Budget Hearing • Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at 3:00 PM
Health, Planning, Transit, Public Works, Housing
Regular City Council Meeting • Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at 6:00 PM
Item #7, Approval of Contracts,
Sub-Item #6, River Greenway Improvements: Downtown River Greenway – Phase 3; To award a formal bid. Lloyd Construction Co., $10.7 million. (So we are going to pay the very developer who is benefitting from the greenway adjacent to their commercial property, Sioux Steel District, all the while they are getting a $25 million dollar TIF and a $3 million dollar BID tax grant).
Sub-Item #9, Park Land Acquisition: 1328 N Phillips Avenue Site Demolition and Restoration; $16K (the price tag isn’t at question here. I’m trying to figure out what park we are trying to improve by tearing down this home?)
Item #45, 2nd Reading, Re-Zone for halfway house (The council has expressed they will be voting against this rezone, but the discussion should be interesting considering councilor Neitzert pulling the halfway house ordinance change and deferring it to next month’s meeting).
Item #51, 2nd Reading, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO A LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS AND THE SIOUX EMPIRE TRIAGE CENTER. (apparently this is the only agreement the city has in writing, or at least the only one they are willing to share. I have told reporters that I don’t think the city has a standing contract with the non-profit that lays out operational obligations or expectations. Recently the Director of the Link resigned with no comment. Why was that? And who is running the facility now? Looks like the city’s cruise control button just landed at another quasi-city-non-profit.)
Items #58-60, Union Contracts
Active Transportation Board • Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 8:30 AM, Commission Room, City Hall
The board will be taking action on Councilor Neitzert’s proposal to change the E2 bike ordinance on the shared use rec trail. If you look at the agenda packet and read Greg’s changes he is simply just adding E2, and making some minor adjustments to verbiage and ADA accessibility while identifying speed limits. I am not sure how this vote will go, but hope to sit in on the discussion. There is a Parks Board meeting that same afternoon and they will also be taking action on the proposal.
Charter Revision Commission Meeting • Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 4:00 PM
The CRC will be taking up two proposals that were presented in the last round of CRC hearings and will likely be rejected by them again. Kirby wants to remove the mayor as a city councilor and chair of the meetings and Zitterich wants to increase the size of the council. I agree with Kirby’s proposal and is long overdue, but I disagree with increasing the city council’s size. I think we should only have 7 councilors that ALL represent a district and NO At-Large members.
While I will give them kudos for going thru the proper process, a better approach would be getting all parties that want to make changes to the charter together and agreeing on a charter revision package that they can sell to the voters thru a petition drive and election. The CRC is setup to be an obstruction to the public from making direct policy changes at the ballot box, and so far, they have been very successful in their mission.
Kinda seems like everything is for the benefit of the city and not the public. At this point, there should be a new city department called Lloyd. Every project is awarded them at cost plus without competitive bid. It’s become another municipal function. If they become government there would be more control and personnel with a golden employment and retirement package. The kingdom will grow with a stronger labor Union, more coffee breaks, vacations, and bogus work from home designations. Keep them home or on vacation so the city has hope for managing itself.
CRC per Google is hundreds of acronyms. If you’re not doing what you were meant for, pick one. Try Cyclic Redundancy Check.
Scott,
1328 N Phillips would be jsut south of Russell Street, I would suspect this to be the properties near the Spillway surrounding the park department land along Phillips.
As for my Recommendation – I am asking for a Resolution to go before the voters, or adopted by council to trigger “Discussion” related to Composition of the Council. I made my proposition to remove some words in the charter, allowing for an ODD NUMBERED COUNCIL with atleast 2 At Large Members pluys the Mayor. Even in defense of Joe’s recommendation, I think what the voters should vote on is a resolution to create discussion over the next 4 years leading to the Census.
Mike, no offense, but that is NOT how it works. Citizens don’t put resolutions forward to trigger our policy body to have a discussion. You either put a workable ordinance on the ballot (like changing the number of councilors or removing the mayor as chair) or you simply ask them to have a discussion. You are trying to intertwine direct democracy with representative democracy, while they do work together, it is usually the result of a citizen driven ordinance or law passed in which our representatives have to fine tune the law for taxation and regulation purposes.
The citizens can petition to place resolutions, initiatives, charter ammendments on their ballots. That is the right of the people to do.
Initiatives are concepts that are proposing ordinances to operate the government in some manner or form
Resolutions are promises to do something in the future as a collective group of people.
Charter Amendments are concepts to change, strike out, or replace parts of, or all of the charter.
You are correct, initiatives are allowing people to adopt ordinances on their own, amendments are asknig the voters to change their charter, however,
Resolutions are enacted to ask the voters to perform specific activities or actions or plans in the future, without implementing any hardcore ordinance or mandate to do something.
