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.
