Public Input, Minnehaha CC meeting, 11/12/14
l3wis [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Z-gyu9cEA[/youtube]
Minnehaha County
When is Minnehaha County Commission & SF City Council gonna work together
Prime examples in the past, McGovern School flagpole rezone, election precincts, law enforcement and jails, etc. Now the city picks a different ambulance provider;
The city’s selection could jeopardize a recently renewed arrangement between Minnehaha County and Rural Metro to provide ambulance service in unincorporated areas around Sioux Falls.
Commissioners said last month that the contract might fall through if Rural Metro lost its contract to serve Sioux Falls.
Rural Metro Division General Manager Mike Stuhr said they were disappointed by the news and that they’re evaluating what to do with its Minnehaha County contract.
While I am not going to question the city’s selection OR the county’s selection, I wonder why they couldn’t come to an agreement together. Now the county has to revisit the situation. I’m not sure why the city continually has to poke the county in the eye. It’s time to get over it. What the city doesn’t realize, when you constantly screw with the county, it costs US money, the very people who pay taxes to both entities. Yes the ambulance providers don’t charge tax payers, but there are other costs involved.
This tit for tat is getting really old.
Minnehaha County just finishes counting votes
That was at about 9:15 AM. How sad is it that the County buys brand new vote tabulation machines that cost $100K each and they just finish counting. I guess the problem was that the new machines wouldn’t count ballots that had comments or spills on them, it would spit them out. There was a ton of votes that had to go through the resolution board. But hey, does it matter, the National Press called the election at 8 PM last night.
As I assumed it was a clean sweep for the Republicans, the Dems in this state really need to get their poop in a group.
Their was some positives though. The Dems had a great victory with the Minimum Wage increase, and I will give Zach Crago credit on that, it’s just too bad he failed on party work.
Some other people had awesome victories last night.
Jeff Barth, Joni Cutler, John Pekas, Karen Soli all won.
I told Rick Weiland last night he ran the best campaign I have ever seen in years. You could tell that Rick was very proud of his campaign, and even if he lost, he should not have any regrets. None.
Now we will wait for our NEW senator to be indicted. Wanna make any bets on how long the Feds will wait?
Tony Bartholomaus for Minnehaha County Auditor
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZLDfYKU1w[/youtube]
Why doesn’t the city just cut Minnehaha County a check?
This has been in my craw for awhile, as you may know.
The county wants more money from the state in alcohol taxes.
The mayor wants the county to have the power to raise sales taxes.
While I do agree with the county getting more alcohol taxes, I don’t agree with the sales tax increase.
My solution all along has been, “Why not just cut a check to the county from the city?”
Local historian and all around clock repairman spoke at the council’s public testimony, former county commissioner Bob Kolbe talked about county expenditures (and ribbed county commissioner Dick Kelly, which was well deserved), he also talked about sharing revenues.
So I cornered Bob after the meeting. I asked him, “What is preventing the city from cutting the county a check each year, for let’s say 20-30 million dollars a year, for law enforcement and prosecutions? Is it against state law for the city to give the county money?” He felt it was not.
The irony of this is while the city spends a shit ton of money on attorneys employed by them to go after people criminally with fencing in their yards, the State’s attorney is begging for money to help prosecute REAL criminals, you know, rapists, murderers, thieves.
If this mayor and city council had any backbone, conscience, or even an inkling of community spirit, they would budget a supplement to the county budget each year for crime and prevention.
But hey, we got ‘toys’ to build, and putting a rapist away isn’t as fun as playing indoor tennis on a January afternoon.