Charter Revision Commission changes meeting time for NO good reason

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From today’s meeting, the good news is that they will be discussing my proposals* at November’s meeting. The bad news is that they changed the meeting time from 4 PM to 3:30 PM, I’m guessing due to the whining and crying of the 1st Amendment Hater City Attorney, Stacy Kooistra. This from the minutes of September’s meeting;

City Attorney Kooistra reminded the Commission of the process for Public Input and the need for items to be listed on the Agenda for discussion or voting purposes. He stated there may be a need to reschedule future meetings to earlier in the day to allow for additional time.

No mention of how I cut him off during public input by saying they couldn’t ask me questions.

During open discussion at the end of today’s meeting they discussed the change (I love how they must have dress rehearsal before the meeting to make sure they can slip this stuff in and make it look legit). Commissioner Carl Zylstra mentions he went and tried to find a meeting longer then last month’s meeting of 1 hour 30 minutes and he could only find one longer in July of 2019 which lasted 1 hour 48 minutes. They quickly moved into a discussion about moving the meetings to 3:30 PM so that they could have more time to discuss items before 5 PM which city attorney Kooistra argued was the time staff needed to leave (there is NOTHING in the Charter requiring boards to adhere to staffers work schedules, if I am wrong, please notate in the comments section and I will update).

Only Commissioner Anne Hajek (partially) objected and said that the later time is to better serve the public (attending). But it fell on deaf ears as they all agreed to have November’s meeting at 3:30 PM so staff could leave at 5 PM.

As I have argued these public meetings are for the PUBLIC, NOT the city staff and I was extremely disappointed in the CRC for caving to the whims of the city attorney and his ignorant objections to long meetings.

This is also contributing to the constant destruction of open and transparent government by this administration and his hitmen. Maybe no one participates in city government because the meeting times are inconvenient. Yup. And they continue their madness with this change.

*Commissioner Carl Zylstra suggested my proposal for having city directors have residency within Sioux Falls could be easily inserted into the charter. So I still have hope that at least one of my proposals will make the ballot 🙂

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Oct 4-6, 2021

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The City Council and other boards have a full agenda this week;

• The Audit Committee has finally released some audits, been awhile. On Spectra (the people who provide concessions to several city owned entertainment facilities) they found a ton of non-compliance especially with insurance requirements. On the Midco Aquatic Center they have seen an over 50% drop in attendance since 2019 and around a 40% drop in revenue. They were also non-compliant on several fronts and like the Spectra Audit it seems our own Finance Department is not doing regular checks of compliance. For Travel expenses there was several instances of non-compliance. $137,000 travel reimbursements paid directly to travelers (city employees). Many of these results don’t surprise me. I have said the City Manager (The Mayor) is running a rudderless ship and when you have a poor city manager, it results in poor management under that person.

• The Planning Commission has decided to go full rogue by putting every single item on the consent agenda this month. Now items can be pulled for discussion by the Commission or Individuals from the public but I find this startling considering that all items are recommended for approval by the Planning Department and I am sure several Commission Members will recuse due to conflicts. Folks, this is what true cruise control government looks like. I am still puzzled why we even have a Planning Commission.

• The Charter Revision Commission will continue to review the Charter.

• City Council Informational will review building code changes.

• City Council Regular Meeting;

On the contracts and agreements (Item 6) in sub items 17-18 they are paying this consulting firm out of Florida to do this?

And of course sub item #38 where we are reviewing the Human Relations Commission.

Sioux Falls Charter Revision Commission Proposals

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Below are my proposals to the CRC today. I present towards the end of the meeting during public input. I appreciated David Zokaites for defending my TIF proposal and I also appreciate the CRC for allowing me 15 minutes to present, putting my proposals on a future agenda for discussion and engaging me after my presentation (something City Attorney Kooistra tried to stop until I reminded the CRC that was at the discretion of the board) he of course couldn’t resist chastising the board at the end of the meeting for allowing the engagement and his concern for public employees ‘time’. Whatever that means. As I have stated before to the city and on this blog, city meetings have NO time limit laid out in charter. They can recess or go on as long as they wish regardless of city employees ‘time’. As I brought up in my testimony, they work for us, not the other way around.

Charter Revision Proposal Ideas, Scott L. Ehrisman, Sioux Falls, SD;

1) Application for TIF will only be accepted for projects that will eliminate blight, build density in the core, and simultaneously provide affordable and workforce housing. Home rule charter allows the city to be stricter then state law.


I believe since State Law has changed on TIFs the city has been abusing the use of TIFs. They were originally designed to help with blight and provide affordable housing, they are now being used to finance PRIVATE projects and build parking and condominiums.

2) General Public input will be at the beginning of EVERY city public meeting, including boards and commissions and will have a limit of 5 minutes per speaker and NO limit on the amount of speakers EXCEPT at the discretion of the chair of the meeting.


The city has NO standard policy on general public input at it’s public meetings. Per state law every meeting must have it, but the time seems to be all over the place depending on the meeting. This would just standardize it for ALL city meetings. It would also put the Citizens business at the beginning of the meeting where it belongs.

3) Every director or department head must be a Sioux Falls resident, or become one within 30 days of hire/start date. Current directors are exempt. Only applies to new hires appointed by the Mayor and City Council.


Many local government entities require this. I think it is most important for directors that deal with public safety. I also think it is an economic equity issue. Directors that have their salaries and benefits paid for by the taxpayers of Sioux Falls, should also pay taxes in the community that employs them.

I believe it is the duty of the CRC and the City Attorney’s office to determine the final ballot language and the Article it applies to in the Charter and whether the question is legal to vote on. It is NOT your duty to determine if it is appropriate or not, only if it is legal and a legitimate ballot question.

I have a Surprise for the Charter Revision Commission

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If you watch the meeting today, you will see once again, under Chair Smith, they are back to a script, and no surprise he was Re-Elected as Chair (it’s always good to have a qualified director).

He of course gave his diatribe about how it is their mission to kill anything the Sioux Falls city government authoritarians don’t approve of. He of course worded as though they won’t kill anything. He really should be writing movie scripts, such wasted talent.

I started today working on a revision to the charter that I will present to the group for consideration. While I still have to do some research when it comes to the language of the proposal, at this point I can guarantee it is legal and eligible to be on the 2022 municipal election ballot. I can also guarantee if it makes it there, it will pass by a wide majority.

I can’t wait to see how the Commission handles my request.

Sioux Falls City Election, YES on A, NO on B

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As people have been absentee voting, many have asked me how to vote on the amendments. Amendment ‘A’ is pretty easy to understand. Amendment ‘B’ is a little more complicated, but I will lay it out for you 1) VOTE NO 2) If this was as simple as following state law, the council would have passed this already, they did not, because it is more complicated than that 3) this would increase the number of signatures you would need to petition our city charter. It should be made easier to petition our local government not harder. This is simply an attempt to justify the questionable rules that were implemented on Triple Check the Charter. How can you apply rules to petitioning when citizens haven’t approved those rules yet? VOTE NO!