While everyone has been pissing their pants over an over hyped internal auditor candidate, we overlooked the city’s move to gift one of their buildings for a Triage Center.
Let’s make it clear, it is a good piece of property and is well suited for the the center, but one wonders if this is just an attempt by the city to move the IT department to some new digs at the City Center?
Why wasn’t it just put there when the building was being built? Could have saved us a lot of money to just wire it at that time?
Also, what is going on with the liability litigation with the botched HVAC system. Crickets.
Make no mistake, while this Trojan Horse gift is a good thing, we all know the real reason behind it, to spend taxpayer money on more Empire building at the City Center.
Don’t believe me, just watch the informational meeting above. While they all talk about the money they want to spend from the surplus on the IT department move, they say little about what they are going to do with the triage building.
This last Tuesday night when I was able to leave work, go thru a drive thru, and grab something from home before going straight to the city council meeting at 5:30, at first glance I thought, “This is pretty cool, I can go straight from work to a council meeting, say my sh*t and go home, all before 6 PM.”
Then reality set in.
I have railed for years that the Minnehaha County Commission should have night meetings for the convenience of working people. In fact the Commission sails thru all kinds of things because they don’t have the scrutiny of the public. There is rarely public input at commission unless it is someone self-employed or retired.
Also, all the informational and committee meetings of the council would have to be held at an early time, in which would be difficult for members of the public, business people and even city councilors to attend.
Lastly, I don’t have kids, I don’t even have a dog to let out to pee. It would be difficult for members of the public to make the 5:30 meeting with all of the after work hectics.
So please, ignore my thoughts and lets keep council meetings at 7 PM. It is the most convenient time.
UPDATE III: Neitzert calls himself ‘Audit Manager’ in the Belfrage interview. Who is lying? He is the chair of the Audit Committee. All city council employees (including internal auditor) answer to the entire council and entire committee.
UPDATE II: Listen to the interview HERE from this morning. WARNING, not suitable for small children 🙂
I guess Belfrage invited Theresa and Greg on Thursday morning to discuss the robo-call and hiring of the new Internal Auditor, 8 AM.
Some observations I made while watching the meeting last night were kind of startling. While the 3 councilors that voted against Mrs. Nelson’s appointment (Brekke, Stehly & Starr) contended there were too many conflicts of interest and the process was not open and transparent. Brekke said she would have liked to see a more extensive search.
But what shocked me is how the council and city attorney, Danny Brown, blew off the conflicts as normal operating procedure. Brown referenced the state which is steeped in nepotism and conflicts and said if the state permits it (it’s legal) than it must be okay.
First off, it should be illegal. South Dakota State government gets an ‘F’ in corruption. I have often contended that is due to lack of transparency, conflicts and nepotism. But just because something is ‘legal’ doesn’t make it right, and those 3 councilors did the right thing.
There was also a relaxed attitude towards the fact that Mrs. Nelson lacked audit experience.
But one of the biggest shockers was when Neitzert said that the internal auditor works for management (the council) and NOT the citizens. He had a round about way of saying it, but you got the gist. This was disappointing, because as Stehly pointed out, ALL city employees should be working for the citizens.
Brekke made the best points all night. Not just about conflicts or finding qualified applicants, but one of her best points was about how the council should have had a consensus on this since it was their employee. In fact, the council has had a consensus on the hiring of all of their employees in recent history. The last time they did not have consensus was when they voted to fire Debra Owen. Janet pointed out that it seems when the majority of the council doesn’t want to negotiate with the minority they shut them out and move forward anyway. She said it was frustrating and made the point that when the council is this far apart on disagreeing with each other, that was the best time to talk and and work out their differences. AMEN!
UPDATE: Last night at the meeting Greg said it was urgent to hire Shana right away so she would not be in limbo for two weeks, then he says this in a press release today;
Nelson will transition into her new role over the course of the next month.
Greg made it sound like Shana needed to have an answer right away so she could transition into her new position right away. Now we hear it will take a month! I assumed she would probably be moved in by the end of the week or Monday. With the administration not thinking Shana is that important to them, you would think they would have allowed her to pack up her box of pencils, Chia pets and city plaques today. Funny how things change the next day when the dust clears.
UPDATE: The Ethics board determined they could not make a decision because they didn’t have evidence that the City Council would vote on TIFs. Stehly told them there was an Argus Leader article on it, but she didn’t have it with her though Bruce offered to show it on his tablet. Since they are quasi-judicial they have to have the physical evidence.
Bruce pointed out at the end of the meeting during public input that it was unfortunate that they did not offer an opinion because now if there are pictures of city officials and city councilors at the event and later they have to make a decision on TIFs, ethics violations could be filed against them for accepting gifts before the vote. The Ethics Board could get very busy next month.
The meeting will be at 10:30 AM this Thursday at City Hall. Stehly is asking if it is ‘ethical’ to be accepting FREE ‘Food & Drink’ from a developer that will be potentially asking for a TIF from the very people who are being asked to attend this event.
Personally, if I was a city councilor, I would NOT attend the reception portion of the event. It not only looks unethical, it likely is unethical. This will be an interesting Ethics Board meeting to watch and what laws are applicable. In South Dakota where we have very few ethics laws for lawmakers I could easily see a ruling either way.
CORRECTION: I just realized these are two different locations. The top one IS being repaired and the bottom one, well, that floated away. Sorry for the confusion.
I was looking at pictures during the informational meeting last night of the recent flood and was shocked to see these pictures. Apparently the city decided to tear down this whole picnic shelter that had one broken post. WHAT?! Even if the other posts were bad to, it would have been a lot cheaper to just replace the posts and put a new coat of paint on this instead of tearing the whole thing down. Ridiculous.
l3wis 
