South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Rich Merkouris

Alex Jensen Christine Erickson Count-cilor Alex Jensen Downtown Sioux Falls Elections Erica Beck Former Mayor Former Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut Former Mayor Coors Light & Olives Marshall Selberg Mayor Almost Done Mayor Grump Toad Mayor High Crimes Mayor Hubris Mayor Pants on Fire Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mayor TenHaken Potsdam Mayor Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Mayor Race

Who is running for Mayor of Sioux Falls?

l3wis 3Comments

The guy who runs Dakota Wuss College thinks he knows who is running for mayor. He basically lifted my predictions that I have had since this summer. You are welcome. But Pitty brings up 3 new names that made me laugh so hard I just about passed out. While we know Erickson, Beck, and Huether will probably run, Pitty says that Councilors Jensen, Merkouris and Selberg are also considering. Pitty says they will have trouble raising money, but it’s NOT money they need to worry about, it is their reputations;

• While Alex was city councilor he gutted the internal audit department to one auditor that basically sends emails to an outside firm. This all came about because he couldn’t properly discipline a city council employee for poor attendance and she ran off to the finance department escaping punishment and got a raise from the mayor to boot. If this guy can’t manage ONE employee, he certainly can’t manage a city. If he announces I will probably piss my pants laughing.

• Oh Marshall. This guy ILLEGALLY lived out of his district for a year (verified by one of his friends) and lied on campaign finance forms. He doesn’t belong in the Mayor’s office, he belongs in a jail cell.

• Rich Merkouris has a pretty clean record, but if you dig, just a little, into his past, you will see he isn’t really respected in the clergy community because of past grifting of a church. It’s a long complicated story that happened several years ago, but the wounds are still fresh, and if you ask the right people, you will get the story.

While I think none of these people are dumb enough to run for mayor, they might. And trust me, I have years and years of proof and data on ALL of the candidates and none of it is good. I think Erickson will rise to the top quickly and will be in the runoff, but who is the darkhorse? Huether may run on the great Trump comeback. Which I find funny, he got the same number of votes in 2020 and 2016.

Greg Jamison told me this summer he would likely not run, and it’s not for the reasons you may think. Greg told me he just wants to spend more time with his family and grandkids, and who can blame him?

I told someone recently that I hope a well intentioned rich person runs for mayor with a good record of community engagement and charity and they will run away with the mayorship. Populism is where it is at these days and no one is interested in electing old (corrupt) hats.

I have a feeling our next mayor will be someone no one has heard of.

Affordable Housing Downtown Sioux Falls Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls

What’s going on with our TIFilicious, affordable(?) housing project in North Brandon?

l3wis 1Comments

I was just thinking about this the other day . . . and for me and the good pastor, Sioux Falls City Councilor, Rich Merkouris, to have the same inquisitive thoughts, it was a little eerie.

During the informational Rich asked our housing specialist, Logan Penfield, what was going on with the North Brandon project and Logan responded by saying he wasn’t sure and had to get back to Rich.

Seems a bit odd doesn’t it?

Councilor Merkouris just stepped into the vice chair leadership position a few weeks ago. So now with a few weeks of insider baseball under his belt he seemed to pull this question from the sky . . .

. . . and after doing a long presentation on a housing action plan you would think Mr. Penfield would have the answer to that question on the tip of his tongue. But Mr. Penfield has experience in good old Washington, a place where it is best to ignore the hard questions.

I was thinking about the project because after all the fanfare you would have thought there would have been a ribbon cutting already with dirt moving? Instead a staffer from the administration (who is in charge of projects like this) hands over a big fat I don’t know with a shoulder shrug.

While the administration may think it is Sioux Falls ONE it is more like Sioux Falls IDK.

Paratransit Patrick Starr Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Transit

Sioux Falls City Councilor Merkouris suggests free transit rides

l3wis 6Comments

As I have discussed in the past many cities throughout the US provide FREE public transit. Kansas City introduced it in 2019 to boost the working poor and has found great success. I guess Chapel Hill, NC has been doing it for 20 years.

During the city council meeting last night they approved a resolution;

Item #36, A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE 2022 SIOUX FALLS TRANSIT DEVELOPMENT PLAN.

During discussion before the vote, Rich Merkouris suggested FREE fare for our public transit system. He acknowledged it would be a heavy lift to get the public on board but when we are only collecting $500K a year in fares and spending $7 million a year on the program, what’s the point? Just think with the money we are spending on the 6th Street Bunker Bridge and the DSU research facility we could have had 40 years of FREE fares. Councilor Starr and Merkouris both suggested that the frequency and usage of the transit system needs to improve and experimenting with different approaches, like FREE fares, may get us better results. There was a suggestion that city officials have been sitting on their hands for the past 20 years when it comes to transit. I would disagree. They are not sitting on their hands they are using them to spread their butt cheeks so their heads can easily be placed.

To be honest with you, I think our current public transit system is beyond fixable. I would much rather see the city dismantle the whole system and bring in a new contractor.

Alex Jensen Count-cilor Alex Jensen Curt Soehl Patrick Starr Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council has a leadership problem

l3wis 8Comments

Patrick Lalley of Siouxfallslive.com wrote an interesting article about how the city council doesn’t have any staff advocates, I’m not sure that is the problem;

The council has some research and legislative assistance. They may need more of an ombudsperson who advocates on their behalf.

The city council has three full-time clerks, an operations manager and and legislative person, I am not sure they need more (I have even suggested they cut back to 2 clerks and an operations person).

The problem is council vice-chair Jensen and chair Soehl who were both re-elected by their peers last year to the same positions. Their main responsibility is to be the connection between the mayor’s office and the council, not only negotiating with the administration but informing the rest of the council what is in the pipeline.

In fact we still have gotten NO reason why Shana Nelson left as Audit Manager (she was appointed in a public meeting) and joined the administration as a Housing Compliance Manager (which garnered her a $7,000 raise).

Not only has council leadership failed the council when it comes to transparency but they have failed the constituents also.

I would suggest the rest of the city council hold a special election and appoint Starr as chair and Merkouris as vice-chair and get some adults in those seats.

Downtown Sioux Falls Homeless Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Sioux Falls Homeless Task Force meeting videos are getting more and more delayed

l3wis 4Comments

UPDATE: I was informed this morning that the meeting video will not be available due to the audio missing. Not even sure how that happened?

This is the 3rd time I have requested from Chair Merkouris that the video from the latest task force meeting be posted to YouTube. Considering it is Saturday now, it is highly unlikely we will see the video until Monday. I find it interesting the closer they get to making recommendations the meetings being posted are an afterthought.

Most people can’t make the 4 PM Monday meeting time, and why I have asked for it to be live streamed. I have not won that battle. For reference and someone who is familiar to how videos are posted to YT, it literally only takes a couple of hours to post a video, if that, and usually the computer does all the work with very little interaction from the person uploading the video.

A couple of things so far that has come from the meetings is funding a pilot program for a street teams, funding a Helpline software program (to connect the different services and clients) and possibly upping the funding to the different homeless services.

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