Public Works

UPDATE: What Happens Next with the 6th Street Bunker Bridge?

l3wis January 28, 2023 18Comments

UPDATE: Shelby Foote concluded that most historians are “so concerned with finding out what happened that they make the enormous mistake of equating facts with truth…you can’t get the truth from facts. The truth is the way you feel about it”

Not sure what is so ‘exclusive’ about the only daily paper in Sioux Falls interviewing the only mayor of Sioux Falls, but it makes for good fluff and puff and drama;

In an exclusive interview with the Argus Leader this week, Mayor Paul TenHaken said he firmly believed the bridge project was a crucial infrastructure project, but he added he’s actively listened to the complaints from the council.

“Is there some things I would like my team and myself to do differently on the communication of this?” TenHaken asked. “Absolutely.”

Sorry Paul, you have had almost 5 years to figure out how to communicate to the public and council, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, you never will.

As to the incorrect language on the meeting agenda, which an assistant city attorney has already called “unfortunate,” TenHaken agreed.

“I would chalk that up … that was an oversight,” he said. “That was a mistake, and we’ll own that.”

There are small legal language mistakes the administration has made numerous times, which probably has cost taxpayers but this ‘mistake’ is costing taxpayers $10 million dollars! Sure the bridge has to be fixed, and we have plenty of money in the reserves to do it, but it is the fiscal responsibility of city employees, the mayor’s office and the city council to get the best bang for the buck. If we saved $10 million on this project we could spend that money on other infrastructure projects. The timing is also questionable. I would think it would be way more convenient to do this project next year after the Cherapa and Sioux Steel projects are completed so the contractor doesn’t have to play whack a mole to find staging space. It could also be broken up into smaller bids. This could be negotiated better.

But he also raised concerns about how such fights could hurt the Sioux Falls, adding “when we make these smaller issues such big issues on a public stage,” it can lessen the interest of some to work with the city.

BULLSH!T!

Government’s job isn’t about making contractors and developers happy, it is about making taxpayers happy and giving them goods and services in an honest and truthful manner while being aware of the fiscal responsibility.

Throwing our hands in the air and saying ‘oh well’ doesn’t cut it, this was a failure of local government on many levels. The Mayor’s number one priority is to be the city administrator responsible for directing the different departments to do their job right. Either this was gross incompetence by all involved or this was collusion. Either would be hard to prove in an ‘exclusive’ interview with the mayor, but public ethics hearings on all those involved would go a long way. We have learned nothing from our brief history of cost overruns and hidden agendas on projects like the Denty, MAC, City Admin, Pavilion and the infamous Bunker Ramp which should have prepared us for how to handle this.

You know what they say, “Developers run this town”.

The Sioux Falls City Council plans to meet Monday February 5th. They are meeting early due to Municipal Day in Pierre on the 6th.

At least one Councilor, Sarah Cole, has expressed to the media that she may vote to reconsider at the next meeting. She is allowed to do so since she was in the affirmative when it it passed. Any councilor may 2nd the motion (which I am sure Neitzert or Starr would). The problem is ‘do they have the votes’. I don’t think they do. They would have to get Merkouris and Barranco to also vote for it to attain the 5 votes to avoid a tie-breaker. TenHaken would likely vote against the bid denial.

What makes this more interesting is how councilors were mislead and even lied to about the urgency of the project. Even if the council swallows this (I strongly urge them NOT to) they could easily file ethics complaints towards the mayor, city attorney, finance director and public works director and any employees under them that participated in this hoodwink. It would likely require a councilor(s) to file the complaint.

Let’s have a public ethics hearing and find out what happened?

All that aside and the $21 million dollar bridge that we are getting whether we like it or not (reminds you of a certain parking ramp) many engineers have reached out to me, councilors and other reporters, and when we all match up notes, we are wondering how the winning bidder was allowed to submit ONE bid for the entire project when they were required to get at least 3 bids from subcontractors (SOP)? Enquiring engineers would like to know.

