Sioux Falls City Council Public Input, Oct 17, 2016
l3wis Watch the entire meeting;
2016
King of Debt; Munson vs. Huether
So who will win the battle of the most borrowing, debt creating Mayor in the History of Sioux Falls?
In eight years Munson racked up $158 Million approximately. To his credit, most went to infrastructure projects like Lewis and Clark, that had a single price tag of $70 million.
Conservatively, Huether has racked up $150 million and some change, with the biggest expenditure being the Events Center ($114 million) which will end up costing us $180 million after interest is paid.
Many have argued that Mayor Huether has accomplished a lot since he has been mayor, but when you steal your parents credit card anything is possible.
Who wants to go to the indoor pool? It’s on the rents!
Why is God so Angry with Sioux Falls?
Peek-A-Boo
Here we go again, when the city or other governmental agencies screw up, and they don’t want to take responsibility, they blame God;
“Then I was told it was an act of God. They looked at it, assumed it was settlement, it was an act of God. Â I was stunned,” Leacraft said.
I wonder what our self-proclaimed best Christian in Sioux Falls, Mayor Huether thinks of this? Maybe we could just paint over the cracks with “Finding Jesus”, that will teach that God guy and his Old Testament ways! I wonder if God also instructed the contractors to not use re-bar in the foundation?
“When we cut the 2 x 4s out, you could take a screw driver and go from the top all the way to the bottom. There was no rebar at all; none,†Leacraft said.
Rebar are metal bars that reinforce concrete to prevent structural failure. While the first report indicated the presence of rebar at the top, bottom and side of the window, a second structural engineer’s report confirms that “the top of the window does not have rebar extending beyond the opening.”
Like our Mayor, God seems to be quite the micro-manager. Besides God fiddling with dirt settlement, and the contractor not using something that about 99.9% of other concrete contractors use in foundations, it seems the city inspectors, once again are asleep on the job;
JJ Concrete’s attorney points out that all of his work passed City inspection.  I asked the City building inspector to try to find out why the problems with the footings weren’t caught on Leacraft’s home in the code inspection before the house was placed on the foundation. Ron Bell, the Chief Building Services Official, told me he couldn’t talk about it because SECOG, insurance companies and attorneys are now involved, but that the city is keeping the line of communication open between all parties.
Besides the fact that Mr. Bell is retiring very soon, his same department is the one that gave the ‘all clear’ on the Events Center siding. No biggee, we got a $1 million dollar settlement on that so we can buy popcorn poppers and beer coolers. I wonder if they are keeping the settlement a secret so not to shame God’s handywork in that debacle also?
Not being an attorney or a building inspector, it looks as though this is a case of poor workmanship, and hopefully the courts and attorneys can work it out, but what are the repercussions for the city for a poor inspection? Another secret settlement? We wouldn’t want to offend God anymore then we already have, there are still a lot of Downtown restaurants he could flood.
I agree with Vernon Brown about electing a city attorney
Yeah, I know, you never thought I would agree with Mr. Brown, did you? We will get to that shortly, but first with councilor Theresa Stehly’s idea of having separate legal council for the city council;
The distrust, she said, stems from conversations with City Attorney David Pfeifle in which she was told she was vulnerable to ethics violations if she continued to speak out against city-backed initiatives, policies and projects. She said those comments were made in an attempt to stifle her efforts to generate public opposition to the city administration building and a Terrace Park improvement project that the city’s historical preservation board put a stop to earlier this year.
“The agenda and wishes of the mayor are coming first,†she said.
Many would argue that another attorney would cost us more money, not the case at all. They could easily move one of the 6-8 attorneys that already work for the city over to the city council position. You wouldn’t have to hire anyone new. I think we should have learned our lesson when we fired an incredible city clerk (Debra Owen) and had to hire 3 employees to replace her. Not only did Owen do all 3 of their jobs for a lot less then the unqualified city clerk is doing now, she also had a law degree and advised the council on legal issues (one of the reasons I think the city attorney broke open meeting laws to get her fired).
In 2012, after the council voted to fire former City Clerk Debra Owens during an executive session, the city was brought up on open meetings violations in front of the South Dakota Open Meetings Commission.
I was at the meeting where the city attorney attempted to Fiddle Faddle his way through violating open meetings laws. He looked like a fish out of water and was chastised by almost the entire board of very seasoned government attorneys. As I said above, whether he is qualified or not, the council had excellent legal representation with Owen, who also championed transparent government. I have often been puzzled why it took three positions to replace her, and I still don’t know what these guys do besides making power point presentations and stamping official election documents with a blind fold on.
However, making the office of city attorney an elected position would alleviate perceptions that the city attorney is beholden to the mayor, he said.
“You know who hires and fires if you’re the city attorney,†he (Vernon Brown) said. “But should the city attorney be elected? Because then there’s some accountability besides to the mayor.â€
I have suggested this in the past, making the city attorney an elected position would be excellent.
As for how Stehly has been treated, I haven’t been privy to those conversations, but there are some obvious missteps by the city attorney that reveal his vindictive nature towards councilor Stehly, for instance shouting from the crowd to stop her while she is being gaveled by Rex Rolfing. We know where David gets his marching orders from, that is obvious from how Debra Owen was fired and how he handled the siding settlement;
Former council chairman Kenny Anderson Jr. said there were times during his tenure that he felt outside counsel would have benefited the City Council.
When the city attorney’s office was negotiating the Premier Center siding settlement, the council was mostly kept out of that process and had to defer to Pfeifle throughout the process.
“There were times I felt we should have had a second opinion. I don’t disagree with Councilor Stehly on that,†he said. “I would say one good discussion point would have been the contract that the mayor and administration signed with the parties in the event center and where the money was placed as part of settlement.â€
If you don’t think David is keeping things from the public and the city council, all you need to do is look at his track record and his loyalty towards the mayor. When he became the mayor’s personal attorney during an ethics hearing because the mayor couldn’t walk a 100 feet to defend himself, is another prime example.
Either way, I believe city charter has changed now so that the next mayor will have to have the consent of the city council before appointing a future city attorney. Spring of 2018 can’t come soon enough.
The Future of the Railroad Relocation Project
I watched this presentation at the informational meeting yesterday. But I still have concerns. Accept for the fact that we blew $27 million of Federal tax dollars on land we will never recover our cost from and we never moved all the rail traffic from this area it will be interesting to see how they are going to buffer the rail traffic from this area;
• Will it be quiet enough for residential units in the area?
• With the railroad already saying traffic will become more frequent on the remaining tracks, how will you get to the development from the east safely and efficiently?
I have no problem with redeveloping this land, even though I worry about the pollutants left behind, as we should have learned from Phillips to the Falls. But without removing all of the train traffic from this area I feel the project as a whole fails to produce a setting for prime downtown redevelopment.
I was a big supporter of the project when first proposed by Mayor Munson, but once I found out the rail traffic is still going to be chugging through this area (and getting more frequent at other downtown and central parts of Sioux Falls) I’m not sure what we accomplished. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong 10 years down the road, but like Phillips to the Falls, I have my doubts.