Stehly Report • January 2019
l3wis Available in the SF Shopping News.
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SF City Council
Is the Pavilion going to take over the Orpheum?
There has been a rumor circulating for awhile that Mayor TenHaken had been thinking about changing the leadership of that building. In fact, when I met with him before the election (April) we briefly talked about it and he sent me a text asking if I had any ideas.
But this isn’t the first time the Pavilion wanted to get their claws into the Orpheum, they actually asked during the Munson administration, but the Pavilion’s finances were so bad at the time, the answer from city hall was a resounding Hell No!
I guess over the past couple of days some SMG employees have been gossiping about the fact that they were told that the Pavilion would take over the Orpheum this summer. Not sure about all the details of the transfer of power. But if the rumors are true, it would be no surprise, because Mayor TenHaken himself told me he was looking at a better use for the facility, and this just might be his grand idea.
Sioux Falls City Councilor Janet Brekke on FORUM
Councilor Brekke talks the topics of the day including electric cars and transport. It was also interesting that Janet brought up that communities along the Big Sioux River watershed ALL need to be responsible when it comes to cleaning up our waterways. Tell that to the state and Madison who brought TruShrimp in (due to the lack of strict discharge regulations that Minnesota has). She also brings up that the City Council should be setting the policy for the city, (NOT the mayor’s office).
Slab on Grade Baby!
In one of the more humorous moments during the Q & A portion of the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting about drainage issues in Sioux Falls, the city official stated that the best way to avoid water in your basement when building a new home was to go ‘slab on grade’. In other words ‘NO BASEMENT’. That’s why these guys have engineering degrees I suppose, to give out riveting solutions to difficult problems.
Sioux Falls City Salaries released
The numbers just came out this afternoon, so I have yet to fully review them. But after a quick look I was surprised to see that a lot of the mid-management got around $7,000 raises. I guess what surprises me is that sales taxes only went up about 3.5% from the year before (still waiting on final numbers).
Funny how the building permit numbers and raises come out almost instantly after January 1st, but we are still waiting on sales tax returns.
One surprise that stuck out was the City Clerk’s raise of $7,446. When Tom Greco was hired after retiring from the military, he was put at the top of the pay scale immediately, even though he doesn’t have a city clerk certification. In fact, after promising to get that certification, he still doesn’t have it. I guess I don’t understand that large of a pay raise when he still has to receive certification after 3 years. Also, his two assistant city clerks actually have more tenure, experience and certifications than their boss, go figure.
Here are the past three years of salary records;