Mayor TenHaken

Say good bye to the Brockhouse Collection

City officials are soooooo chickensh!t to tell the public in person they already gave away Lenin’s Tomb of Dusty Monkeys they are telling the public in a webinar;

This is the informational meeting on the future ownership, preservation, relocation, and utilization of the Brockhouse collection.

Representatives from the City of Sioux Falls and the Great Plains Zoo and others will be on hand to answer questions about the next steps for the collection.

If you go to this LINK then to this LINK you will see you can sign up for this meeting ONLY online, so NO public meeting where the public can intervene. This is also a Q & A for interested parties. Don’t make me laugh. The collection has already been chosen to go somewhere, this is a formality to make it look like they are going thru the proper steps.

If the ZOO, it’s board and director, the Mayor and his devious staff, really wanted the best interest of the public on this, this meeting would be in a public forum like Carnegie or the Convention Center, hiding behind your little web cameras doesn’t cut it, but doesn’t surprise me from the spineless individual who had to call in security to defend his po(o)p cooler at city hall.

Since the media rolled over like an old (dead) dog on this matter, don’t expect them to come to your rescue, this collection is as good as gone, as I predicted, because no one will hold our mayor and the person running this city, his COS, accountable. And that folks is sadder then a dead dusty monkey crying arsenic tears.

I do believe the night of the first reading of the ordinance tossing the tomb out of town will be one for the record books. I think I will watch from the SAFETY of my home 🙂

Full of more crap than a Christmas goose

So I was thinking, maybe the solution to our goose problem is shipping them off to Springfield, Ohio? Just keep the residents away from our dog parks. Those folks would have a feeding frenzy. Oh, Donny, the stories you weave.

AND IT CONTINUES TO PILE ON

While a certain dynamic duo in town seems to have the governor on the run with her credit card statements I got a chuckle out of what this news organization(?) had to say about why they are doing it;

COMBATTING SECRECY AND IGNORANCE

That’s rich considering these two hid investor information from the public when applying to be the legal newspaper of Sioux Falls, oh, and got the unethical council and SOS’s office in on your scam. Government SECRECY!? You make me laugh. Also, how do you combat ignorance? Ignorance is the lack of knowledge on any particular topic. So is this paper going to make the public more aware of the corruption in Pierre with their 4,000 subscriptions? I’m dying! Hopefully you will figure out what hair and nail salons Noem has been visiting these days. The public is DYING to know, just don’t give them the info in a gravel pit.

SPECIAL CONTRACTS FOR SPECIAL PEEPS

Well it was like Christmas for certain ad agencies in town last Tuesday at the City Council meeting;

Councilor Ryan Spellerberg brought two separate amendments Tuesday night – both of which passed unanimously and with minimal council discussion. One allocated $150,000 for a marketing campaign to encourage the public to donate to charities rather than to panhandlers.

Yes Kids, instead of actually taking REAL capital and spending it on bus tickets to help get these folks home or a street outreach program that picks these folks up at night we are giving the money to well connected ad agencies to tell us to NOT give to these folks. Talk about government ignorance!

With the recent closure of the Sioux City warming shelter we are in deep doo doo this winter. Instead of finding ways to ignore these folks, maybe come up with a plan for this winter, like NOW! I hate to say it, but I have a feeling we are going to be reading about a lot of homeless tragedies this winter.

I heard next week the council is going to fund a marketing campaign called, “Nothing to see here, move along.” it will be for discouraging folks to come to public input and public meetings.

SPEAKING OF DEAD GEESE

Not sure this ties in, but I don’t care. The city wants to see the entire Delbridge Collection sold as a group. Like I said, could care less about a bunch of dusty monkeys in Lenin’s Tomb, but there is some historic and scientific value to the collection and we should save it. I think we are missing a massive opportunity here to build a very unique exhibit, but instead we have to make sure the Mayor and his friends make money building a convention center we don’t need. SHINY BALL, MUST TOUCH!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I’m not the only one getting tired of the lack of answers from the Sioux Falls Police Department

This is a common thing I hear from residents all over Sioux Falls, not just lower income neighborhoods;

Sandy thinks more should and could be done.

