Who Appointed the Sioux Falls 2035 Downtown Committee Members?
I will give you the short answer, Mayor Paul TenHaken (Item #25).
The City Council will vote on a resolution approving the committee and its members. I asked a city councilor if the council was asked by mayor’s office for input. They said they were not asked but not sure about the other council members. I think it is unfair to the council not to have input on at least half of the picks (there are 16 members).
While you go through the list you will notice people on it that have something to do with downtown businesses and organizations. Two of the members even previously worked at DTSF. But two of the members have incredible conflicts of interest with the mayor, Kevin Tupy (Cresten Capital Holdings) and Natalie Eisenberg (CEO of Click Rain).
Natalie’s conflict is obvious since she now runs the company that Paul founded, but Kevin’s is a little more tricky.
Kevin with one of his investment partners, Matt Paulson, threw tons of money at Alex Jensen’s campaign, so he is politically connected to the city using his wealth for influence. He has also been buying up property downtown like a madman so he financially connected to how DTSF is shaped. Ironically Paulson’s director of StartUP Sioux Falls, Brienne Maner, also is an appointee to the committee.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many people on the board who have some financial interest in DTSF, and there is nothing wrong with that. The problem is Tupy’s connections politically and financially that make this appear unethical.
What often frustrates me about Paul’s appointments is he doesn’t really extend out from his inner circle, his youth council showed that, where NO O’Gorman students sit on the council and most are kids of friends of his.
I would hope the council asks why they were not asked to participate and about the conflicts.