about America being a great country, so we needed the building.
Erpenbach said city employees need natural light and she works 40 hours a week in a cubicle farm (yet didn’t say anything about quitting her job because of it).
Kiley said it was about his children and things will get more expensive (yeah, Rick, that’s called inflation). It won’t get a penny more expensive if you don’t build it at all, just saying.
Bob Winkels (who used to own his own architecture firm, and now is in charge of Sanford’s expansion that is destroying affordable housing in central Sioux Falls) claimed that the general public didn’t understand ‘conflict of interest’ when it came to the contractors, explaining that renovation costs more (which can be true). What he failed to point out is that the contractors were hired to build a new building, not to renovate. So if they build the new building they will make X amount of dollars, if they choose to buy the 300 building and renovate they make $0. Bob, kind of sounds like a conflict of interest to me.
Rex Rolfing cut off public testimony of Tim Stanga, because he was offended.
Mayor Mike’s BFF, Augie President Rob Oliver was rambling about something he doesn’t quite understand, but he says he likes to build new buildings for Augie (but had no problem with taking a used building-the Arena-for a new basketball stadium).
I testified about the hypocrisy of this debate that the building has been discussed for 10 years, yet no one brought it up when building the new aquatic center and the funding for that building.
If a city director fears urine coming in his office, that’s a plumbing/maintenance issue.
Who does maintenance work for? Sue Quanbeck-Etten.
Apparently she fails to ensure more than just I.T. stuff gets fixed. Maybe part of the problem with the current City Hall is the perception of its poor condition.
Perhaps a competent facilities manager could help fix that problem.
City employees need natural light? They get it. Engineers, Code Enforcement Officers, Fire Inspectors, Project Managers, Building Inspectors, they all should be spending at least half their time out in the field anyway.
You’re going to spend $25 million for a bunch of empty cubicles?
When Huether came into office he changed it so any departments wanting to add employees had to get the finance director’s approval and the HR director’s approval…
What 2 departments do you think got all the employees after that?
look at the number of employees in those 2 departments before Huether was in office and look at their numbers now.
Does the city really need 3 health/wellness employees in HR? We had 1 before Huether. Is any sick leave usage being saved for the extra employees?
There’s talk of building a new building, but has there been talk of reducing the number of employees?
Has there been a workload analysis done by the employees in the departments that have added employees since Huether has taken office?
The urgency for a building isn’t as critical as we’re being led to believe. Track the workload with outside auditors so the report times can’t be stretched out and you’re going to see a stop to departments adding employees for quite some time. If they worked that inefficiently in the private sector, they’d be fired.
There was a hiring freeze when Hansen was Mayor for a number of years and guess what? all the work still got done.
The city can’t be trusted. Especially the mayor. With more space and more employees, there will be less production and more places to hide. However, seek them out near the windows in speedos getting sun before their month of vacation in Cabo. I’d say no lease space and definitely not a new building. It’ll be a line punching in and out but their days will be (like now) at home.
There’s never anyone at city personnel. With twice the space, there’ll still be nobody. For the new building, I suggest Poke Mon characters. It’s a safe place off the street for geeks and a daytime warming spot for vagrants. Then there’s use and activity. Build it and they will come.
I wonder why Bob Winkels failed to mention taxpayers paid him to facilitate 13 months of meetings for the 2009 Events Center Task Force!!?
Mr. Bob Wrinkels, (whoops typo). “The general public didn’t understand ‘conflict of interest’ when it came to the contractors.” Let’s see, a conflict of interest changes how from one group of people to another?