UPDATE: After watching the replay of the press conference, I got even more concerned. It seems that a city councilor (Erickson) a private citizen (Greg Lafolette) and a Minnehaha County Commissioner (Dean Karsky) were working on this deal secretly behind the scenes without letting in their peers on their respected elected bodies. While I think the council should be in on negotiating these deals, it should be the ENTIRE body. This is why they have committees to deal with these things. I also think the mayor thumbed his nose at traditional cab companies. I agree that competition is a good thing, but when one of those service providers doesn’t have to follow the same rules, that is not fair. Just another day in the closed government of Sioux Falls.
While I’m all for having a ride-sharing service in Sioux Falls like Lyft, I’m a little puzzled by this;
Lyft comes to South Dakota as a result of the work of a private citizen, the Sioux Falls mayor’s office and city council.
The city website goes on to say this;
A team of City and State officials, as well as resident Greg LaFollette, have been working for months to attract Lyft to the city. Lyft is expected to launch operations in Sioux Falls as soon as they can recruit enough drivers. It’s possible that could be as early as spring 2018.
I wonder why this had to be some kind of top secret committee behind the scenes to accomplish this? I know that some of the city council and Minnehaha County Commission had no clue these negotiations were going on. Maybe it was to save them some embarrassment with UBER falling thru;
In 2015, the Sioux Falls City Council passed an ordinance that changed licensing requirements to allow transportation network companies to operate in Sioux Falls. In 2016, the South Dakota State Legislature approved a measure that changed insurance laws to allow companies like Lyft to operate in the state.
Yet UBER has struggled to operate in the state. I wish Lyft lots of luck. But it seems on the government side of all this they have learned nothing about transparency. Would love to see the deal that was cut with the state and city.