I am simply asking to place on the ballot a reolution to encourage people to vote to have a discussion yes or no to discuss the future population growth of the city, historical statistics, and the effects of the current composition versus changing that composition. It is the most respectful means of encouraging the people to adopt a change, without forcing that change.
I could effectively bypass the C.R.C and petition the voters directly, however, wanting to encourage the debate to be had, and created, I am pushing it through the C.R.C to get it on the ballot by working through our representative format.
Citizens have in the past placed resolutions on several ballots all through out the state in order to further push for and guide agenda publically.
IF adopted, I am putting together the plan to establish the Districting Commission to lead that discussion, along side the C.R.C and the City Council to discuss the future composition of the council. It steps on the toes of no one, while includes everyone being involved.
For someone who claims to be a deregulation right winger you sure want a lot of government interference. If you want your elected representatives to have a convo about this topic, email and call all of them and ask them to do it. While I have been trying to attend all the meetings with the E2 change, I have no delusions, the real work is being done by City Councilor Neitzert, and it should be. I should be able to make reasonable requests to my council and they should act. It is a sad day in this town when we have to have citizens pass a resolution to build a fire under our elected officials, and I think they would agree.
Scott,
The whole fabric of our republic, the people act together to operate their government. I am implenenting no interference in that governance.
The people by our own constitution, have the power to lobby their representatives and petition the voters to adopt resolutions, initiatives, and amendments to their constitutions (charters),
Example, if the voters statewide had done a resolution to discuss publically, and form a committee to study and research Medical or Recreational Marijuana or both prior to the initiatives, thus reating publi discussion to be done over a course of two years, perhaps they would have by now learned what the opinions of all counties was prior to an affirmative vote on the concepts. Now we got groups wanting to place Medical Marijuana back to a ballot to repeal it, setting up the means to bring forth a new law in the future.
When we created our chartered form of government, we enacted with it the means of holding these meetings in an active Charter Commission, to bring fortth resolutions, initatives, amenments.
I am simply utilizing the powers given to me, by the people of Sioux Falls, and doing it in such manner as to not step on your toes.
‘I am implementing no interference in that governance.’
Well, you are correct about one thing.
BTW, even if the opponents to Med MJ are successful at getting sigs, which will be the hardest part, it will fail hugely at the ballot box. Once SD implements something, it never goes away. VL and Food Tax repeals have failed at the ballot box so many times it is hard to count.
“I am simply utilizing the powers given to me, by the people of Sioux Falls”. Thanks Mike. I was having a bad night, but that cheered me right up. I haven’t had a good laugh like that for awhile.
But does Mike have “the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Atlas”?….:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFnITiRTAX8
What is better, to change the charter over night with no public discussion, or to change the charter gradually allowing for as much discussion to be taken over a period of time?
Charters, like our constitution, should not be very easy to change, it should be a long, drawn out process, allowing for all sides to be heard. If you change the document simply to fast, all you do is step on the toes of your neighbor, who may or may not support the change.
There are some who want to remove the Mayor from the city council, others do not want to make that change, should we place on ballot quickly, or should not ‘we’ discuss it over a period of two years?
The topic of which I created, what is the reason for At Large Chairs vs District Chairs, ‘we’ must have this discussion to better understand the sentiments of the people, let alone to better understand how many districts there should be in this city, one must have a discussion over a period of time, to best hear, and gain opinions of as many people as possible before making a change.
Great Leaders allow for the discussion to be heard, allow for as many people to voice their opinions, pros and cons of every topic, first, prior to making any hardcore change to our ‘constitution’ type documents.
By proposing a Resolution be placed on a public ballot, I am urging the “commission” to allow the voters to say yes or no on whether they wish to have this discussion.
If the voters say YES, then the Mayor and City Council then are forced to put in place a “Districting Commission” to serve the purpose of the topics being addressed as part of the the Resolution itself.
Whether you support Joe Kirby’s plan, or Mike Zitterich’s plan, is not the issue here, the big thing is, ‘we’ must do a better job at allowing for Public Discussion to take place, getting these things right, prior to voting on them in the end…
Under my concept, I simply feel, the Mayor must be part of the City Council, placing him in front of the people at public meetings, while in turn, we should allow for, the Districting Commission to gain some authority to add and remove council districts where they deem necessary as the population changes, let alone as the city annexes new political subdivisions.
I spell my name M-I-K-E, I do not spell my name G-O-D.
Meaning, I am an imperfect man, the only person I know who was perfect, was God himself. “WE” make mistakes, we often do, we learn from them, we admit to our mistakes, and we make attempts to fix those mistakes.
There is no rush to change the charter, we have at least 7 years before anything hardcore needs to change.
So, why not adopt a resolution today, put into effect a Districting Commission by 2026, allowing that appointed body to work side by side with the Charter Commission, let alone the City Council leading discussion on the future City Council Composition by 2030?
– Mike Zitterich