SF City Council
UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor Janet Brekke on Inside Town Hall
Janet’s video has been removed from the city’s YouTube channel. Not sure why. But we saved it on our channel;
Ax throwing and alcohol; seems like a GOOD idea
In my haste on Friday I forgot to mention council agenda items 19 & 20. Applications for Wine & Beer licenses for ESCAPE 605 at their new Downtown location in the old Ming Wah space.
They want to have an ‘Ax throwing’ range in the bar. Nope, I didn’t stutter.
So this ought to be an interesting discussion with the council. They refused a beer license to West Mall 7 because they feared it would be too easy for minors to sip on some Bud Lights so what would be the harm in people drinking and throwing axes?
I can’t wait to hear the debate.
Speaking of crazy ideas, besides the god awful white brick paneling that the new Pave rooftop lounge has installed (after getting an historic façade easement) they decided that these nice plastic white trees were a nice touch to our historic downtown. How do these things get past our planning department?
Sioux Falls City Councilor Kiley is misguided by a supposed ‘rebranding’ effort
During last Tuesday’s council meeting (1:29:50) councilor Kiley seemed concerned that the new flag would interfere with ‘other organizations’ attempts to ‘rebrand’ the city. He went on to say that he was at a Chamber Mixer and asked if the Chamber’s ‘ISSUES’ committee (whatever that is) took on the rebranding issue, and said that they didn’t have any plans to rebrand. As I understand it, the conversation the Chamber had was they were NOT going to rebrand the city, but wished that the city had more consistency in their identity (Logo). But the Chamber is NOT involved at this point from what I understand.
So where did this rumor come from? Ironically, it seems I am the only one who has brought this up publicly.
My suggestion would be that the city DOES pursue a new identity, but instead of hiring an expensive consultant or ad agency, my suggestion would be to have a city wide competition to rebrand the city. And once the winner is picked we hire the proper legal counsel to clean it up and make it official. After that, my only suggestion would be that the city re-letter all of the city vehicles ASAP (we have our own sign/vinyl shop) and change all the appropriate stationery and city signage.
Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, July 17, 2018
Mike Cooper will do a presentation about ‘WHAT’ the Planning Department does. Let me simplify it for you . . . wait for Sanford or Lloyd Companies to call.
We will get a presentation on what is going in at the RR redevelopment area. Just for the record, I do know that it will NOT be a Dave & Busters.
Regular Council Meeting – 7 PM
Item #1, Approval of Contracts,
Even though we may be running the city on fumes, we seem to have plenty of money to move a head with Phase III of the River Greenway project.
Apparently Stone Group Architects buy the old Fire Station from us, than we give them $54,000 back for a façade. What a deal!
We are replacing a Water Main at Great Bear and it is coming out of the Parks budget? Huh? I thought water pipe replacement is supposed to come out of the enterprise funds? It just goes to show that we can take money out of the CIP for the Water treatment expansion if we want to and NOT raise water rates.
We need to hire a private attorney at $10K to tell us how to fill out a purchase agreement.
We are building a bunch of (un)affordable houses that we will never make our money back on.
Item #2, Change orders, apparently we need another $62K for the Brown bear exhibit.
Item #27, 2nd Reading, Lifescape requesting to tear down affordable housing to build more parking WITHOUT a feasibility study finished. This will be an interesting one to watch. Our ramrod, pass the flaming football planning commission pushed this off to the council.
Item #28/42, 2nd Reading, Funding for USD Discovery Center and Falls Park platforms. I expect some debate on this item. Councilors Stehly and Starr have requested an actual study before moving forward with capital expenses.
Item #29, 2nd Reading, Paramedics Plus gets their automatic fee rate increases, including $21 a mile fuel charge. Not sure who they are getting their fuel from, but that’s steep.
Item #43, Resolution, Gifting some junk signs to the Stockyard experience folks.
Item #47, Resolution, Insurance coverage agreement amendment with Levitt. Not sure what this means, “Liquor liability insurance”, but apparently we will be able to get our drink on at the events. Woot! Woot!
Item #48, Resolution, Appointment to Boards, I see the most wonderful, Sandra Callies is getting appointed to the Visual Arts Commission. Woot! Woot! Woot!
Item #50-51, Motion to approve travel for either 3 OR 4 Councilors to the National League of Cities. I guess they have to debate on how many people get to go. Silly. I have often felt that councilors attending these conferences is much more valuable than hiring consultants. They bring back great ideas from other cities to help form legislation. We pay consultants to tell us what we want to hear.