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.