2018
l3wis Sioux Falls Cell Phone Ban is rearing it’s head again
Oh, Shucks, Sneve beat me to the punch again. I actually heard about this this morning but dilly-dallied and didn’t post about it. He’s a better writer anyway;
City Councilor Janet Brekke this week said she plans to propose new restrictions on the use of cellphones and other electronic devices while behind the wheel in the coming months.
I still really haven’t changed my position on this. If I were on the city council I would vote against the measure. But I think if Brekke gets the whole council involved in helping to shape the ordinance, she will get more buy in, and I see at least 4-5 of them supporting it. If it is a tie though, not sure how the mayor would vote.
I guess I don’t get to worked up about this. I actually am more worried about Christian crosses being painted on snow plows owned by taxpayers. I would follow the ordinance if passed, but here are my issues with it;
• While talking or texting on your cell phone is distracted driving, so is eating, doing your makeup, playing with your dog, etc, etc. Should we ban ALL activity extra-curricular in a vehicle? Well maybe. But guess what, we already have laws for that;
• Reckless or careless driving is already an offense. If it is determined you caused an accident while talking on your cell phone, you can be charged. Should these penalties be stiffer? Should they be felonies with jail sentences attached? YES! But that is a job for our state legislature (if we can just get them to stop worrying about abortion and guns so much).
• It has also been determined through national studies that even hands free cell phone usage in a vehicle is distracting, because it is the conversation that is distracting NOT the actual holding of the device. So how do you remedy that?
• Enforcement is really a pickle. I think our patrol officers have enough to do without trying to see if people are talking on their phones or not.
• Lastly,  I often tell people, there are good drivers and there are bad drivers. No amount of laws will protect us from bad drivers. Ever! I tell young drivers something I learned riding a bike on the streets of Sioux Falls, you must ALWAYS be a defensive driver.
Like I said, I would follow the ordinance if passed, because it would make me a safer driver. But I also think it is just compounding laws that are already on the books.
City of Sioux Falls avoids Civil Rights Lawsuit
A frequent commenter at City Council meetings, Sierra Brussard, a transgender woman who talks about crime in our city (prostitution, drugs and gangs) and puts herself out there to track these bad folks down has complained for over a year(?) that the city, has blocked her number.
She finally got wise over the past month and realized that it is a civil rights violation for the city and police department to block her phone number. At Tuesday’s city council meeting she warned the council and mayor that if her phone was NOT unblocked by 9 AM this Friday she would be filing a civil rights lawsuit against them with the help of the ACLU.
Well, the lawyers with the city must have finally got wise and her phone was unblocked yesterday.
While some in the PD find Sierra to be an annoyance, she is actually trying to help the SFPD bust criminals, especially drug dealers and pimps. She has not been very complimentary of the SFPD, and that probably hasn’t helped the situation, but the best way to fix any issue in government is by uncomfortable and sometimes controversial dissent.
I believe Sierra told me she has testified in dozens of trials against these bad dudes. I have often been proud of the work she does trying to get these people off of our streets, it’s a thankless effort for sure. She is very courageous. The city should be helping her in anyway possible to track these yahoos down. Unblocking her phone was the first good move by the city.
We are setting ourselves up for quite a battle
Funny that this story came out today;
Construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline is scheduled to begin next spring in northwestern South Dakota. Officials in the nine counties affected by the pipeline construction are preparing for protests to break out along the route.
If protests become significant, the costs to manage the scenes will first fall on county governments, according to a state law.
Some are concerned that drawn-out protests such as the 7-month encampment of protesters opposed to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota in 2016 could develop. A large protest could strain the budgets of the mostly rural counties along the Keystone XL route.
In the first of two stories, South Dakota News Watch reporter Bart Pfankuch examines the potential costs and outlines an effort to change the law. Find this story and other in-depth reporting at www.sdnewswatch.org.
I was just telling my barber that the Lakota Sioux tribes are very proud people, and they are going to fight this to the end. What do they have to lose? Really? We have taken everything else from them, all they have left is their dignity and reservation land. Keystone XL is going to have a rude awakening I’m afraid, and President Trump’s decision to allow this pipeline without the builder being responsible for security is going to cost South Dakota taxpayers a lot of money in defense costs. The PUC really needs to stop this before the protests begin. We really don’t need to be giving up our land, resources and capital for a foreign Canadian company to transport oil to shipping ports that send the oil to China.
They should be training hospitality workers about sexual harrassment
While I think the Compass Center’s effort behind this program is great, there really should be a bigger discussion about sexual harassment in the hospitality workplace;
“Sioux Falls has the 5th highest amount of sexual violence per capita in the country. So, any dent that they can make in that will be huge and change peoples lives,” Safe Bars Director Lauren Taylor said.
Safe Bars uses bystander intervention and empowerment self-defense techniques to help people improve the nightlife culture.
As a person who worked in the industry for over 25 years full-time and part-time I can tell you that sexual harassment and sexual activity between co-workers and managers at work and outside of work is rampant. I would often tell people, “If you are offended easily, the hospitality industry is NOT for you.”