Sioux Falls City Council expresses their displeasure with being the administration’s doormat

l3wis January 24, 2023 11Comments

For clarity NO councilor today at the 4PM special meeting used the term ‘doormat’ but they really didn’t have to. After being hoodwinked into believing they could take another stab at the bid today they realized the mayor’s office, the city attorney’s office and finance office used the wrong language last Tuesday on the agenda item which an assistant city attorney admitted to at today’s meeting after Councilor Cole questioned the language (Councilors Cole, Neitzert and Starr all voted against the $3 million supplement).

Let’s admit it, the bridge is a POS and needs to be replaced, it will also cost more then projected, I think everyone can accept that. What cannot be accepted is the way this was ramrodded through with little transparency OR respect for councilors. Four councilors touched on this;

Councilor Neitzert, clearly disgusted with the process, pointed out that he felt that the administration was disrespecting the council’s duties (he puts it much more eloquently) when it comes to how they were treated in this process and they should work as a team on this stuff;

“The city council should not tolerate an enormously expensive and important decision being dropped on us at the last minute, giving us no opportunity to do due diligence and no option to defer or delay it,” Neitzert said. “We shouldn’t tolerate being put into a corner with no options and we imposed no consequences for that behavior. In fact, we rewarded it. So don’t be surprised when it happens again.”

Councilor Cole expressed that she didn’t think it was fair to be mislead with incorrect agenda language at last week’s meeting.

Councilor Merkouris felt that the council (the legislative policy body) should put some safeguards and ordinances together over the next 30 days to prevent this from happening in the future (he looked pretty green while talking about this).

Councilor Starr reminded Merkouris that this kind of policy takeover has been going on since the new charter was put in place and that tweaks to policy ordinances hasn’t really remedied the problem that has only gotten worse since each administration has figured out how to sidestep the council. Pat basically said that the council needs to assert themselves more to become the policy body they are intended to be (it takes ACTION not talk);

“Power doesn’t exist in a vacuum,” said councilor Pat Starr, who joined Neitzert in voting no to accept the bid. “They take over our policy making process when we don’t do our job. That’s what happened in this case and it happens all the time. It will happen again because until we stand up and do our job, and not doing the work that we should, and telling the administration where we want the city to go in making that policy and until we do that they are going to continue to make policy.”

According to Charter the roles of the council and mayor are pretty freaking clear;

Section 2.01 General powers and duties.

All powers of the city shall be vested in the city council, except as otherwise provided by law or this charter, and the council shall provide for the exercise thereof and for the performance of all duties and obligations imposed on the city by law. The council shall act as a part-time, policy making and legislative body, avoiding management and administrative issues.

Section 3.03 Mayor’s duties and responsibility.

The mayor shall, at the beginning of each calendar year, and may at other times give the council information as to the affairs of the city and recommend measures considered necessary and desirable. The mayor shall preside at meetings of the council, represent the city in intergovernmental relationships, appoint with the advice and consent of the council the members of the citizen advisory boards and commissions, present an annual state of the city message, and perform other duties specified by the council and by article III. The mayor shall be recognized as head of the city government for all ceremonial purposes and by the governor for purposes of military law.

I encouraged the city council during public input to vote to reconsider at the next February meeting since it was NOT of their fruition, and if the contractor wants to sue, that is on the administration and NOT on them for being mislead. It seems at least one councilor, Cole, intends to do that;

To formally reconsider an action of the council, a member on the prevailing side of the vote must make that motion during the same meeting or at the next regularly scheduled meeting of the governing body, according to city ordinance. But because Tuesday’s meeting was not a regular meeting, Sioux Falls City Attorney Stacy Kooistra said the soonest that could occur would be at the Feb. 6 meeting.

Cole told The Dakota Scout Tuesday evening she intends to do just that.

“There just wasn’t enough time ahead of the vote,” she said.

As always, when government is transparent and thorough, it saves taxpayers money. When it is chocked full of typos in the legal documents (either intentional or not) you get this turd blossom; Bunker Bridge.