State of the City Address • Mon, May 3 • 1 PM (State Theatre)
This address can be viewed via livestream at www.facebook.com/citysiouxfalls
Informational Meeting • Tue, May 4 • 4 PM
Presentations;
• ADA Transition Plan by Sharla Svennes, Assistant City Attorney and Human Relations/ADA Coordinator; Peter Blanck, Ph.D., J.D.  and James G. Felakos, J.D., Blanck Group LLC (I have no idea what this is about, no supporting documents)
• Comprehensive Housing Plan by Jeff Eckhoff, Director of Planning and Development Services; and Matt Tobias, Development Services Manager (I have no idea what this is about either, no supporting documents)
Regular City Council Meeting • Tue, May 4 • 6 PM
Item #6, Consent Agenda;
Sub Item #29, South Dakota Research Park, Inc. dba USD Discovery District, Funding Agreement providing innovation focused economic development strategies, development of public-private partnerships and to foster innovation driven industry growth. Actively support economic development and workforce development initiatives. $150K (while this is a good initiative, it would be nice to have a presentation from them on what they are doing instead of just shoving this into a consent agenda item).
Items #24-25, So this is interesting, Sanford’s Golf Shots is transferring it’s liquor license to the Sanford Event Barn, and then in the next item, the Barn is transferring its license to Golf Shots. I’m so glad one of our major health systems in Sioux Falls have all this time to horse around with liquor licenses and their ownership 🙁
Item #26, Most people know that a bar is likely going in the corner space of the Washington Square building on the main floor (even though a roof top bar would have been much cooler). So where has their liquor license been parked while they are waiting to open? Two doors down at Parlour ice cream shop. Funny, that was one of my favorite places to get ice cream last summer, and I never saw a full bar in there 🙁 The lax rules on how licenses can be ‘parked’ is ludicrous and needs to be changed.
Item #53, Second Reading, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, REZONING PROPERTY LOCATED NORTH OF W. BENSON RD. AND WEST OF N. MARION RD. FROM THE PO-PUD PEDESTRIAN-ORIENTED PUD DISTRICT TO THE RA-1 APARTMENT RESIDENTIAL—LOW DENSITY AND RA-2 APARTMENT RESIDENTIAL—MODERATE DENSITY DISTRICTS, NO. 14007-2021, AND AMENDING THE OFFICIAL ZONING MAP OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS. This is the rezoning for apartments next to the new Amazon Warehouse. As we know CountCilor Jensen has a financial conflict, and some think Selberg does also. We will see if they both recuse themselves and tell the public what that conflict is. This is a controversial item because the neighbors who have homes out there were lied to by developers, as usual, and of course the planning department plays along and says, ‘You can always ask us questions.’ Here’s one, ‘Is it hard to breathe with your heads stuck up developer’s asses?’
Item #55, 2nd Reading, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY AMENDING CHAPTER 77: PARKING REGULATIONS, SUBCHAPTER: PUBLIC PARKING ADVISORY BOARD. During the 1st reading several councilors suggested that they need to streamline the public boards qualifications.
Planning Commission Meeting • Wed, May 5 • 6 PM
Item 2E, Rezone for Foundation Park so they can chop up lots and spend our TIF money.
Item 2I, Rezone for Water Reclamation
Item 2J, Expansion of an existing VL Casino. Just what we need 🙁
Item 2K, More details on the expansion of the Sanford Sports Complex;
Item 5A, Rezoning from C1 to C2. This will be just north of the gas station on 18th & Cleveland. I am not sure if there is any neighborhood opposition. But what I find interesting is if you read all the documentation there is not one single mention of Dollar General in the documents. How did I figure it out? It was flagged that way in the document name ‘Dollar Gen.doc’.
This is something I have been railing on over the past couple of years where documentation in the agenda items in all the city’s public meetings is vague and hard to understand. I believe the attorney’s office in cahoots with the clerk’s and planning’s office is doing this on purpose. Why? It all goes back to the HATEFEST of Open and Transparent government.
Scott,
Thanks for your efforts to keep the public informed. It is unfortunate that the taxpayers are being left in the dark.
Rezoning in the northwest area will pass because Neitzert is in his last term and there’s pecuniary reward. It’s a good location for another Dollar General. It’s the only affordable shopping for this impoverished area and some of the dollar groceries are edible.
“Home Builders Association Annual Government Night”
Man, if that doesn’t scream ‘conflict of interest’! I don’t care if they serve watered-down Windsor, fried chicken and calico corn (all the Ramkota specialties), events like this are another way to shut the taxpayer out of the process. And a cheap way for developers to stay in good graces with councilors who help push massive apartment buildings upon single-family neighborhoods.