“As a recent transplant to South Dakota from Nebraska, I’m deeply disappointed by the apparent lack of initiative from local law enforcement in addressing the issues plaguing this area. Listening to police briefings only raises more concerns. Every response seems to be, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’ll have to look into that.’ I’m tired of the vague answers. I want clear solutions and a solid plan of action. Enough is enough. It’s time for real accountability and results. Sioux Falls deserves better.”
I warned several councilors and the media that once those scanners go silent all pertinent and relative information coming from the SFPD will end. Trust me, it wasn’t that great before the scanners went silent, but it is 10x worse now. Take Dunham Park incident for instance referenced in the above article. The next day at the briefing the police seemed to know very little, which seemed odd to me because every place I went to someone had a different version of the story.
This is the OTHER problem with closed government. If you don’t tell the public what is going on they will make up their own version of the story. Years ago when the directors didn’t run away from me like I was on fire, one walked up to me after a meeting quite irate and says, “That post you did today about the zoning issue was completely off base and wrong.” I said, “Oh, okay, I can update and correct it. Can you give me the proper information and documentation?” They just grunted and walked away.
Disinformation is worse then NO information. Rumors and gossip gets circulated because you can’t be honest with the public. And it is just NOT the SFPD it is most city departments being led by a militant closed government administration that WORKS at keeping information from the public.
The best way to solve a crime is to get everyone on board with the investigation. Tell us what you know and whey you know it. You never know, a random ‘Sandy’ might just help you solve your crimes. Common sense Chief Thum, Common F’ing sense!
In fact, it’s so strange, the public wasn’t engaged to solve it.
The rumor going around between officers is that on the night of the BLM protests at the mall when every law enforcement agency in the area responded someone robbed a big box store, and they weren’t looking for Busch Light and table saws. They took all of their guns. ALL OF THEM. Don’t know the value of that stuff, but I would guess north of a million dollars.
The irony is officers say the SFPD classified it as an unsolved crime pissing a lot of people off.
The minor disturbance of latch key kids throwing pebbles at officers in the mall parking lot was a great decoy to pull off one of the largest property crimes committed in Sioux Falls.
Unsolved.
You would have thought they would have reached out to the public to help solve such a great loss?
The last police chief left shortly after this happened.
I saw the above bike DTSF this past weekend so I inquired about it from a city official. The city bought 2 but not sure what they paid (they retail on other sites for about $4K without all the whizz-bang cop extras). A bike in this class should run you about $2,500 without police sirens.
The bikes come in 750 or 1000 watt, the city chose the 750 which I would assume would give you a longer charge because you are using less power. I would have just went with the 1000 watt to have that extra power and bought backup batteries for the bikes so you have a spare charged, you can even rig bikes with dual batteries.
It is pretty obvious to me this company uses ‘bike cop’ mantra to sell these units, but they are really no different then a regular E2.
With all the sustainability boloney floating around you would have thought the city would have had a big presser about the bikes . . . oh that’s right, you look pretty foolish telling people they can’t ride their E2s on the trail when you are riding your E2 on the trail (for the record I have only seen the bike on the street).
It sounds like a potential civil rights lawsuit. David did say he was ‘considering’ taking action, so he hasn’t filed an actual suit against the city, but notified them that he may.
From his testimony and presentation this is about how the SFPD treats people. Even if David sues and loses the case, at least the noise from the suit will let some sunshine into our police force.
I have heard rumors that since Chief Thum took over he has been trying to clean up the bad officers with some success, but he knows it is a Herculean task. Let’s just say that Thum is probably feeling more like a house cleaner then a police officer these days.
The SFPD has neglected properly training and reprimanding officers for decades and so now there is years of institutional bad habits that will probably take twice as long to remedy.
There is also a rumor circulating that several top officials with the SFPD and SFFD are walking out the door with the mayor in 2026. Some are scheduled retirements some are NOT.
If this is true, it will be a great learning opportunity for the new mayor new councilors in 2026, lets just hope they are all NEW and not USED.
*I corrected the yearfrom 2024 to 2026.
WHO IS RUNNING IN THE MAYORAL RACE?
I’m a little surprised that I have NOT heard an announcement yet. The election is less then a year away and I was at least expecting one major announcement by now. And if you are running for an open seat, you would be wise to be the first to announce, because people will remember you because you will be the media darling for several days.
