South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

September 2017

Elections Jolene Loetscher Sioux Falls

Jolene Loetscher for Mayor of Sioux Falls?

l3wis 24Comments

I know, I know. I had to do a double take when I saw the media release.

Jolene plans to make an announcement for mayor on Friday (9/8/2017) at 11:30 AM at the River Greenway Amphitheater.

I know Jolene seems to be a pretty easy going person that smiles a lot, but I’m not sure what kind of weird sense of humor she may have. In other words, is this some kind of publicity stunt to get out the vote, or is she serious?

In reality, she is NO different than Paul TenGallonManureScoop, running a media company. Another person that wants to sell us something.

At this point I am speechless and will await her official announcement before I make anymore assumptions. It takes a lot of confidence to run for mayor, maybe it is just brimming over in Jolene -  maybe this is just what Sioux Falls needs.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

South DaCola Ordinance Review

l3wis 1Comments

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reviewing the ordinances that have passed under Huether’s two terms. I excluded Zoning and Planned Development and broke them down into categories. If you like government creating new regulations, rules and fee increases, you will like the results. If you think our city government should be a citizen advocate, you may be very disappointed in the numbers. It’s quite ironic when the Mayor and some councilors talk about getting things done during his term. They certainly have. They have spent a lot of money, borrowed a lot of money, dipped into the reserves quite often and passed an unprecedented amount of rules and regulations and have increased numerous fees (during a supposed economic boom in our city).

*I had to review and read the minutes of EVERY meeting. Some supporting documents were missing, so I had to do a little educated guessing when designating some of the ordinances. There were also several deferred ordinances. So many numbers are very close approximates that are probably about 99% accurate.

Patrick Starr SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor Pat Starr slams the secretive operations committee

l3wis 10Comments

If you go to the end of the city council meeting tonight (last item) councilor Starr slams the city council over the secrecy surrounding the operations committee;

• The committee meets in private with NO quorum

• If you are a councilor that is NOT on the committee or the mayor you CANNOT attend the meeting

• Decisions that are made in meeting are NOT available to the public unless it makes it to the council agenda for an ordinance change (but the discussions that lead up to the change are NEVER shared)

• The agenda and times of the meeting are NOT available to the public

• Only NOTES/Minutes approved by the council chair are shown to the rest of the council

Starr points out that the committee is what it really is, a secretive committee that makes decisions about the council operations without public oversight. It should either be abolished or opened to the public.

UPDATE: The operations committee was created by former councilor Aguliar and current councilor Erpenbach RIGHT AFTER former city clerk Debra Owen was terminated, February 21, 2012, while interim city clerk Sue Roust was serving in the position.

 

Clara Hart Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Clara Hart & Thor Bardon to announce Sioux Falls City Council Run

l3wis 1Comments

Clara will make her official announcement that she is running against John Paulson for the At-Large City Council seat left open by Rolfing.

Her announcement will be at 10 AM, Wednesday, September 5, 2017 at the Downtown Library, ROOM A.

UPDATE: Thor Bardon will make an official announcement regarding his candidacy for Sioux Falls City Council – Central District at the same time as Hart, same location.

UPDATE II: I also got word today that a woman will announce a candidacy for mayor within a week. The only background information that I got was that she is very familiar with local politics and has campaigned for candidates in the past. The only one who really fits that bill is Georgia Hanson, but I can’t see her running for office since she usually has so many clients for local races. I guess we will see.

Sioux Falls

UPTOWN II Project potential RFP’s released

l3wis 1Comments

At the 4 PM informational meeting today, the Planning Department released the names of all the RFP’s to the project; JDI, Legacy, Signature, Affordable Housing Solutions and Lloyd. They admitted that Lloyd was picked for the project because it was largest in density. They also admitted that some fo the other RFP’s DID not ask for a TIF.

During the discussion, it was obvious that most of the council support the project (or at least the TIF). When Stehly pointed this out, she said it “Seems like a done deal”, council chair Kiley had a hissy and threatened to shut the meeting down. Stehly had a question for the project manager, Erica Beck. After Kiley calmed down he let Stehly ask her question. She asked if all of the money for the TIF is going towards soil remediation. As we know, that is NOT the case. Beck admitted that also and said some of it is going towards ‘utilities’.

I’m sorry, but I still don’t support this TIF. The city should have cleaned up this soil before selling it, then offered ‘clean’ lot with NO TIF’s. They have had OVER a decade to do it. We could have done this a long time ago, for a lot less, why didn’t we?

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