While there are many options for the Districting Commission to review at their meeting on Wednesday, options C9 and especially C11 would be the biggest changes to the district in years. Not only would you make the Central the largest by population, you would really make it a core district again.
The discussion should be interesting.
Hopefully many candidates will be challenging Councilor Soehl for the Central District in the 2022 municipal election since he has been an utter failure delivering very little to the residents and homeowners of the district and more concerned about handing out millions in TIFs to DT parking ramps we don’t need while letting the residential streets of the core turn into the roads of Baghdad.
Does the city charter require that these districts be known as southwest and etc? If so, then there is a built in bias which favors the Taupeville agenda.
History has shown, that left of center or moderate candidates can only be elected in the central and the northeast districts, with an occasional populist candidate, like Stehly or Staggers, winning city wide.
It would serve the people better if the city wide positions were replaced with district positions with eight districts in the city; which in my opinion, would enhance the minority vote, not only in race, but in politics also on the city council, which would then genuinely develop a better voice and advocacy for a more honest debate on many of the issues that the city has to deal with, or allows itself to deal with.
The current set-up of districts favors the in crowd. Especially, if you consider the costs involved in running a successful city wide candidacy.
I think we should have 5 or 7 district councilors and remove the mayor as one. Tie votes fail a measure.
He could keep his veto power though.
Yes, the mayor should only have a veto power. In fact, the mayor shouldn’t run the meetings. One of the council members should run it. The mayor should be treated like a director when council meetings are happening.
Very Stable Genius,
You may enjoy watching the discussion I created at the 9/8/2021 Charter Revision Commission about some of the same ideas you state in your previous comments.
I formulated a recommendation to the committee to discuss the thought of a 7 District City + 2 At Large Reps for a 9 Member City Council, which keeps the Mayor on the Council, but with no vote, other than the Veto Power in his office.
A “odd numbered” council assures the people that they will always have the tiebreaker in the hands of their representatives, and my 7 district design actually breaks the center core into 3 districts, with 4 outer disttricts.
My Proposed Districts are: North, South, East, West, Downtown-Business District, flanked by Central East and a Central West, each with 28,000 people.
Smaller the District, the more ‘representation’ the people will have, and the more districts we have, the more diverse the discussion will on city agenda items.
Yes, I keep the MAYOR on the City Council, cause he is an At Large Representative of the People, and he as the right to express that voice in front of the people directly.
Most Cities with populations of 100,000 to 200,000 residents have 8 city districts on the average, whereas the people have a 1 Per 18,838 person vote on the council, this is a very small district, one of which you should have more representative legislative body.
I looked at more than 20 different cities, and most cities vary from between 7 to as many as 13 districts.
The Average City is the size of 222,974 residents, they have 9 city districts, whereas the people have a 1 Per 29,678 Representative Vote on their City Council.
Take a look at my recommendation by clicking the link below, and if you want further discussion, the “MINUTES” of that previous public meeting are posted as well.
https://amv.siouxfalls.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Documents/ViewDocument/Formal%20Recommendation%20_1%20from%20Mike%20Zitterich.pdf.pdf?meetingId=3246&documentType=Agenda&itemId=152294&publishId=92284&isSection=false