While it is no surprise this is advancing, there were quite a few surprises last night. I was encouraged by the council’s discussion and the public input. By the look on the mayor’s face last night you could tell he was very uncomfortable discussing this because it is pretty obvious to everyone what this is, a pre-election bribe to city employees negotiated in total darkness.
I don’t disagree with the bonus, I disagree with the process.
I had heard rumors of another doctor running, but apparently it was a pharmacist from Avera;
My name is Jim Burzynski, and I am running for the central district seat for the Sioux Falls City Council. Come on down for a cup of coffee and sign the petition to add me to the ballot. Let’s get a new voice for the core neighborhoods that have been neglected for too long.
I’m glad to see Soehl has at least one challenger, and it looks like he is a professional who has support from the All Saints Neighborhood Association. Ironically, his wife, Dr. Connie Taylor works in the same department as council candidate Dr. Sarah Cole at Avera.
I’m actually surprised the cheese and wine Democrats are putting someone up against Soehl. But on the other hand if you look at Soehl’s lackluster record it shouldn’t be a surprise.
UPDATE: Apparently city employees were told they were getting bonuses 5 weeks ago assuming the comment below is from an anonymous city employee;
You predicted something a week after it was published on the city employee website! Wow, what a clairvoyant!
I have known for awhile that city employees have a secure sharepoint website. Many private employers and other government agencies have this. I also find it ironic that if the city is struggling to find people they only have 22 jobs listed with 17 of them being internships that don’t pay a living wage.
But what I find even more revealing is that the city employees were told 5 weeks ago that they would receive this bonus even though the city council hasn’t approved anything. In fact they could vote down the proposal all together or amend it to find the money in each of the departments budgets.
So how can the Mayor, the Unions, HR, Finance and Legal departments of the city PROMISE city employees a bonus on a taxpayer funded secure website when the policy body and more importantly the public know nothing about it?
Cruise control government corruption at it’s finest. BTW, anon city employee, thanks for the tip.
As you can see in the city council agenda for Tuesday (Item #39) TenHaken plans to give around $2.49 million in a ‘Retention Incentive Pay’ bonuses to city employees. If you do the math that is around $2,000 per employee, which likely excludes management, but I am not sure because the presentation for this program will be done 2 hours before the first reading with NO attached documents.
I know, the secrecy is sooooooooo surprising.
While we could argue back and forth about whether city employees deserve this or not and the (non-existent) metrics, there is a bigger question of timing and where the money is coming from.
The city could have easily used ARPA funds to give a bonus for working through Covid (mostly from home) but they had tennis courts and butterflies to fund with that money. The money is coming from the General Fund;
That the Mayor has certified that there are available for appropriation unassigned fund balances carried forward from prior years or revenues in excess of those estimated in the budget to provide funding to supplement the 2022 budget.
So where did this money come from? Let’s do a brief economics course. In the private sector when you have money left over at the end of the year, that is called a profit from running a successful business by marking up goods and services. In the public sector when you have money left over that means you are NOT fiscally responsible because you are overtaxing the citizens and NOT managing a balanced budget that takes care of all the services and debt. In other words, if the city has over $2 million laying around for operations, what other departments have money leftover? If you look at the city departments and sub departments, the city has a couple dozen.
I have always felt that the city should spend every penny they receive from us from taxes and fees on services and infrastructure back to the citizens, not bribes to the city employees and socialist welfare handouts to the developers, banksters, bondsters and friends of Prince Poops.
Our city employees are well compensated, they have amazing benefits and pensions, not sure why we also need to give them a bonus? Oh and if you look at item #38, they are also getting more vacation time.
Besides dubious funding of this ‘Bonuses for Votes’ plan you have to question the timing and secrecy of planning, only weeks from a city election.
When people challenge me to stop questioning the ethics of our current mayor I say, just look at this proposal. It has nothing to do with keeping city employees, it’s just plain corrupt.
