City Walks features Sioux Falls
l3wis I always enjoy when visitors feature Sioux Falls,
Sioux Falls
Not sure why the mayor had to have secret meetings about this?
Looks like the DSU deal is being released to the public. Not sure why Mayor Secret Poops had to have a secret meeting with the council about this at city hall. That’s what baffles me about his secrecy sometimes . . . what’s the point? So you want to give $10 million to a public university? And that needs to be kept secret why? Oh that’s right, not to piss off the great one;
Of the $90 million going toward this initiative, $50 million over five years will come from T. Denny Sanford to expand in Sioux Falls; $10 million will come from the city, pending council approval; $250,000 from Forward Sioux Falls for a cyber/IT park in Sioux Falls; $30 million from the state as proposed in Gov. Kristi Noem’s State of the State address, pending legislative approval.
While I certainly don’t discourage DSU building a facility in Sioux Falls AND certain tax dollars going towards higher education, I’m not sure the money should be coming out of the city’s kitty. We can do a lot of infrastructure repairs with $10 million. Which brings us to the other big question, where is this money coming from*? If the city has $10 million laying around to throw at this, it tells me one thing, we are overtaxed. It seems lately the city is just flush in money for all kinds of these kind of projects. Can you imagine how many affordable homes and apartments we could refurbish with $10 Million? Probably well over a 1,000 units combined.
Looks like another handshake deal with the Denny Warbucks and Matty P. where the private sector is dictating where taxpayers should spend their money while our local leaders have secret meetings about it in the basement of city hall. Hopefully the black hoods and candles were donated 🙂
*Speaking of money, I guess councilor Starr was mislead last week about where the $150K is coming from for the Bunker Ramp legal fund. The story going around is that our legal department has a slush fund for litigation like this. I wonder if our city attorney will apologize and correct his statements at the next public meeting?
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing.
You will notice that I erased the parapet from the top of the Pavilion in this photo and kept the cornice, I actually think it looks better. I sometimes wonder when Washington HS was built some greedy contractor talked the school district into the railing to begin with? Some things don’t change.
Mayor TenHaken’s word games
I guess the best cliche you could use when it comes to how Mayor Poops has run the city is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. He is constantly changing directors and managers and titles, with little fanfare, and he likes to do word reworks on certain departments and boards, he is at it again;
Ordinance Update: Event Center Complex Advisory Board by Shawn Pritchett, Director of Finance
Basically they are changing the name of the EC advisory board, even though nothing has really changed, including taking any recommendations.
I look forward to the council discussion on this, I have a feeling several of them will have a unique opinion of such a failed district.
No City or State Officials attend Covid Press Conference today in Sioux Falls
To say I am not surprised would be an understatement;
It was only Avera and Sanford doctors and media relations staff along journalists at Thursday’s news conference. In many previous news conferences, people with the South Dakota Department of Health or City of Sioux Falls have also attended.Â
While I appreciate them reaching out, I ask why we are relying on the private sector to inform us? There is NO mention of this presser on any of the City of Sioux Falls multiple media sources.
A candidate for mayor said this in an interview;
Taneeza Islam, a lawyer who announced her run for mayor in October says the more information the people have on COVID-19 the better. She would like to see weekly updates from the mayor’s office and…
“When the city council voted to encourage masking, the people of Sioux Falls listened, all they needed was little extra encouragement, that was not a mandate, and I’m not talking about new regulations but just the mere encouragement for people in our community to take this seriously once again really explain how serious it is needs to come from the mayor’s office,†said Islam.
As I have mentioned before, the mayor’s job, according to charter is to not legislate and write policy, the job is running the day to day operations of the city. That means informing the public and instructing staff to keep the public safe, but he seems to want to blame people in Councilor Neitzert’s district for the problem;
“The northwest quadrant of our city for instance has a much lower vaccination rate than the rest of the city so we’ve done research to understand why is that and how can we counteract the messages whether it’s, in some cases its just availability and we’ve set up a mobile vaccine unit that goes out to those communities,†said TenHaken.
What I find ironic is that TenHaken, with the power of executive order, could mandate a vaccination requirement for ALL city employees, or at least those in close contact with the public, he doesn’t need the blessing of the city council. I see police officers all the time not even wearing masks in public. Towards the end of the story, Tom Hansen said that the mayor said the city is dealing with skeleton crews in many city departments because of (covid) sick city employees. I have argued that a vaccination mandate for city employees is a taxpayer protection for our investment in their health and well being. What do you think it is costing us as citizens for healthcare costs associated with covid for employees who choose NOT to be vaccinated? I have even said we should give city employees a bonus for getting a shot.
Islam went a step further on her FB page;
Being mayor isn’t just sharing good news, it means having hard conversations about challenges facing our community. It means using the tools in your toolbox to keep our city safe.
I like that last sentence 🙂
Besides Covid, this city faces many more challenges, but you will never hear it from Poops. I have no issues with the power of positivity, I have no issues with having faith in a higher power, I have no issues with lauding the great things going on in Sioux Falls. But effective leaders take the good with the bad. Mayor Poops philosophy is we just ignore the bad, hide in your basement, tell some dad jokes, heat up the gravy and it may just go away.