Notice in the video the Mayor said he will not being going out to eat. Good choice. But what I don’t understand is if this Mayor and City Council gave a green light to the rest of the city to reopen, why not the city buildings?
I will give you my best theory. They are using the citizens of Sioux Falls as Guinea pigs. Basically if this explodes over the next two weeks the city employees who work with the public will not be exposed, and likely not return on May 18. While I think it is a good idea for them to not return during the middle of peak why is it okay for the rest of us?
There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy going on here. You tell the people who receive their salaries from the tax payers, you don’t have to make a choice, you get to stay home, but you force the very people who pay those wages to make a difficult decision? Either go back to work, or lose my unemployment benefits, either way, I really don’t get to make a choice.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander Mayor. If you think it is okay to reopen hospitality and service industries in Sioux Falls why not direct the city employees back to the office? The Minnehaha Treasurer’s office has been operating this whole time.
I also think he fears what the repercussions would be if a city employee gets seriously ill or even dies. If he is thinking those things about his employees, why doesn’t he have the same fears for private employees?
It really shows who the mayor thinks really counts, and it’s not the people paying his wages.
UPDATE: I knew this was not going to work very well and be a nightmare for hospitality workers, I found this comment on FB from a bartender at a popular bar in DTSF;
I just worked my first shift and the guidelines they are having us follow are nearly impossible to maintain. It is so dumb to have a bar open up and expect us to make sure these drunk people don’t gather at a table with more than 6 people and making sure they stand 6 ft apart while serving them alcohol. Seriously why?! It just more reason for our guest to call us assholes because we have to tell them “you can’t stand next to your friend we have to enforce social distancing“.
People circulate at a bar and no matter how much we try to table serve they want to come to the rail. If more people come out I don’t know how we will ever be able to manage that even with a full staff. Thanks Crusty Gnome
Making this post for anyone who is curious how the first day of opening a popular downtown bar was like.
The city employees are so essential, that we need to protect them from working. They’re kind of like the beautiful spinster, however, who never dated, but then dies prematurely of spoiled inactivity. Plus, If the COVID-19 won’t kill you, then the extra Twinkies on the couch will.
“I had a dream the other night, where that guy who always does the signing ended up becoming our mayor”…. “Apparently, most of his signing was being done to inform the deaf community on how to seize the reigns of power in this town”…. “He started out by telling that community to buy a taupe house and a white, or black SUV, then just hang loose for a while. Then next, he advised the less fortunate to start mingling, while the ‘chosen’ community refrains from going to bars and restaurants, then when it gets really messy seize the reigns of power, while the current mayor is holding a parade of self gratification, or running a 10K with those kids who won the art contest”…..
We’re guinea pigs. Smithfield reopens. Do you get it now?
Just a press conference and a smart board? Hell, why not just let Trobec be mayor? Bring back Berry for signing.
Guinea pigs?
Its not like we have been on lockdown and this is first time we are getting outside in the world after weeks on end of being stuck indoors.
Erica, you are correct. I have been working this entire time also, just safely. So has all the parks people, public works, forestry, fire and police. The treasurer’s office has also been open and our jails. All doing it as safely as possible. The council staff has been working to. So how is it that all of these people have figured out how to work safely (notice we haven’t heard of any covid outbreaks with public employees) but we can’t send the city’s office staff and librarians back to work? It’s not like they are cutting hogs shoulder to shoulder. I think it is hypocritical to let those people have two more weeks off when we are telling the rest of us GET BACK TO WORK! If we are going to open the flood gates, let’s open them! There have been several high profile directors with the city that have gone into hiding, I won’t mention their names but I hear they refuse to come to the council meetings and answer questions. I’ll applaud the mayor on one thing during this, he has been made available and doesn’t hide behind a lap top screen.
No big thing. City employees are off all year anyway. We’ve learned not to use city services. We stopped getting permits and paying citations. What else do we need the city for?
Yes, the world has been open in Sioux Falls all along, but now the attitude towards it has been mistakenly legitimized, which will make us all “guinea pigs”.
Unless you decide to shelter-in-place, which then ruins the economy that our political leaders are trying to save. It’s a catch-22
The answer is shelter-in-place orders with additional federal bailouts until there is a vaccine.
Local governments that offer health insurance to their employees should be greatly concerned about employees requiring hospitalization. What the going rate for a day in intensive care? When Pat Starr asked one of the hospital reps at a council meeting, he didn’t get an answer. I don’t see SD moving money for catastrophic costs to cities – Noem talks about “flexibility†which looks like code for moving the federal Covid money in to the state budget to replace sales tax revenue. She refused money for isolation and recovery housing. The state paying for limited testing is, so far, the biggest commitment of $, correct? And btw, SD continues to lag on testing – around 47th in testing but 16th per 1M in US cases. Is SD still lacking reagents to test?
I think the fact that these “govt workers” have been off so long proves we probably don’t REALLY need them. Govt is bloated and needs to be trimmed
Look at the payroll list and see the high % of employees who are management. About 1 out of three are “management”. Many are “management” classification with no staff reporting to them.