The Super Secret Golf Management contract will be revealed, BUT will we get to see the details of the contract? Probably not.
Last month on an Inside Town Hall, Sioux Falls city councilor Marshall Selberg had the idea to give an award to a Sioux Falls citizen for doing ‘positive’ things in our community.
He reveals his idea at the informational meeting, he is calling it SIOUXPERHERO. Please nominate South DaCola. LOL.
While the agenda seems short, there is a lot going on.
Item #1, Consent Agenda,
More money being dropped on Entertainment facilities. Our bond counsel on the DT Parking ramp is also asking for another $5,000. Go figure. We are already being taken to the cleaners on the project, what’s another $5K? I’m sure we will never hear why.
Item #7, Naming Rights. SDSU will be funding an exhibit at the Kirby Science Center.
Item #9, An $8.8 million dollar bond for storm drainage. I find it interesting we are taking out a bond right after we took $25 million in cash from the water enterprise funds to re-fi the Lewis & Clark bonds. Not sure if storm drainage falls under the water department (probably not). I also find the bond’s timing interesting. It seems they wanted to wait until they passed the parking ramp bond before telling the public about this. It is a little troublesome to me that the city doesn’t have this money in reserves instead of borrowing it.
Item #10, It seems our wonderful public transit system has come up $100K short this year, so we have to bail them out. Sad.
Item #11, Council staff gets another raise. Sure glad we had to replace former City Clerk Debra Owen with 3 full-time staff at a cost of almost $270K a year. That’s prudent folks . . . not.
Item #12, Annexation Task Force Report.
Item #13, Legislative Priorities for 2018 legislative session. A few I take issue with;
• Repealing a sunset on 911 surcharges. As I tell people ‘sunsets’ on taxes are never a reality because government bodies always override them.
• The Sioux Falls City Council urges the state to leave in place maximum local control of tax increment financing (TIF) districts. This is really a ruse. If there was really LOCAL control of TIF’s the county and school district could weigh in on them. It’s time to eliminate the corporate welfare of TIFs. If I were the next mayor, I would eliminate the entire program on day one with an executive order.
• The Sioux Falls City Council supports legislation providing local governments flexibility when it comes to compensating those who serve on appointed citizen boards, committees, and commissions. I don’t agree with this. I think volunteerism in public service is important to keeping a fair process.
• The Sioux Falls City Council supports cooperative activities between county and municipal governments, the protection of existing joint activities, and elimination of barriers that hinder the creation of such arrangements. While I think this is a great idea, I think it should be expanded to save taxpayers millions of dollars.