This is in the consent agenda of the SF City Council on Tuesday Night
I can’t believe it has been 4 years since Augie put out their study. Once the study is completed in 2021 I have no doubt that the actual numbers of people needing housing will have gone up, but I also believe the percentages will have gone up also. I still don’t know what our community has done in the past 4 years that encouraged more and better affordable housing. I may be proven wrong, but I don’t think this report is going to be any rosier. Now, I don’t want to get all negative nancy about it. There are sectors of our community that or doing well, but like the last study pointed out, there is a significant wealth gap, and I think it will be even wider.
There is something else I am going to call the ‘Amazon’ factor. I have NO doubt that they will have to draw in workers not only from the region but from across the country to get enough. Some have been curious why our local elected officials haven’t been standing on soap boxes bragging about it. I will tell you why, because they know about the low wages Amazon pays and what kind of worker this will attract. Hard to brag about bringing business to Sioux Falls when that business pays the same as fast food. I actually believe that bringing Amazon here will create more social ills for our community. I don’t think our local or state officials had a choice in the matter, let’s face it, it’s Amazon, they will do what they want to. There was no carrot on the end of a stick leading them here, it was logistics.
I am also curious if the city is the only entity funding this study? Any non-profits? The counties? The school district?
Madeline Shields asks a pretty basic question, “People are always intimidated about running for public office . . . what is it that you hope to learn more about?”
Jensen’s answer, “The legislature compared to the city council are two very, very different things.”
Well, they are not. But we will get to that in moment.
Ironically Jensen ran on his ‘legislative experience.’ He told voters that as many times as he could. Also, the city council is the ‘legislative body’ they are the ones that (should) be making the ordinances, creating the yearly budget, etc. That duty has been robbed by the Mayor’s office (starting with Munson) and has gotten progressively worse. In fact, by charter (which I’m sure Jensen has never read) the city council specific duties is legislating, while the mayor’s duties are running the city as the city manager. By not legislating on the city council, you are effectively derelict in your duties.
Somebody asked me once if the council is not legislating, what are they doing? Well besides approving some beer licenses, they show up every Tuesday to Rubberstamp the Mayor’s agenda and Mayor’s budget while raising taxes and fees on the rest of us and handing out goodies to the banksters, contractors and welfare queen developers in town. That’s not legislating, that’s rewarding the folks who fund your campaigns. Don’t believe me, it cost Jensen $117,000.000 to beat Stehly by less than a 100 votes. Do you think this money came from his pocket? I can almost guarantee you that 99.9999% of city voters have NEVER given a penny to a council or mayoral race. So where does this money come from? The people who show up every week to rob the cookie jar, and after Tuesday’s meeting, they will now be at the front of the line.
Jensen is right, the council isn’t a legislative body anymore and they should be brought up on ethics violations for not following their duties as prescribed by the charter. Folks, that may just happen. As John Lee Hooker said in a song once, “Pot’s on, gas on high, we are cooking.” The council isn’t going to like what’s for dinner when we are done.
It used to be when you saw the agenda on Friday afternoon before the Tuesday informational meeting you could click on agenda items and have linked documents so you could see what was being discussed. Mayor Bucktooth and Bowlcut moved away from this, and our current jellyfish, transparency hater Mayor Stoneless won’t even give us a hint until a couple of minutes before the meeting starts.
Either way, these two items have me curious;
• Update on Downtown Development, AND
• Land Use Ordinance Updates
My guess is we will hear some watered down B.S. about the Sioux Steel project, but I’m not sure what the land use ordinances are about, but I am guessing they are going to make it easier for developers to side skirt neighbors concerns, or give less rights to neighbors, or both. I honestly don’t know. But I think presenting these two items on the day of the most important election in our lifetime has me a bit concerned they don’t want a huge audience. The steamrolling is coming folks, and it is not going to be pretty, and will mostly be done in the dark.
Basically Mr. Cunningham is filing a writ of certiorari because he was NOT allowed to present evidence during the hearing is asking for a new one. If you read the linked PDF above you will see that John cites city ordinance that says he should have been allowed to present evidence with his legal counsel, he was not. He is saying the council performed an illegal hearing, and in my humble opinion, I agree;
It gets better though, because in the city’s consent agenda on Tuesday night they are hiring private counsel for this;
UPDATE: As you can see the council and mayor are moving forward with their plans (Items #40-41) on a night when most people will be paying attention to the election. The items are also misleading because in the titles it says NOTHING about moving public input or meeting time moving. Only if you read the red notes you will see the changes.
This change could also be construed as unconstitutional in the public input ordinance;
Notice that currently public input at the beginning of the meetings doesn’t allow you to comment on pending business coming up in the rest of the meeting, which is also unconstitutional, but they are saying with this NEW ordinance that you can’t comment on what happened during the meeting though the items have already been voted on and the business of those items is closed. The SCOTUS has ruled very recently that you can discuss ANY city business at public input whether it is on an agenda or not. I think they said as long as a citizen is commenting on business that is ‘germane’ to that government body, it is allowable. I guess now the Mayor thinks he knows better than the Supreme Court. Not only do they suck at transparency, they are getting very sloppy legal advice.
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I just found out this afternoon that the mask mandate isn’t the only controversy coming on Tuesday. There are two items that will probably get first readings on Tuesday night also that have not been presented to the public in an informational, which is no surprise. I knew that both of these were coming after Stehly’s seat was bought by the banksters and developer welfare queens, and they have to do with shackling citizens;
• The first is a move rumored to be brought forward by Councilors Erickson and Jensen that would move the regular council meetings to 6 PM. This of course would give citizens very little time from when they get off of work to attend the meetings on time in person and an obvious assault on open government.
• The second is rumored to be proposed by Mayor TenHaken himself to move public input to the end of the meetings.
I have no doubt both will get the 5 votes they need to pass. These actions come after just a few weeks ago the Mayor ended the traditional mayor/director meetings with council leadership on Friday mornings and also the move to remove red notes from ordinances that are being changed.
This of course is NO surprise since this mayor and council has had a full on assault on transparency and their hatred of open government and more importantly citizen input and advocacy. They despise more than anything else and won’t be happy until they lop off the citizens rights to dissent their government, or at least make it more challenging to do so.
Messing with public input and citizens rights to advocate for themselves is a whole new level of disgusting behavior by this administration and city council. I would ask if they have any shame, but you know the answer.
So why are they so Hellbent on silencing the public? Because they have several plans to hand over MORE of your tax dollars to the elite who fund their campaigns and they are tired of the public making that process messy and in the open.
And if you think the steamrolling won’t happen, wait until Starr leaves the council (hopefully) and they replace him with another rubberstamper.
Prepare for your taxes and fees to rise exponentially while your voice and services get stifled. This is what happens when you let a non-partisan government get controlled by political hacks of the Republican Fascist Party with no governing experience and deep, deep, deep hatred of citizen activism and transparency.
We have a virus destroying our city alright, and the only way to stop it is with lots of Sunshine.
l3wis 
