South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

l3wis

Downtown Sioux Falls Homeless SFPD Sioux Falls

UPDATE: City of Sioux Falls(?) finally addressing panhandlers?

l3wis 5Comments

UPDATE: The sign was gone this morning and must have been removed last night. Me thinks someone wasn’t quite following the rules.

Imagine my surprise today while driving down Cliff at the intersection of 14th Street when I saw the traffic sign below, which read in 3 frames; GIVE TO . . . CHARITY . . . NOT TO PANHANDLERS.

At first I thought this may be the handy work of the city, but I am not sure, there wasn’t much info from the sign itself. If it is the city, I guess I should say ‘thanks’ for finally doing something, but this wasn’t my suggestion, I said to put in permanent signage at the intersections informing motorists it is illegal to impede traffic while handing money out the window with the listed ordinance and fine.

I’m also not even sure if this is following sign code, even if the city put it up. Also, what is it costing taxpayers? If this was a private political donation of sorts, shouldn’t there be a disclaimer?

If the city truly did this (it is on city bike trail property) it would be nice if the mayor or the part-time mayor, Beck, at least put out a press release about it.

While I applaud the administration for possibly doing this, I continue to be baffled by the way these things are done. Cruise control government at it’s finest.

Maybe they should put a Girl Scout cookie stand next to it?

Mayor TenHaken SFPD Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken selects Rubberstamp Hiring Committee for future Police Chief

l3wis 4Comments

Let’s not kid ourselves, this panel which consists of two city employees who work for Paul, and a person who rents private office space from him isn’t really going to get too ‘edgy’ and suggest Paul hires someone externally or qualified;

The hiring panel plans to identify the finalists by mid-June. At that point, the community will be invited to meet and interact with the finalists. Details regarding the public engagement opportunity will be outlined at a later date.

What is this, an episode of ‘SURVIVOR’? While I would most certainly disagree with whatever internal yahoo the mayor picks, it is ultimately his decision, so why all the smoke and mirrors to make it appear someone else is picking the new chief? Well, because he is a Sh!tty leader and we all know this.

By charter, as the city’s employee manager if I were advising the mayor I would spend some of that moldy developer welfare money on a consultant that would review external, nationwide candidates and also review internal candidates. Pick two from each category and make a personal selection from there.

While I agree public engagement is needed, let’s face it, the job of a city manager is to hire qualified directors, Joe 6-Pack, like myself may have an opinion on it, but what do I know about hiring police chiefs? Ironically, what does the color blind graphic artist know about it either?

I still think that the mayor needs to hire an external bulldog that will clean up the internal mess while mending the relationship with the community. And on day one I would enforce a physical fitness policy and tell the hospitals to shut off the FREE feeding trough. Our police make well over a living wage, they can afford to pack a sack lunch.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, May 11, 2021 & the $449K Convention Center Door

l3wis 3Comments

Informational Meeting • 4 PM

Presentations on Curbside pickup and Sioux Steel TIF;

Not sure what the garbage presentation is about, but it looks like the garbage haulers are not happy about the changes. You know, if you would have just gave discounts it may not have changed back. But guess what, sometimes being greedy sucks. I don’t have a problem with putting the can at the end of the driveway on pickup day, but why not just offer a discount to customers who do it? Oh, that’s right, that greed thing again.

There is also an update on the TIF for Sioux Steel. As I understand it the original TIF will be rescinded and after changes to the project (not sure what they will be) the TIF will be re-instated. I think the council should send a message and rescind the original TIF and not give them one. We don’t need more office space or hotels downtown, we need affordable housing. If the developer was willing to turn the project into a work force housing development, I think the TIF would be fine.

Regular Meeting • 6 PM

Item #7, Approval of Contracts, Sub Item #10;

Software Platform, Mass Transit On-Demand Pilot Project; amendment to introduce a second “Pilot Program” of “SAM on Demand” This pilot project will test to see if on-demand service will improve ridership, Pantonium, Inc. $36K. (I’m wondering if the public is going to get an update about how they continue to milk this bad idea).

Sub Item #11, Convention Center Improvements – Convention Center Vestibule Door Replacement; Sunkota Construction, Inc., $449K (While the mayor bragged about giving a whopping $1 Million in rental assistance last year, he failed to tell folks he plans to spend almost a Half-Million on a door. To be fair, it’s probably a couple of doors. Wouldn’t spending that money on actually marketing Sioux Falls for conventions be better spent)?

Sub Item #12, Greenway and Trail Improvements – Downtown River Greenway Improvements – Phase 3; Agreement for final design, Confluence, $797K (so it costs less to build a door than it does to design a sidewalk. Hmmm).

Employment Sioux Falls TIFs Unemployment

We need to stop incentivizing businesses with TIF’s and Tax rebates in Sioux Falls

l3wis 1Comments

As I said a few months ago, it was baffling to me why we would give a $94 million dollar TIF to incentivize businesses to come here. First off, it is pretty obvious we don’t need anymore job creators currently;

To find out more about what might be going on, I reached out to Secretary Marcia Hultman, who leads the South Dakota Department of Labor.

“What you are seeing and what we’re hearing anecdotally, the numbers really support,” she said.

They definitely do. The most current number she could pull for me Friday was 23,500 active job openings in the state’s database. Nearly 10,000 of those are in the city of Sioux Falls.

You read it correct, 10,000 available jobs in Sioux Falls, and we want to incentivize business to come here? It’s ludicrous. Factor in our schools are over crowded, affordable housing is a rarity (where we should be investing tax rebates) and building permits are through the roof. If anything we should be giving the tax rebates to the citizens to create more affordable housing and propping up our current infrastructure instead throwing it at Egg Roll factories owned by Koreans.

I also found this interesting in the article;

Another tip: You should list a wage with your opening.

“Statistically, if the wage is posted, even if it’s not the best, those job orders get more activity. If nothing is listed, the assumption is that it’s low,” Hultman said.

Nearly every business I talk to has increased pay, some significantly. Frankly, that’s not a bad thing, to me, in a state that has struggled with persistently low wages in some sectors.

I have often said the city council should pass a city ordinance that any job listed within city limits should have the minimum and maximum pay listed in the ad.

It’s time to end most if not all TIF’s in the city and tax rebates for the supposed (low wage) job creators and start helping the people who live and work in this city with more affordable housing and propping up infrastructure, and we can do it without welfare to big business. This is what happens when you have a partisan greedy mayor on cruise control and a former developer executive running the city as Chief of Staff.

Ironically, when she left the city the first time she met me for coffee. She told me the deciding factor to leave the city, besides the last mayor being a total jackass was that she was forced to write the Sanford Sports Complex TIF which she felt set a bad precedent for TIFs because of it’s size and that it was NOT for housing or blighted property. Funny how her feelings have changed on the Tifiliciousness of TIFs and doesn’t seem to bothered by the bad precedent she set.

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