2018

Noem continues to ignore the $20K bill she racked up with the city of SF

It’s been several weeks, and still no word on when Noem will pay back the city of Sioux Falls, or if she will file an ‘In-Kind’ donation from the city. Either way, she looks like an Elitist Snob. Over at the Wuss College, they felt the (VERY NON-PUBLIC) visitation of the President was a big story. The only big story is that Noem continues to pretend that her private fundraiser somehow was supposed to be subsidized by the taxpayers of Sioux Falls. And our Mayor’s silence on the issue further proves his partisan ways.

Councilors Stehly and Starr are considering a resolution to formally send Noem a bill. Of course it probably won’t pass the muster of a majority vote with so many GOP Noem robots on the council, but at least there will be a public record of asking for the money and the robots voting publicly to allow the fine hardworking taxpayers of Sioux Falls to illegally subsidize a political campaign.

Pay up Noem!

It’s the right thing to do, even if you are so wrong.

UPDATE: Metro Council has sudden meeting

The only place we could find the meeting posted was on Minnehaha County Administration Door. There are a lot of rumors swirling around why the ‘Special’ meeting was called. The obvious one is that the last Metro manager just resigned. I guess the job was posted, and not sure if there was any takers, but look at the sentence in the yellow highlighted area “Discussion on future structure”.

Recently the Emergency Manager for Minnehaha County resigned after there was talk to merging the job into the Sheriff’s office. Doubt he will be replaced. Is Metro looking to merge 911 into the sheriff’s office also? I guess we will have to see the results of the meeting.

UPDATE: The meeting was posted on Wednesday by the City Clerks office, but many people, including the mayor seem to be confused who the council belongs to (City or County). Let’s see, the Mayor is the Chair, and councilors Kiley and Erickson sit on the council with Commissioners Barth and Beninga. Seems to me both entities are involved. The meeting should be posted by both of them. Someone who is attending the meeting this morning told me that everyone showed up except Erickson. I will talk to them after the meeting to see what happened.

How is the Midco Aquatic Center doing?

I was just thinking last week, how is that place doing financially? How much are we subsidizing?

We haven’t had an update in a very long time.

There is also a flurry of rumors circulating that;

• The major sponsor is NOT happy with their investment . . .

• 2019 membership renewals are not good . . .

• Sanford is planning to build an Olympic sized, competitive pool at the Sports Complex . . . (gee, what a concept!)

Not sure if any of this is true, but a financial report would help to clear up any of these rumors.

Sioux Falls, South Dacola, Year in the Review (Part III)

• Sioux Falls gun owners continue to leave their precious possessions in their unlocked autos. State law prohibits the city council from passing idiocy ordinances to stop it.

• Sioux Falls official city flag FINALLY gets approved. Various local schwag vendors rejoice.

• Sioux Falls School district puts on the ‘Transparency’ mask with some grandstanding about task force meetings, then after the election (tabulated by the finance department) the act has ended.

• The Emerald Ash borer rears it’s head. Where is George Washington when we need him?

• Mayor TenHaken decides to post the audio of the Parks Board meetings on the city website (we still don’t know who is talking) but they may be video recorded starting in 2019.

• Councilor Stehly asked for an Ethics opinion from the commission on petition gathering. Told her they couldn’t give an opinion until she told them what she was gathering it for. Go figure.

• City does wage study (so they can screw the unions) but doesn’t do a study on Director/Manager salaries. Shocker. My research shows they are extremely overpaid.

• SF Planning Commission continues to pass zoning items based on favoritism instead of facts.

• City enforces a DTSF ordinance that requires bars/restaurants to have rope barriers between the sidewalk and patio. I guess patrons can’t see the dividing line . . .

• Dem Forum moves to Royal Fork after the VFW gives them a couple hour notice they have decided to eliminate lunches.

• I win the Public Input contest, commenting 26 times within a year.

• We are told the Sewer plant expansion was never a secret (just it’s cost, when we were going to do it and the impact on our rates).

• State puts out report on TIFs. Tells us nothing about their economic impact (funny, because there isn’t one).

• The Railroad Redevelopment Project gets one RFP than tosses it out. Still think this was the worst negotiated deal in the history of our city.

• Smithfield has major expansion. They claim it will make the facility less stinky. I grew up on a hog farm, and I can guarantee when you double your capacity of hogs, things don’t get less stinky.

• Legacy Developments tries to make up for all the bad press they are getting by giving DTSF a temporary dog park. How fitting.

• Patrick Lalley’s brother, Kevin, starts a new fun Tuesday night gathering at Club David called ‘Public Input’ a Bingo and Drinking party while watching the SF city council meetings.

• Full Circle Book Club opens DTSF and is jam packed with great books and fun activities. Finally Sioux Falls feels like a big city.

• The Levitt Band Shell is on schedule but won’t allow patrons to BYOB but will let you buy from a vendor of your choice. Just when you thought you were going to get something FREE in Sioux Falls . . . tricked again.

• Jeff Schmidt from the SF Planning Department suddenly disappears from public meetings after he throws a fit about joint jurisdiction with the county over a proposed wedding barn that may hamper housing development (ten years from now). I wonder if his new office still has urine stains on the walls?

• Mayor TenHaken throws 100 Day press conference to tell us he turned city government over to his COS and Bloomberg or something.