The difference between County & City budget hearings

by

The only thing on the Sioux Falls city council agenda this Tuesday is the joint budget hearings with Minnehaha county.

I was astonished by the 42 page budget presentation from Siouxland Museums. (Full DOC:  SX-Museum-budget-2018) Their total yearly budget is about $1.1 million!

What surprised me was with such a small budget the amount of detail in the presentation. They even figured out that each catalogued item in the collection cost taxpayers about $1.58 a year.

Why can’t the city present such detailed presentations to the public? I know that the council is probably privy to the big book, but why can’t we dig deeper? It often troubles me when councilors ask department heads questions about the budget at the meetings and they don’t have answers. Do they even read their own budgets? Do they know what’s in them? Could the director of Central Services tell us what the city pays for a roll of toilet paper?

Another reason the council should be involved with the budget process from the beginning and not at the end.

It really comes down to pinching pennies. While the county has to go through their budget with a fine tooth comb, the city is awash in so much money it seems they don’t care about the ‘little things’ like spending over $400 per episode of the mayor’s ‘Shut Up and Listen’ sessions.

I have often said the next mayor needs to be a fiscal hawk on day one and take a microscope and scalpel to the current budget on day one. That really should be the main job of the mayor besides employee management.

I’m a little weary that a motorcycle salesman could really look at those finer details.

Republican Leaders in SD continue to grasp at straws about the evil weed

by

Doesn’t matter how many FACTS you throw at Republican leaders in our state about the benefits of eliminating the prohibition of marijuana, they continue to grasp at any made up crap they can to call out on the evil weed.

Mayoral candidate and all around Shaggy double, David Zokaites did a presentation about drug prohibition and especially the worthless nature of prohibiting marijuana at public input during the Minnehaha county commission meeting this week AND the same presentation at the city council meeting.

At the end of the meeting during open discussion (FF: 1:14) Commissioner Jeff Barth said that the county and state should start the conversation now in case marijuana gets legalized in our state next year (which he thinks it will) when it comes to taxation, zoning, etc. He thought we were blindsided by Marsy’s Law and should be better prepared with marijuana legalization.

Bob Litz who happened to be standing at the podium talked about an upcoming speaker at a conference who is a sheriff from Colorado, who will speak about the effects of legalization in his state.

Of course, the commission’s Neo-Con, since Dick left, Cindy Heiberger had to weigh in. She said while David pointed out that NO one died from marijuana usage, she had to point out that it causes ‘social issues’.

I would partially agree, because people are tired of being arrested and prosecuted over a harmless drug, and the ‘issues’ it is causing in their lives.

It is time Minnehaha County Commission has its meetings at night

by

Don’t think they have not tried. Commissioners Barth and Kelly made an attempt to change the meetings to 5 PM a few years ago. The vote failed 2-3. My suggestion would be a 5:30 or 6 PM meeting on Monday nights.

The reason? Well there are several. For one, the working class of this county could attend the meetings. One complaint I hear from several people is that no one knows what the county is up to. If you watch the meetings in replay (which usually takes 2 days to post to YouTube) like I do, the County makes some pretty serious decisions when it comes to how your property taxes are spent and criminal justice. While the city is the road builder of the city, the county is really the caretaker.

So why the opposition? I could use the ‘Republican’ excuse and their desire to keep government as closed as possible, but that excuse doesn’t hold much water since Uber Republican Kelly supported the night meetings. But I do think there is a strong desire by leadership on the county to keep the meetings during the day when the public struggles to attend.

I think they should take another shot at it.