My friend of over 25 years, Matt Fockler, is throwing a FREE music festival in Montrose this weekend. There are some amazing local and national musicians playing. The Saturday night concert featuring Redd Volkaert and Steve Fisher is $30 but everything else is FREE including parking and camping (in a tent). There will be plenty of great vendors including Ben’s Brewery. Come on out, it should be a blast.
Yesterday at the joint meeting, Lincoln County Commissioner Joel Arends tried to get out of planning staff (both city and county) where they came up with the 1,000 foot setback. Once they rolled out the Mariachi band and did an extensive dance, they still couldn’t give a reason. That’s because it was directly pulled from their behinds. Seeing they were not going to win that argument, the city attorney Paul Bengford decided to move the goal posts and say this was about meeting a deadline and newspapers and NOT the setback. It was quite the turd polishing, and exhibited just how inept our local government officials and appointed staff is.
I think they truly believe the public is that naïve.
But the best part was when Councilor Neitzert said it was ‘absurd’ to allow citizens to vote for the legalization of drugs (marijuana). Waiting for our elected officials to legalize it is even more absurd, because they would never act. I joked to someone before the vote in November that even if the Feds decriminalized MJ today and allowed states to regulate it would take South Dakota a decade to put in the regulations if you waited for the elected officials to act.
The only way anything beneficial to the citizens happens in this state is through direct democracy. Waiting for our representatives to help us is the true measure of absurdity and their war on the initiative and referendum process. Keep poking the bear, because that just emboldens us.
You gotta love it when Councilor Kiley’s strategy of telling half the story gets shot down. He often tells only partially what is going on to support his argument. Last night he tried to compare a wedding barn facility in rural Minnehaha County on a dirt township road to wedding barns annexed into the city limits. The problem is he left out the part they were annexed in the city limits. He also did this a few weeks ago when he tried to accuse councilor Starr of saying firefighters stand around too much. Starr did say that, but he wasn’t referring to fighting fires he was talking about mutual aid with calls of service for ambulance. In the past they had to wait for our rinky dink ambulance service to show up before administering care, now they are allowed to assist before they arrive eliminating them ‘standing around’ on ambulance calls. Kiley has been pulling his ‘half the truth’ arguments so long, he just can’t resist, unfortunately for him he failed last night and the rezone was approved. He probably told friends and colleagues after the meeting that he still prevailed because some of the votes were the same as his 🙂
Also the FAA told the private airport folks no dice. I knew they would, it’s just too close to other residential areas and as Greg Jamison pointed out the FAA says it would cause flight pattern issues with the main Sioux Falls airport. I guess those poor rich folks will still have to drive the whole 3 miles in their Range Rovers to Tea Town. I feel so bad for them . . . maybe we should start a Go Fund me for a valet service?
I also made some comments on agenda item #5 and some other ones about panhandling and TIFs during public input. I have been throwing around the idea of taking panhandlers to the neighborhoods our elected officials live in and let them ask for money there. That would be fun to watch.
It’s rare that I give Mayor Poops props, but he made some interesting comments about density and our core (FF 12:00). The only problem is that he has had more then 3 years to do something with the help of the do-nothing council. He mentions that we need to do a better job of building density in our core. DING! DING! DING! This wasn’t the first Mayor to try to mansplain this issue. Mayor Munson actually took a stab at it when he created the Pettigrew Heights neighborhood and started the rebuilding of Downtown. The problem was when Bucktooth & Bowlcut took the baton he just focused on the immediate Downtown. Fast forward to Paul and the story behind the scenes is that he has been talking to core property owners around the downtown area, the problem, as rumor would have it is that Paul wants to try to strong arm these owners into selling property to the city so he can bulldoze it and turn it around to his rich developer friends. This is what happens when you have a COS that used to be a developer executive. Most of those owners have told them they will redevelop on their own without the help of the city.
The bigger issue with this is that the public, the city council and these owners all need to come to the table and put together a strategy, and the process needs to be very open and transparent. Right now those meetings, like the MED MJ ordinance discussions are happening behind closed doors, and as I understand it are failing miserably.
I’m not sure what it will take to get this mayor to understand open government, he just doesn’t, and neither does the council or the city attorney’s office.
The only way we will will ever succeed with this core redevelopment is if we open the books, unfortunately I don’t think that will ever happen with the current administration.
UPDATE II: The hits keep coming;
UPDATE: I love this segment that pulled the ridiculous quotes from the previous administration. BUSTED!
I was going to write a long rant about our president doing the right thing, but I think Seth nailed it;
Another great perspective;
l3wis