UPDATE: City of Sioux Falls is using the backdoor for rental assistance

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UPDATE: This was the explanation from council staff;

$250k is from the Planning and Development Services budget.

The administration is requesting the Council to appropriate an additional $750k  from the General Fund available fund balance (reserves) to support the One Sioux Falls Fund.

The funding for the Community Foundation is for $1,000,000; $250 (P&D) funds and $750 (General Fund Reserves).

The funding is one in the same.

I want to thank the city for finally contributing to rental assistance, and I think they will have to do a lot more, but I do have some issues with how this assistance is being delivered;

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, PROVIDING SUPPLEMENTAL EMERGENCY APPROPRIATIONS FOR HOUSING.

WHEREAS, on March 12, 2020, the Mayor issued Executive Order No. 218 declaring an emergency to address the novel coronavirus (COVID-19); and

WHEREAS, the Mayor has collaborated with the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation to establish a One Sioux Falls Fund (the “Fund”) to help local residents and businesses negatively impacted by COVID-19 in Sioux Falls; and

WHEREAS, the Fund will consist of both public and private sector contributions; and

WHEREAS, the Fund will be used for public, charitable, or humanitarian purposes and accommodation. Specifically, the funding shall focus on any of three critical areas: health, housing, and food security; and

WHEREAS, Section 5.07 (b) of the Charter of Sioux Falls allows for an emergency appropriation to be made to meet a public emergency affecting life, health, property, or public peace;

I don’t take issue with the amount of funds themselves ($750K) because I think we are going to need a heckuva a lot more.

NOTE: THERE IS ALSO A $1 MILLION FIGURE IN THE CONSENT AGENDA WHICH IS CONFUSING – ARE THESE SEPARATE EXPENDITURES?

What is wrong here is the delivery system because it lacks transparency. It would be logical to assume no matter who pays for this the money will be direct payments to the property owners of the rentals. But by transferring public dollars to a private fund, the taxpayers will never see who is receiving these funds. Once again, I will stress, this is not about knowing the names of the renters, they will not be an equation in this because they will never see the money, it’s about knowing what property owners are receiving the payments. Will it be the big guys? The little guys? Will it be evenly spread between them? We will never know because the city will be giving up their rights to transparency by having a private non-profit distribute the money.

So what is the fix? The property owners need to apply for the funding from the city themselves so that all transactions are open and transparent. I keep telling people that during a time of crisis, full transparency is the key, this is just another example of a backroom deal that doesn’t need to happen to accomplish the ultimate goal.

But there is another issue with this money transfer, the city council was not consulted on the ordinance before it was posted (or at least some of them weren’t) they also were not asked to help draft it or the amount. While the mayor may have some emergency powers, the council is the legislative body that is in charge of drafting legislation like this. Some have even suggested to me that the mayor is violating charter and ethics by proposing this distribution before consulting with the council. It should be an interesting meeting to watch.

If Sioux Falls has emergency plans, what are they?

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Many cities across the US are setting up temporary hospitals in convention centers to deal with the non-critical patients. Are we?

I’ve been told by several people that ‘maybe’ the city has plans for things I have pointed out over the past week;

• Temporary hospitals

• Food insecurity

• Housing assistance

• Flood control

I have argued that if that is the case, we certainly haven’t been communicated that. At the Thursday special council meeting several officials bragged about the daily press briefings on the virus crisis, but if they are not sharing critical information and plans, what’s the point?

We have heard about the plan to help people thru the Community Foundation, but that pot is going to have be a lot bigger and the city needs to start preparing to dip into the reserves. WHAT IS THE PLAN?

Feeding South Dakota has been giving out food but lack enough volunteers. I suggest city employees help with this, but what is the long term plan when grocers shut down? WHAT IS THE PLAN?

We have heard literally nothing on temporary hospitals being set up. Maybe all the cars at the Sanford Fieldhouse were people setting one up there? But I doubt it. WHAT IS THE PLAN?

Many people have been reaching out to city councilors asking if we have a stock of sandbags in case a flood occurs again. WHAT IS THE PLAN?

If we do have plans, that is wonderful. But in a time of crisis we must share those plans with the public, if we don’t have plans, we need to be working on them instead of concentrating on campaigning for the next election.