I wonder if one-term Jensen will run for mayor? I see that Pitty Patt put up a post about how Jensen is running for the legislature and NOT seeking a second term on the council. Nice smoke and mirrors. We all know you can’t run for mayor and city council at the same time. So Pitty, I call Bullsh!t on you!
UPDATE: I decided to do an unscientific study today. I rode from 11:30 AM-12:30 PM on one of my one-speed bikes, 10 miles from Cherry Rock Park circling South to West 12th street. This is what I counted;
I found ZERO; One Wheels, Electric Scooters or Wheelchairs, Electric Foot Scooters or Electric Skateboards, E-I or E-III bikes or regular foot scooters (I have seen all of these vehicles in the past just not today).
Regular bikes (no assist or light weight for fast riding); 61
Walkers; 44
Children riding bikes; 12
Dogwalkers; 9
E-II (assist plus throttle); 8
Light weight road bike (riding over 20 MPH); 7
Baby Strollers; 5
Joggers; 4
Regular skateboard; 1
I found no surprises while I took this survey, most of the users are regular bicyclists and walkers which is normal. As for the riders of E-II bikes they were all in their late 60’s to early 70’s. It was 4 individual riders and 2 couples. They were maintaining a speed of around 20 MPH which is no surprise since that is the max speed setting on most E-II’s.
Yes, that is a picture of me riding my E-Bike on the bike trail. I had no idea Lalley was taking photos for his article until he asked my permission to use the photo. We will get to the nuts and bolts of his article in a moment, but apparently this line in his piece didn’t sit well with the SFPD;
The reality is that any law is only as good as the willingness of the government to enforce it.
(Looking at you, casual marijuana user.)
Or at least publicize it.
There is no guidance out on the trail system currently beyond the general rules of the road and ride at a safe and courteous speed.
So the SFPD responded to the article today on their favorite place to inform the public (I didn’t find one single comment that thinks enforcing E-Bike rules is a good idea);
It seems all you have to do is lightly mock the SFPD about enforcement of a useless ordinance and they snap into action. It is going to be fun watching officers hand tickets to grandparents riding E2 bikes pulling their wagon with Ms. Kitty in it. Will they also be giving speeding tickets to wannabe Lance Armstrongs for booking over 30 MPH on the trail on there 18 lb carbon fiber road bike?
The ordinance has been in effect since 2018 and I am pretty sure it has NEVER been enforced. There is also NO signage on the rec trail telling folks the speed limit or the restrictions of authorized vehicles.
In other words NO enforcement and NO notification . . . except on Facebook 🙂
When you get into discussions about the repealing the ordinances, councilors and other whiners in the bike community complain that it is complicated because of all these classifications, different emerging vehicles and technologies and the interaction with pedestrians.
But after reading over 90 comments with 99% of them in favor of eliminating the ordinance you wonder what kind of input the council got from the public when crafting this five years ago besides a handful of whiners? It’s time to start listening to the market on this. The E-Bike industry is one of the fastest growing in the United States, but once again the Sioux Falls attitude of go it alone, I know better then the rest of the country, is contributing to this.
There is also an attitude, especially at City Hall these days that climate change is NOT real and anything electric is bad. I often suggest to these people they should just run their homes on coal. If electricity is bad for a bike or car, isn’t it bad for your home? C’mon climate change denier, buck up, show us what you really think!
They are really overthinking it and only need to look at other communities for assistance. I would start with something very simple, get it on the books, and over the year study what needs to be tweaked and revisit it with changes;
Repeal all current restrictions, re-write from scratch
Post the speed limit of 15 MPH on the trail
Paint a white center line with pavement signage every 1/4 mile that says KEEP RIGHT
Allow Class II and Class III bikes, AS long as they maintain the speed limit, have pedals and only use pedal assist (NO THROTTLING). This is a simple setting on the bike.
Allow electric vehicles that CAN be ridden at a safe speed (this will be the hardest part of crafting the ordinance)
Have monthly enforcement on Saturdays where police hand out warnings for speed.
I know it seems laughable that an ordinance has been on the books for almost 5 years and there has been no public notification (signage) or enforcement. At least the person running the FB page for the SFPD was paying attention, better get them a challenge coin 🙂
l3wis 
