There will be 4 presentations/reports during the informational, that look very intriguing, unfortunately I have no supporting documents yet, so I have no idea what they will be about;
• Siouxland Heritage Museum board
• Property tax reduction programs
• Construction manager at risk (the timing of this is interesting considering the change orders in the consent agenda during the regular meeting that are very mysterious)
• Sioux Falls Thrive Update
City Council Regular Meeting, 7 PM
Item #6, Approval of Contracts/Agreements
The city is subsidizing transportation for a private Non-Profit and the School District at the tune of $226K;
Once again the city coffers are footing the bill for entities that should be able to pay for these on their own. Isn’t if funny how the SFSD has oodles of money for admin pay and brick and mortar buy can’t scrape money together for actual EDUCATION.
The Arts Council comes for it’s annual subsidy;
While most of the time I wouldn’t think nothing of this, usually in the past an Arts Council representative would do a presentation about what their programming is. To tell you the truth, ever since the last director left, several months ago, I have NO IDEA what they have been doing. Maybe it would be a good time for an update at the meeting. A city councilor needs to pull this agenda item and get some man splain’in.
MYSTERIOUS $468K CHANGE ORDER ON ADMIN BUILDING
Item #7, Change Orders
While change orders are not uncommon with multi-million dollar city buildings, almost a half a million on a $25 million dollar building is mysterious;
After I saw this on Friday, I started asking contractor friends if they knew anything. The ‘rumor’ going around is that the thermal system they were going to use for HVAC (which requires drilling into the ground) didn’t work because of water and quartzite issues.
This of course would be an engineering mistake, so why wouldn’t the construction manager at risk (CMAR) catch this? And if they did, why are the taxpayers on the hook for fixing it? If a contractor miscalculates or makes a mistake in engineering, isn’t that their fault?
If all of this is ‘true’, the city needs to put on their big boy pants and tell the CMAR to ‘EAT IT’ or at least get a judge to tell them to.
Hopefully the council will pull this item so we can get some more man splain’in.
Item #10, 2nd Reading, Ordinance to give a Heckuva Deal on a lease agreement to a major Communications company. Oh, and we don’t have a choice in the matter, because it’s the ‘FEDS’. Another contract the ‘powerless’ city council is voting on that they have NO input or control of. Silly.
Item #12, 1st Reading, Ordinance to repeal drone regulations in our city parks. While this makes sense, since the FAA regulates our air space, just another example of the FEDS telling us what to do. Thanks John Thune.
Item 10, Communications Company, do any of the Councilors have the backbone to say NO?
Last summer I stopped at Upper Sherman Park for lunch.
Suddenly, I hear this annoying buzzing noise. A guy was sitting across the park operating a drone. He was maneuvering the drone through the grove of trees on the east side of the park (and not very skillfully, I might add)!! At one point he drove it into the ground.
And more importantly, he was scaring the hell out of people who had lawfully come to use the park.
Is Item 12 telling me I would now have to call the feds instead of our local Park and Rec office to get this stopped?
If so, good luck with that!
Dammit! Let non-profit Lifescape get their handout from the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation. SFACF sits on tens of millions of dollar$ in assets intended for support of community services like Lifescape. Spend taxpayer money on infrastructure, for god’s sake.
Anon, those are kind of my feelings, so the FEDS tell us we must follow their rules, but have NO ONE to enforce them. But when a plane crashes, the Feds are on scene within hours. Go figure.
Blas, I agree. While the city DOES have the money to fund these things, is it really our duty?
“Isn’t if funny how the SFSD has oodles of money for admin pay and brick and mortar buy can’t scrape money together for actual EDUCATION.” FWIW -= State law defines what monies can be used for capital outlay (brick and mortar – transportation) vs.s “actual education”. School boards have to follow state law. kick your game up a natch.
Wait…so the city will subsidize Lifescape, an independent non-profit, for transportation, yet high school students do not have busing to schools here? This city does things assbackwards