Lots of Darkness at the Sioux Falls City Council meeting tonight

I’m surprised the council didn’t hand out flashlights before the meeting.

On Item #5, approval of minutes, Councilor Starr asked to amend the minutes since they don’t reflect what happened during the Informational Meeting of July 18 (FF: 20:00). Of course 7 councilors voted against amending, which is surprising in itself, because when you listen to the discussion it is obvious what is in the minutes isn’t what happened. Here is their version that was submitted for approval tonight;

As you can see they are claiming they made a motion to amend, the problem is they were already in executive session when they amended it (amendments must be made in public).

Selberg claims they were following law when it comes to what is discussed in the meeting. He is correct, but only after they amended the session. If you look at the image above you will see that they were first going to put this under personnel matters (this refers to individuals, not to the city council employees as a whole) this is why they probably decided to amend it, because it looks like they were discussing raises, bonuses, etc., which would be under contract negotiations.

Like I said, the amendment was justified, the problem is the amendment wasn’t made in public. Even the city attorney stumbles a bit when he tries to claim that since ONE person was sitting in the lobby of Carnegie and the doors to the council chamber were open (because he forgot to close it, complaining about the door stop being stubborn) that makes it all good. That would be like saying if I was sitting on the toilet in Carnegie’s bathroom and the door was open the meeting was technically open to the public 🙁

I have heard you can hear them talking when you sit in the lobby if the door is open, but unless you are actually in the room, you would have no idea what they were doing. It is a stretch to claim it was done in open, and Starr was correct to ask for an amendment.

Ironically, if anyone decides to file an open meetings complaint because of this, seven councilors just signed their own pink slips by voting against the amendment while Starr gave himself an out. Even more ironic, the 7 councilors went a step further by noting that Starr voted NO on the amendment and that should be reflected in the minutes. Starr happily agreed and voted with the rest of the council to include that in the minutes.

I wonder what it is like to have such a dislike for your fellow colleague you would risk violating open meeting laws just to stick it to him in a public meeting. Apparently seven of the toddler councilors didn’t take their nap before the meeting.

SIOUX STEEL PROJECT REQUESTING ANOTHER $3.575 MILLION IN CITY FUNDING

Talk about playing some legal gymnastics when it comes to approving this funding (FF 1:14). When I first saw this on the agenda Friday night I didn’t really read it very close and just figured the BID tax was for Downtown Sioux Falls, which I would fully support. I don’t think we charge enough BID tax in Sioux Falls when compared to other communities. This tax is paid for by travelers and is a great way to fund things like paying off a bond for an entertainment venue, instead the hotel will collect the tax, submit to the city then the city will turnaround and give the money to the hotel at Sioux Steel for public improvements.

As you can see, most if not all of these improvements will be made on the private property of the Sioux Steel Project so I am curious what are the public improvements? Access to the Greenway on your property is NOT a public improvement. And while the artwork will be technically ‘public’ because if someone is walking thru the district they will see it, it is still on YOUR property which is a benefit to you also.

The discussion gets interesting including Starr calling this a ‘NON-TIF, TIF’ and asking the question, “Why don’t they just finance this themselves and collect an extra $2 fee?”

Good question, but it is much easier to feed from the trough, or as councilor Neitzert points out, this is a way to blame government for the extra fees instead of the hotel itself (because, you know, it is almost impossible to hide hidden fees on a hotel invoice 🙁

Of course, Starr was the only one that voted against it, even laughing while saying NO!

Only in Sioux Falls and South Dakota would we think it would be okay to collect a tax from tourists and turnaround and hand that money over to the very business that is making money from the same tourists. It’s Bannaners!

100 DAY CHALLENGE

I finished it out with 1,430 miles, which was a combination of stair stepper, regular biking and low setting on my E2. I didn’t count any throttling road miles. I rarely throttle my bike unless I am in a hurry.

I also had to chuckle about the Fitness Challenge last Thursday. As you know, I took pictures of the nasty goose crap that morning, and when I came by later that night, I was right, someone attempted to power wash the goose crap before the event.

The one thing that always holds true with city government – they are always predictable.