“As a recent transplant to South Dakota from Nebraska, I’m deeply disappointed by the apparent lack of initiative from local law enforcement in addressing the issues plaguing this area. Listening to police briefings only raises more concerns. Every response seems to be, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’ll have to look into that.’ I’m tired of the vague answers. I want clear solutions and a solid plan of action. Enough is enough. It’s time for real accountability and results. Sioux Falls deserves better.”

I warned several councilors and the media that once those scanners go silent all pertinent and relative information coming from the SFPD will end. Trust me, it wasn’t that great before the scanners went silent, but it is 10x worse now. Take Dunham Park incident for instance referenced in the above article. The next day at the briefing the police seemed to know very little, which seemed odd to me because every place I went to someone had a different version of the story.

This is the OTHER problem with closed government. If you don’t tell the public what is going on they will make up their own version of the story. Years ago when the directors didn’t run away from me like I was on fire, one walked up to me after a meeting quite irate and says, “That post you did today about the zoning issue was completely off base and wrong.” I said, “Oh, okay, I can update and correct it. Can you give me the proper information and documentation?” They just grunted and walked away.

Disinformation is worse then NO information. Rumors and gossip gets circulated because you can’t be honest with the public. And it is just NOT the SFPD it is most city departments being led by a militant closed government administration that WORKS at keeping information from the public.

The best way to solve a crime is to get everyone on board with the investigation. Tell us what you know and whey you know it. You never know, a random ‘Sandy’ might just help you solve your crimes. Common sense Chief Thum, Common F’ing sense!

I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Kirby

Joe did a great blog post today about the charter. While I disagree with some of his premises and anecdotes he is right about ONE thing;

City government would be improved if we established a better separation of powers while at the same time, strengthening the role of our legislature. Here are some changes I think are worth considering in the charter and/or the way city government operates.

  1. Take the next mayor off the city council to establish better separation of powers.

I think this would FORCE the council to do policy because they would be running their own meetings and agendas. This doesn’t mean the mayor could not still present policy but he would have to get at least ONE sponsor on the council and if it really is HIS policy and not something a department head cooked up, he needs to come to the council and present.

I think the charter has worked well also, but the biggest problem is the laziness of the councils since and the corruption at city hall. This of course spells incompetence.

Some rules and regs really do work, but you must apply them, this city has NOT when it comes to policy and our legislative branch.

UPDATE: The Riverline ‘RATS’ are looking for a place to hide

UPDATE: I got word today from a very dependable source that the convention center is a ‘DONE DEAL’ when you talk to the business and banking community. They already have the chess pieces in place to make it happen, with or without the public’s approval. They also are lobbying the legislature right now to do a 3rd penny sales tax to pay for it, but they need their approval first. They are suggesting a ‘sunset’ clause, which never happens. Remember the Pavilion, you know the private non-profit that taxpayers fund in the millions each year even though they have over $14 million in their reserves. The entertainment tax was supposed to sunset after the bonds were paid off. I think that happened about a decade ago, still exists. Don’t be fooled by these grifters. This is a way for the bonding companies to make lots of money off of the backs of taxpayers. Most of the jobs will be hospitality, low wage, part-time with no benefits. Have you ever met a full-time bartender with the Pavilion, Denty, Orpheum, Bird Cage, etc.? NOPE. Because the jobs that will be provided by this convention center won’t make a dent in our brain drain problem. I agree there will be a massive economic impact from the new convention center, it will bankrupt our city.

The council seems to be a little butt hurt over the fact that they haven’t seen an appraisal OR a purchase agreement for the Riverline District, you know, the plot of land some douchey investors want us taxpayers to buy with cheeseburger taxes (entertainment). The problem is the council hasn’t seen a purchase agreement yet, and likely won’t until it if dropped in front of their faces at the last minute. And will the public get to see these documents?

I have concerns, but based on rumors I hear from realtors, at this point it is just pure speculation, but I have expressed privately to current and past city councilors that I have concerns about the purchase agreement due to potential conflicts of interest. It is NO secret that some who sit on that dais have spouses, business associates and other friends who pose major conflicts of interest. It will be interesting to see whose name(s) appears on that document, or will we see a lot of sharpie blackouts? This town gets more corrupt by the second.