Drive through to sign the petition to put the School Board’s 50 MILLION dollar property tax hike up for a vote! We will be there all day Saturday 9 AM – 5 PM and from 1 PM to 4 PMÂ on Sunday July 2nd. Turn in the petitions you are circulating! Notary present.
Located in the same place you pay your property taxes! Parking lot of the Minnehaha county administration on Minnesota Ave and 6th Street.
I first want to clarify something, I’m NOT a fun hater. As a child growing up, fireworks at my grandparents farm was a BIG tradition. My uncle and grandpa would buy tons of fireworks. My grandparents acreage was about a mile out of town and we would NEVER shoot them in town. Fireworks are fun, if enjoyed properly.
I guess it’s not the noise that bothers me the most about people illegally shooting fireworks in city limits, its the fire hazard. I keep telling people, do we have to wait until an entire neighborhood burns down and several people die before we get serious about fireworks in town and the fire hazard they cause?
While we cry and complain about 8 inch grass, guess what, if that grass gets to be 9 inches, it won’t burn down your house.
The SFPD does have a good argument when it comes to cracking down on the problem; they have to catch them in the act, I get it. My suggestion to them and the city council last year was they used unmarked police cars and plain clothes officers to catch the offenders in the act when responding to complaints. When people see flashing lights coming down the street, the first thing they do is hide the fireworks. Duh.
I just find it extremely hypocritical calling people BAD NEIGHBORS because they have 9 inch grass, but if those same neighbors are creating a fire hazard in your neighborhood the police just say, ‘Oh Well.’
So please, don’t shoot off banned fireworks in city limits, and if you do, I hope the SFPD catches you and fines you accordingly.
First, I would say that I support councilor Stehly’s idea to present council legislation to split the Parks Board into districts. Her and I have had this discussion for several years, and it certainly isn’t a new idea that came out of left field;
Sioux Falls City Councilor Theresa Stehly is floating a proposal to bring more geographic diversity to the city’s Parks and Recreation Board.
More than half of the seven-member volunteer board live in southeastern Sioux Falls, which leaves most of the city underrepresented in comparison, Stehly said.
“The founding fathers of our [city] charter thought it was important for the City Council to have district representation, and I think that would hold true for our Park Board,†Stehly said.
I’ll be the first to admit, this isn’t ground breaking legislation, and it certainly isn’t urgent (they will have until 2024 to implement it fully) But it is good government. Puzzling why anyone would oppose it? Right? But let’s listen to the other side’s argument against this;
Ann Nachtigal, one of the four Park Board members who live in the southeast district, said she doesn’t see how geographic diversity would improve the work of the board, which by charter is required to consider all park-related policies before they head to the City Council.
“How is it going to benefit the Park Board?†Nachtigal said. “I think she’s misinformed about what constitutes diversity. The best boards are comprised of individuals with different skills, knowledge, the time they can contribute. There are so many more things that constitute diversity.â€
Not sure how a group of wealthy people mostly from the SE district constitutes ‘diversity’. But either way, this isn’t about the ‘diversity’ of the members, it’s about representing a certain portion of our city, and since the parks are stretched into ALL districts, wouldn’t having a representative in each of those districts make sense?
City Councilor Michelle Erpenbach, who served five years on the Park Board before being elected as the central district representative on the Council, said she won’t support the measure.
If passed, the Park Board would be the only citizen advisory board with membership dictated by districts. She also worries a district requirement could create turf wars among Park Board members.
She said right now board members represent the entire city, but designating members by district could create competition when deciding what parks are going to get a new pool, playgrounds or other upgrades.
“It would be worse,†Erpenbach said.
Unlike other boards like REMSA for example, that look at the entire wellbeing of our city, the Parks Board is in charge of plots of land that are dispersed throughout the city, having a district representative for those parks makes sense.
The ‘turf war’ argument is ridiculous.
Before any new park is approved, the board will have to be in agreement. I see an advantage of having districts because more horse trading will have to take place, which makes for better fiscal decisions. For instance if a board member from the SE district wants something, they are going to have to get all the members on board, this will mean more debate, discussion and scrutiny, which is very healthy in a democratic society. I don’t want a rubberstamp parks board, I want them to look at every decision carefully.
The discussion could go like this, “I see a park in the SE district beneficial to that district, but how does it help the city as a whole?”
I really think Erpenbach opposes this because it is a certain councilor’s idea and not because it is a bad idea. Her anger for Staggers and now Stehly is getting very tiresome.
I really don’t think this is any different than the city council being broken up into districts. It will be nice if all of our districts had equal representation on the board. When it comes to parks in Sioux Falls, it really is a socialist system, and in a system like that you need to require equality, you would get that with board members dispersed throughout our community instead of all hanging out in the Northern part of Lincoln County.
I guess they decided to come out of hiding. The meeting is today (Wednesday, 6/28/2017) at NOON at the SF Health Department, Downtown, 521 North Main.
Maybe Commissioner Barth can show up and introduce himself to everyone since NO ONE knows who he is.
And I haven’t stopped telling them about it since. Just last year I told them to eliminate the geese from downtown. Besides the fact that they are mean and chase you, they cover the bike trail from Falls Park to Cliff Avenue in crap. What a great way to welcome visitors to our Multi-Million dollar River Greenway, covered in crap. When I first complained 20 years ago, it was at Covell Lake, and how a group of idiots kept feeding the crap making machines, they didn’t really stop and now we have it city wide. And not just crapping up our parks, it is a safety issue at the Airport.
So you would think after years of warning the city about this, they would take action. Nope, until now;
“They were absolutely fouling the fairways and the greens, making holes in the putting greens on some occasion and then just golfers having to navigate through goose droppings,†Jansa said. “It just kind of reached critical mass this year.â€
So I guess when the rich golfers in town complain, than the city does something about it. I think a semi-automatic weapon in the Spring would work wonders, and donate the meat to the Banquet for a Spring Goose Feed, or freeze it and give it to Feeding South Dakota;
About 80 geese were slaughtered and are being processed for food pantry donations. Seven goslings — baby geese — were set free in other locations.
If I want to see that kind of nature I will take a nice country drive. I live in the city for a reason, and it’s not to get crapped on by a bunch of mean, goofy birds.
l3wis