Pat will be the guest on KSOO AM 1000 today.
While we still have a city election going on this Tuesday, that doesn’t mean the council still hasn’t been discussing the future of leadership.
Obviously a major lynchpin will be the contest between DeBoer and Soehl in the central district, which I predict will be a close race. So close that I don’t think it will be decided on Tuesday because they may have to wait for absentees to return from the snowbirds because our current (Uncertified) City Clerk doesn’t know how to order printing in a timely manner. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
There are some obvious appointments;
Greg Neitzert will probably become chair of the Audit Committee, replacing Rex. He has wide support on the council for this position.
Erickson will probably roll into the Council Chair position with little to no opposition (she currently serves as Vice-Chair).
But where it might get sticky is the vice-chair position. As far as I know, Starr is the only one who has had interest in it. Stehly has expressed she is too busy in her personal business to be chair or vice-chair, and with Greg wanting the Audit chair position, he cannot serve in either of those positions, so it leaves Pat. New councilors tend to NOT get these appointments, and with councilor Selberg consistently sitting in the background, I can’t imagine he would be suited for the position or even want it.
Though council positions tend to be non-partisan, it will be really fun to watch a conservative Republican chair and progressive Democratic vice-chair serve together. Can’t wait to see the sausage this will produce.
FF: 2:19
Let’s say you are a city councilor and a deadly accident occurred in one of our city parks. Similar accidents have occurred over the years. Let’s also say that the public would like the issue looked into. As a representative of the citizens, wouldn’t you look into it? I would hope so. That is exactly what councilors Starr and Stehly have been trying to do. Than you find out that a safety audit never happened, it was actually a ‘training exercise’. Wouldn’t you be concerned about the information you were receiving? So Starr and Stehly asked for the information through a resolution. IMO, a last resort. When cooperation from staff was NOT helpful, they went to the media and my blog, sharing an OPINION of the city attorney. This IS NOT confidential information. It is simply an opinion of a city staffer who wages are paid for by the public, which makes it ‘public information’.
Some think that councilors Stehly and Starr do these kind of things to boost their egos. Maybe they do, I could care less. I really see their main objective is to get information to the public which should be one of their top duties as a city councilor. I really think Starr and Stehly understand that concept, that duty, and do whatever they need to, to attain that objective. They should be applauded for it. And that really is the irony of the ass chewing they received from the 6 other councilors. I think the public does appreciate Starr and Stehly, and when other councilors choose to publicly chastise her and Pat for doing their jobs, it only emboldens them and makes them even more popular with the citizens.
I recently spoke with 3 different council candidates on 3 separate occasions. Of the hundreds of doors they have knocked on collectively all 3 of them told me the #1 issue citizens bring up is transparency and secrecy in local government. Citizens are not naïve, they get it, this secrecy is corroding our local government. The secret siding settlement, the Copper Lounge Collapse and the approval of the DT Parking ramp has infuriated the public. They see the corruption and it is VERY real.
The other thing that was sad about the incident (Item#77, last agenda item Tuesday Night) was this seemed like an orchestrated effort by the 6 other councilors either thru a series of phone calls or emails to attack a fellow peer. One other thing that makes this hypocritical of them is while they cry about respect and decorum from the citizens who pay their wages who speak at public input, they throw any ounce of decorum out the window with this very public attack. I guess you could say ‘leading by example’.
I applaud Stehly for what she said in response to the attack, “I will not collaborate with corruption.†She also said she was elected to represent the citizens, not the administration or different department heads.
And the hits keep coming.
Mike Huether’s administration decided to take the ‘passive agressive’ approach when throwing a fellow elected official under the bus;
Recent comments made to a local news organization regarding Sioux Falls Fire Rescue and the Sioux Falls emergency medical services (EMS) system are a disservice to the residents and visitors of our city. When it comes to medical emergencies, our community is in safe hands.
What were the comments and who made them? Your press release doesn’t mean anything unless you tell us these important details. Maybe Mike’s communication director needs to go to ‘Writing a Press Release 101’ class.
Oh, and it gets better;
Sioux Falls Fire Rescue is exploring the potential to utilize paramedics, currently employed within their department, to be advanced life support responders during specialty incidents. Specialty incidents include events like water rescues, structural collapses, and SWAT responses. The addition of this response capability will have no impact on the City’s contract for surface ambulance service.
It will in fact have a HUGE impact. First off, we will be subsidizing our private for-profit ambulance service more AND we will finally be allowing 1st responders from our SFFD to perform advanced life support instead of waiting for a phantom ambulance to show up.
It’s time to move forward with a public ambulance service and stop the games.
Sure, we can discuss the minute details about how Pat handled this (did he walk out at the right time? Was it professional? etc., etc.) but when you look at the BIG PICTURE something I reminded the council to do when looking at the parking ramp project to begin with, I think Pat walking out was the right thing to do, especially since he had no other options. The Mayor and Kiley already said there would be no more input, could Pat really have gotten the rest of the council to overturn it? Probably not.
As Tim Stanga brought up during the meeting (and Belfrage discussed it on his show today) the council’s minds were already made up before the meeting even started.
What was disappointing the most about the input about the ramp itself was the fact that we heard NO testimony from the developers, we also had NO testimony from the city’s legal counsel about the liability of Hultgren and Drake.
It was obvious that the mayor wanted to bury the hatchet as quick as possible, it was obvious when he was acting like a restless child when Stehly brought forward amendments.
But what is more troubling is that Kiley and Huether reaction to Starr’s statement that he is the one being ‘unprofessional’. The entire council and mayor BESIDES Starr acted like complete children throughout the meeting, as I have pointed out earlier. I don’t blame Starr for not wanting to be a part of it. I also applaud him that his name will not appear on any of the documents or votes on the project (that I think will never happen due to lawsuits, lack of investors, bankruptcy OR all of the above – remember, the developers have already said they have no investors yet, or a hotel franchise).
Huether and Kiley were acting like jackasses when it comes to public input, as they normally do, and they finally got called out on it. If anyone should be embarrassed it should be them. Honestly Starr looks like a Star in this manner.