Before Paul could give his 5 year plan to raise our water and sewer rates, the city council discussed the Falls Park Safety Plan in open discussion. While I agree with TenHaken that we shouldn’t be hiring consultants to re-confirm what we already know (and paying City FTE professionals to tell us the same thing the consultants are) when it comes to a Falls Park Safety Report, why would the city be hiring and paying the consultant directly anyway?
It seems the council may be split on whether we need the report. Councilors Neitzert and Erickson think it is an unneeded expense while councilors Starr, Stehly and others think we need it.
Neitzert argued that we have gotten yearly ‘oral’ reports from our insurance provider, the Public Assurance Alliance. But if no one writes down what they say, what good is an ‘oral’ report? It’s like an episode of Judge Judy and he said-she said.
But to my bigger point, why on earth would we have to pay for an official outside report and review? We pay the PAA millions in premiums each year to insure our city, shouldn’t they be paying for the report and hiring the consultant? I think any good insurance provider would do that for their LARGEST and most LUCRATIVE client.
When your car or home gets damaged, your insurance provider doesn’t send you an extra bill to assess the damage, it’s figured into your premiums.
Someone needs to call up the new Chief of PAA, Mr. Fiddle-Faddle himself and tell him to get off his duff and provide The City of Sioux Falls an independent review of Falls Park at NO CHARGE. It’s the least he could do after attaining his golden parachute.
I am pretty pissed about the sewer/water likely increase. Couple this with the property tax increase for the school, and later on the jail, and it is going to become a lot more expensive to live here.
But we have 2.9 million going for increased bike trail expansion.