Meet & Greet with District 13 House Candidate Sullivan
l3wis 
There couldn’t be more perfect opposite to her opponent Rex Rolfing.
2018
SouthDaCola Podcast 21: School Bond Vote
We were joined by Mortgage Banker Craig Markhardt. and Peter Pischke. Listen HERE.
Fall 2018 Stehly Report to be featured in SF Shopping News
Theresa is putting an abbreviated version of the Stehly Report in the Sioux Falls Shopping News this week. Check it out!
UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council Meeting Agendas, Sep 11, 2018
City Council Working Session • 2 PM
They will be discussion unobligated funds and amendments.
There are some interesting proposals in the unobligated funds;
• A NEW Batallion Chief for ALS and EMS. It will be interesting to see what proposal the Mayor’s office has with public ambulances.
• SWAT armor for bomb techs. One city councilor asked me, “Don’t they have this already?” I would hope so.
• A new Full-Time Bike Trail Service worker. While this isn’t unusual in itself, at $64K a year, where do I apply for this job?
• A ‘community branding’ expenditure of $25,000. Not sure who they are giving this to and what for? I would think that the CVB would have this in their budget already with the BID Tax.
City Council Informational Meeting • 4 PM
They will be approving the CVB yearly budget and getting a presentation about the early renewal of the Paramedics Plus contract. Hopefully we will have more details about the Mayor’s proposal on EMS.
City Council Public Services Meeting • Around 5 PM (After Informational meeting)
They will get a presentation on updating the Landfill ordinances.
Councilors Neitzert and Erickson are also proposing new ‘community standards’ for outdoor natural gas fire pits at commercial/retail/public/hospitality locations. Apparently they met back in May with city officials to discuss it. Who knew?
City Council Regular Meeting • 7 PM
Item #1, Approval of Contracts. Another EXTRA $56K towards the DT Parking Ramp boondoggle.
Item #3, Approving a Parks and Rec consultant at $200K. I do know that some of the councilors are dissenting on this, so I am not sure if this will pass or not.
(FF: 1:31 to hear me discuss the parks study)
Item#4, 1st Reading. A 2.1% property tax increase by the city. This has never failed to pass by the council for a very long time. I would expect they have the votes to pass this on 2nd reading, but I would also guess there will be some dissenters. So much for the $2 a month tax increase? Right?
Item#5-7, 1st readings, ordinances dealing with Ash trees that are needed. I feel there will be 100% support on these items.
Item#9, Resolution to certify the City Council supports stopping demolition of historic homes. I still don’t know all the details on this and why they are voting on this again, I thought it was a done deal. I was told this was only to ‘certify’ the vote and decision already made by the city council, which I find odd. It will be interesting to see what kind of testimony comes from this and if this is some kind of trick to reverse the decision. Seriously, I am clueless on this one.
Item #10, Resolution adopting 2019 Budget and Capital Budget. I believe this is when the city council will debate the budget and amendments. I have NO idea what those amendments will be, but they will be revealed at the working session earlier in the afternoon. When Dr. Staggers was on the city council he propose several amendments. I miss those days 🙂
Item #11, Resolution approving the DT special assessment role. Not sure if any businesses will dissent paying this extra tax that helps to fund DTSF, but has been some in past years.
Item #13, A resolution approving the BID Tax budget for the CVB.
Item #14, A resolution asking for grant assistance from the state to help with the Emerald Ash Borer and equipment that needs to be purchased to remove trees.
Items #16-17, resolutions, An alley way and street vacation. I don’t know much about these items, I guess I will wait to see the presentations.
Charter Revision Meeting, 4 PM Wednesday, Sep 12
They will be discussing the mayor’s salary. I find it interesting that the Sioux Falls mayor is one of the highest paid in the region, even with much larger cities. Madison, WI and St. Paul, MN only pay more. Sioux Falls mayor makes $124K full time, Des Moines mayor only makes $52K, Lincoln, $80K and Omaha, $102K. These are all full-time positions. I’m wondering if Des Moines pay is so low because they may have a city administrator?
UPDATE: School District doesn’t want to release information that will show open enrollment has caused segregation
UPDATE: On September 4, the SFSD did a ‘partial’ presentation ABOVE on demographics. When it was asked if Super Maher has further numbers about open enrollment affects, he claimed that they have never put those numbers together, but could discuss doing it in the future. How convenient.
Shocker! A little over a month before a $300 million dollar bond vote and the School District doesn’t want to tell us their dirty little secret;
The Argus Leader submitted an open records request to the Sioux Falls School District for a demographic and socioeconomic breakdown of students by campus for the last 20 years — since the last bond election — to see how those numbers might have changed over time.
But the district said it will cost more than $1,200 to release the public information, stored in an electronic database. The Argus Leader had not pursued the request further as of Thursday.
I find it hard to believe it would cost $1,200 to email a data base. If that is the case, the school district needs to immediately fire their IT director for incredible incompetence.
I have said all along the School District needs to end open enrollment, redistrict and draw new boundaries BEFORE building new schools.
I have been told by several parents that they open enroll their kids in other schools besides the ones in their districts because they don’t want their kids going to ‘certain schools’ with ‘certain students’. While I would hope they are not talking about race, I do know they don’t want their kids going to the ‘poor schools.’
The Argus needs to shell out the $1,200 and demand the information before the vote, and they need to do it NOW before they have a chance to ‘fudge’ the numbers, because that is what they really mean by the $1,200 price tag.
This bond vote will go down in history as an incredible travesty, and I just hope at least 41% of the voters have the brains to see through this sham.