The chamber makes it sound like the petitioners stopped the mayor and council from implementing snow gates, more like the other way around.
Snow Gates (Initiated Measure 1)
Sioux Falls voters will also determine if snowgates will be implemented within the City’s snow removal plan. Residents opposed to the direct implementation of snowgates (designed to reduce the amount of snow in driveways and intersections) collected enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
‘Residents opposed to the direct implementation’
WTF?!
Was Jesus gonna walk across Covell Lake and implement them with a wave of his olive branch?
The VOTES were NOT on the council to get snowgates implemented. I think only 3 councilors supported them. Staggers, Anderson and Jamison (and Jamison was even wavering a bit).
SO why is the Chamber flat out lying about DIRECT IMPLEMENTATION?
Talk about getting your talking points from Jesus H. Huether.
Opposed to allowing THE PROCESS of direct implementation. (Not the actual implementation itself). I.E., opposed to letting the council decide.
Your outrage seems to me based on an assumption that whatever your current issue is – if the PROCESS of letting the council decide doesn’t turn in your favor, it SHOULD HAVE, and therefor the who idea that the council should decide anything is wrong.
I.E., if the council does something you like, the council is good and smart. If they don’t, they are bad and stupid.
This seems to carry over to ANYONE who sees things differently to your POV.
I have followed the discussion regarding snowgates since Councilor Staggers first brought this up many years ago.
It would have ultimately been the Council’s decision whether or not to appropriate the funding to implement snowgates citywide. The votes were NOT there to make this happen.
This lack of votes on the Council is what triggered the petition drive in order to allow citizen TAXPAYERS the opportunity to decide, do we want snowgates OR do we not want them.
It was only AFTER the Mayor saw the public’s response to the petition drive that he jumped on board.
He then tried to turn the tables on the petition organizers insinuating that he had planned on implementing them anyway and the petition drive only delayed this process by a year. I guess when he said this, he forgot it is the Council who in the end would have had responsibility for this decision.
Two major advantages the petition drive created:
*Taxpayers will decide if they want this service.
*The Administration will NOT be able to “cherry-pick” where they are going to use snowgates.
Thank you to all those who worked on gathering thousands of signatures to make this public vote possible!