South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

April 2022

Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

City of Sioux Falls Website got a little bit more transparent

l3wis 9Comments

Imagine my surprise today when I went to the meeting agenda page and in the bottom left hand corner when I clicked on the calendar instead of a PDF coming up, an actual interactive calendar appears with links to events.

I have known about this link for awhile but it was never linked to this page. I am not sure if it was ever linked to the website before. It was previously sent to me by a city employee.

Not sure who in the IT department or clerk’s office crawled out of the darkness and made this nice little change, but you deserve a coin, a children’s book or at the very least an atta-boy.

Donita Trump Noem Kristi Noem

More Crazy Talk from Noem’s campaign

l3wis 11Comments

I wonder if this letter also came with a shovel? I enjoyed this line;

But these sacred principles are now in jeopardy.

They sure are, because of you. Like when a majority of South Dakotans voted for Rec MJ and you getting the high court to strike it down. Or the AG’s office ignoring a lawsuit against Amendment C which would give power to the minority. This isn’t limited government, it is authoritarianism.

Oh, it is gets better;

Government is crushing the economy.

Yes, because of the billions in Federal Aid that flowed into the state. And when you had an opportunity to help low income peeps pay rent with some of that money, you gave that money back. Utter stupidity and callousness.

At this point I would prefer an ANTIFA rioter over you as governor.

Public Utilities Public Works Sioux Falls

City of Sioux Falls files Water Reclamation Lawsuit, but who knew?

l3wis 6Comments

Last night the Argus Leader put up a story about the lawsuit and how the city is suing for ‘millions of dollars’ in damages and loses. Basically the city contracted with a company to install a system that would suck nasty gas particles from reclamation to power a generator to save electrical costs at the plant.

Sounds like a great idea. But it didn’t work.

Where the story gets bizarre is the timeline.

The whole process started in 2015 and was installed by 2017. The city realized right away that it wasn’t working and since the company has not resolved the issue, they are suing.

Makes sense.

But even if you give the company a year to resolve the problems (2018) why has it taken 4 years to decide to sue? (we still don’t know the outcome of the failed geo-thermal HVAC system at the administration building – probably safe to assume the taxpayers ate that $300K F’up)

I asked a city mole why we are hearing this from the Argus and not the city? Wouldn’t the city at least want to put a press release out about the pending litigation before a surprise story appears in the paper?

This person said they were unsure if many people in leadership even knew about it.

HUH?

I’m still digging around on that statement because if it is true how does the city file a lawsuit seeking millions in damages without knowing they filed it? Did the mayor know? Did the lead city attorney know? Did the council know? Did the public works director know? Did the guy who cleans the mayor’s toilet know? Bueller? Bueller?

Maybe they did and just didn’t bother telling us. Maybe they wanted the Argus to crack this nut?

But this isn’t like Joe Sixpack getting sued over some bushes and piles of shingles in his backyard. This is a long strung out process with millions in taxpayer money wasted. Oh, that’s right, the city is good at those sort of things, at the end of the day we will probably end up paying them a settlement 🙂

But you have to wonder, did a subordinate file the suit (or hire outside counsel to do so) without anyone in leadership knowing? Well folks, that is how cruise control government works, let the minions worry about the lawsuits so it frees up more time to write children’s books.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council SHOULD do a roll call at the Informational

l3wis 11Comments

Well you do learn something new everyday. During public input today at the informational I asked why a roll was not called before the meeting started. The reason I asked is because only 4 councilors decided to show up in person so I had NO idea who was on the phone. It was later revealed that 2 councilors (Jensen and Selberg) were on the phone and 2 were absent (short timers Kiley and Erickson which I don’t expect to see much of moving forward). While Curt corrected councilor Starr at the end of the meeting that they do not do roll at the informational (I checked previous meetings and it is true) the real reason I asked was because there was no acknowledgement of the councilors on the phone at the beginning of the meeting, roll call or not.

During public input I said that I think this phone it in practice (that really started because of Covid) needs to end, and then I got interrupted by the chair, Soehl that I was off topic. I was going to finish by saying that if the public has to show up in person, the council should too. It will be interesting to watch the new councilors phone it in practices (BTW, none of the newly elected councilors were at the meeting either, to at least watch and learn).

Most of my input was about how the city pretty much did their yearly financial report ass backwards by handing out millions in subsidies without having an audit or final report in their hands right before an election.

I asked, “How can you hand out millions when you don’t have a yearly financial report or audit, with no working sessions or public comment and input?”

Deer in headlights.

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Merry Christmas!