*It will be interesting to see how the media spins this.
SPEAKING OF CORRUPTION, A STORM IS COMING
We learned this week that the Feds and FBI seem to be concerned about some low hanging fruit by entrapping a low ranking officer for sending images of his penis to someone he thought was 12 years old.
But what’s more concerning to me is why the FBI is lurking around Sioux Falls. We have known for a long time that sex trafficking in our state and city is a problem and my speculation is this isn’t about one person.
I will actually defend our police chief and mayor on this issue, and getting ahead of this problem and being very public about the solution will only gain you accolades in the end. Choosing to keep this secret will only blow up in your face.
It has often been confusing to me over the last couple of election cycles sitting councilors have been hosting public fundraisers for challengers to incumbent councilors. I can understand that you may not like the incumbent you serve with and you certainly have a 1st Amendment right to speak publicly about it and even donate money to their opponent. But you do have to question the integrity and ethics of these councilors who will openly HOST a fundraiser that is challenging the incumbent, and using their official titles as councilors on the media promoting the event.
The irony is the incumbent is probably one of the most qualified city councilors we have ever had, working several years in the law offices of city hall. You also have to factor in their dedication towards open government and transparency. But what makes the other councilors (and three of the Mayor’s campaign GOONS, with a sprinkling of bankers, bonders and trusters) support of this candidate puzzling to me is that the incumbent has always been in lock step with the rest of the council on most issues, especially when it comes to development and growth.
So while she may still make it into the rubber stamp club on occasion, I think her questioning of the administration and especially their confused and inept legal counsel, it disqualifies you from the club, so they need a new member; A physician that has ZERO experience when it comes to planning, litigation and long term strategic planning. A perfect fit for the rubber stampers.
UPDATE: I was told that the inputer was just there to complain about the healthcare institutions in general and NOT Covid. I guess she has contacted the council in the past about her struggles.I will say though that you can talk about anything at public input, especially things happening in our city and she was NOT out of line talking to the Mayor and Council about her issue.
Since the Covid scare started, our city leaders and some employees have had the comfort of being able to work remotely. In fact, I don’t think I can find a single council meeting since then that ALL 8 councilors were sitting on the dais at the same time. There has always been at least one absent or on the phone during the meetings.
I actually support this and it goes back to when my good friend and city councilor Kermit Staggers fell ill and they were giving him a hard time about showing up to meetings. In fact they were down right nasty about it.
Kettle meet black.
But I also believe what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I believe that citizens should be allowed to testify on any agenda item or for general public input remotely and shouldn’t have to give a reason why.
Trust me, there would have to be an ordinance written to allow this so it is handled with decorum;
• You would call in advance of what you would be speaking about, state your name to operator, the town of your residence and be told if there is any violation of decorum the chair reserves the right to hang up on you. You would also have to repeat this when you are taken off hold and allowed to speak.
• After your allocated time is done the phone would automatically hang up.
• Since there is a time delay, while you are on hold the meeting would stream in real time and you would be que’d up by the operator.
There are numerous reasons why people may prefer to testify remotely; mobility issues, snowbird, sick, disabilities, public speaking fears, etc.
It really doesn’t matter, if the council can do this whenever convenient for them, the public should be able to also. The state legislature allows it during committee hearings, I also think several other local boards allow it like the SF Parks Board.
PAUL ADMITS AGAIN TONIGHT HE DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS
During public input tonight a nice lady approached the podium during general public input to talk about some issues at the local healthcare industrial complexes. I think she was getting to talking about the hospitals being understaffed due to Covid but was cut off at 3 minutes. After Paul cut her off he told her to take her issue up with them. She asked if the city government was concerned.
No. They are not.
Paul told us he didn’t sign up for this and that’s why the private healthcare providers again today had a press conference that did not include local leaders. Paul can’t be bothered with a pesky virus, he is busy handing out $1 rentals.
l3wis 
