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SF City Council

Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls Smoking Ban

Was the fire at the Work Release jail preventable with a simple policy change?

l3wis 0Comments

After talking to a Minnehaha County official yesterday, I’m starting to wonder if the fire at the jail could have been prevented if they were following the city’s policy on tobacco free zones?

There is a presentation on Tuesday about the policy at the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting. I found this slide interesting;

City-owned buildings; Smoking prohibited 25 feet from the entrance.

So even if the jail is county property it does lie within in the city limits of Sioux Falls. So why was this butt holder SO close to the building? Public property IMO is any Public property within the city limits, whether the county owns it or not. Shouldn’t they be following the city’s rule? Or should the county be setting their own rules?

We now know the cause of the fire at the Minnehaha County Correction Center last month. Fire officials say it was accidentally started by a cigarette butt in a holder in the corner of the building.

“It sat, it smoldered for quite a few minutes and then started the fire,” Dean Lanier with Sioux Falls Fire Rescue said.

It also brings up another question. Was this an employee’s butt holder? It seems the location of the holder would suggest that it was. So why doesn’t the county implement a similar policy? It seems like this could be a very expensive lesson to the taxpayers of the county.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Meeting Agenda, Oct 9, 2018

l3wis 0Comments

Informational Meeting – 4 PM

Presentations on 8th Street Bridge Rehab, Tobacco Free policy, and Ambulance contract extension.

Regular Council Meeting – 7 PM

Item #7, 1st reading, I’m not sure what this is. It looks as though they are selling some city property for about $11K.

Item#8, 1st Reading, Seems after Mayor TenHaken defunct the community development department we have $1.8 Million to hand out to affordable housing.

Item #9, Resolution, Street vacation (not sure where this is at).

Item #12, Resolution, appointment of Shawn Pritchett to Finance Director of the City. I don’t know much about Shawn’s record. But he seems to be pretty squeaky clean (compared to Paul’s last appointment). I have noticed a major piling on though of people from the development community in Paul’s administration (Shawn previously worked as COO of Costello). Expect TIFALICIOUS deals in the coming years.

But on a separate note I found out that the city has brought in a young assistant attorney. I guess the new head city attorney brought her in to help with code enforcement issues and other similar lawsuits against the city. Her specialty is Constitutional Law. I heard she is quite sharp, still don’t have a name.

Capital Projects Tour – 1 PM, Thursday October 11

A bus tour the public and media is invited to go on for Capital Improvement Projects.

District 13 Kelly Sullivan Rex Rolfing SF City Council Sioux Falls State Legislature

Rex Rolfing’s Public Service Record; FEW achievements

l3wis 4Comments

He would probably put the bone in his hair if he had any.

Besides making it more expensive to run for a city council seat (pushed for rule to have a majority of the vote to win a council seat)* Rex also successfully gave away valuable city taxpayer land for a veterans cemetery. While I am NOT opposed to a State Veterans Cemetery, I think the taxpayers of Sioux Falls SHOULD be reimbursed for the land either by Feds or State. Sorry, I disagree that this is a ‘tourist attraction’ as some in the state legislature would have us think. It is Memorial Sanctuary. But I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.

*The council is working on over turning that rule, soon.

Besides making things more expensive for Sioux Falls residents, Rex also approved every single tax increase and fee increase that came before him on the council, he also wanted the siding settlement to remain silent, he pushed for the administration building we didn’t need and he orchestrated false allegations of ethics violations against Councilor Stehly after going gavel bananners on her at a informational council meeting.

I guess if you like higher taxes, misogyny, poor temperament and little other action, I say vote for Rolfing for the legislature in District 13.

But I would suggest a better choice, Kelly Sullivan.

SF City Council Sioux Falls TIFs

UPDATE: TIF History Presentation

l3wis 3Comments

FF 1:38:15 – To watch my RANT on TIFs

There will be a presentation at the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting at 4 PM on TIF History in Sioux Falls (DOC: TIF-History-SF )

You will notice that the mention of blighted property or affordable workforce housing isn’t even mentioned anymore (the original reason TIFs were used). Know they are being used for Market Rate housing, retail and even multi-million dollar condos at Washington Square.

While I do understand the increased value AFTER the TIF’s mature, some of them won’t mature for another 10-14 years.

We really need to get back to the original purpose of TIF’s or stop granting them. I think developers do very well in Sioux Falls, which is awesome, we certainly don’t need to subsidize developers with property tax rebates especially when we are talking out bonds for jails, schools and water plants. It’s very fiscally irresponsible for us to be handing out property tax rebates to wealthy developers when we are taking out over a HALF-BILLION in bonds.

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