Now is not the time to ignore transparency. Democracy dies in Darkness. Tell us WTF is going on!

While Great Shots has been closed, other entities were still operating

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At about 1 PM today I drove past several places in the Sanford Sports Complex, this is what I saw. Great Shots had only two cars in the parking lot and appeared to be shut down. Power and Grace and the Iceplex only had one car in each of the parking lots and seemed to be shut down. The MatchPointe throughout the week has several cars in their lot but today was down to about four. The Pentagon however (first picture below) had over a dozen cars and I saw people showing up dressed for basketball practice and gym bags. At the Fieldhouse I saw over 20 vehicles in the lot. This tells me they are still operating. These facilities, according to the new ordinance passed need to be shut down, especially considering their connection to a healthcare facility.

If we are going to shame private business on social media for being open and endangering lives, the big boys have to play by the same rules.

Sioux Falls City Government needs to have some contingency plans in place ASAP!

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While we have been putting up billboards and closing down telephone booth casinos across the city, we are ignoring plans we could implement right away to help us get through this.

Even after the virus spread is over and a vaccine is in place, the repercussions of this will be enormous and long lasting. Even the things we don’t think about are now starting to rear their heads in the national news like suicides and domestic violence. Tonight on PBS Newshour (BTW, the only news source I have been following for fair and accurate reporting during this crisis) they had on a national expert about domestic violence pleading with people to watch out for you neighbors. It is only one issue we are dealing with.

Here is a very short but important list of what our local government needs to do to assure we can weather the storm, and BTW, screw the lawyers, the city has the legal authority to do this thru executive and legislative powers under the home rule charter. A lot of these things are not at a crisis level yet, but we need to have a plan in place;

• Marshall the Events Center, the Convention Center and Arena for a temporary hospital for NON-emergency and NON-corona virus patients. This will free up our hospitals for critical emergencies and protect those patients from being infected in the regular hospital setting.

• Demand our local food banks and grocers work together to have a safe food distribution system where people who have food insecurity can pull up in the safety of their vehicle to get food by simply opening their trunk and have people give them essentials without person to person contact.

• Free city utilities for the next 3 months if not longer.

• Rental assistance from the general fund in combination with private donations. (the city has around a $60 million dollar surplus, specifically designed to help us in a time of an emergency).

• A sales tax holiday on at least food for the next few months – city and statewide.

• Flood preparedness. Let’s face it, this will come in the middle of this meltdown, and if we are not better prepared this time around it will compound our problems.

• Seek volunteers to assist in anyway possible who are young and healthy to help with this crisis.

• Require public employees (who have job security) to pitch in where they can, manning phones from home, helping with temporary hospitals, checking on the elderly with food and medicine delivery, etc. Do you know there are several public employees who we are paying right now that are not doing anything. This is what we pay taxes for, they need to help us in a crisis. I’m not shaming them, they are only following directives of their managers and elected officials, and their managers need to put them to work – NOW!

• Lead and don’t look back. This is the most important. Don’t worry about the critics (like myself). Put on your big boy pants and make quick, smart, decisive decisions. This is why we elect you, to help us in times of a crisis. It isn’t about ribbon cuttings and new parks, it’s about assisting those who fund this society through our taxes. If it is too much for you, please, step aside and let those willing and capable to do the job. We won’t hold it against you. You can only fail if you choose to do nothing.

Trust me, I am trying to stay positive through this, because I know the sh*t storm hasn’t even begun, and it is going to get much worse before it gets better. But if we have a strong plan of attack, we can come out of this with less scars. I do agree with our president on one point, we can recover, and we can come back from this nightmare, but where I disagree is that it won’t come from wishful thinking and crossing our fingers behind our back. It will happen with a solid plan. If we do all this and we didn’t need to implement some of these plans – GREAT!

Get to work for those of us that are out of work. I’m praying for you, and I don’t need a live streamed pastor to tell me that is also a part of the equation. Blood, sweat and tears solve problems, wringing your hands solves nothing. Let’s make some solid plans and let’s do it NOW!

I’ll leave you with one my favorite songs (I can actually play the harmonica parts). Helping each other will be the key to our survival.