Since then, there have been ZERO updates on how that program worked. Well if you look at the latest numbers for South Dakota, only 46.6% of people are FULLY vaccinated. Well below the 70-80% we need to be at.
I’m not sure what the numbers are in Sioux Falls, likely higher, but it would be nice to get an update. The one thing I have noticed about this administration is if something fails, they never talk about it again. I hate to say it, but if we don’t ramp up vaccinations in Sioux Falls immediately, we will be right back in the same boat we were last Fall. As the Covid variants get stronger, we will experiencing many more breakthrough infections.
Don basically talks about how the city attorney’s office did an outstanding job getting the Sioux Steel easement pushed through. Pretty crazy to hear a city director brag about getting the city council to possibly violate open meeting laws by voting on an agenda item without giving the public the whole story. We still have NO idea how this suddenly became park land or what that process was.
Also note that if you watched the council meeting the assistant city attorney said the council could vote to release that information, but guess when they were told they could vote to release the information? Five minutes before the 2nd reading. Yeah, now that’s transparency.
Also note that the first phase of the project will be the residential portion and not the hotel and entertainment part. Go figure.
At Tuesday’s informational meeting there was a presentation on maintenance of the city buildings. While I understand there are some buildings we HAVE to own like fire stations I think we need to learn a lesson from COVID and when we were debating the City Center building (which is still entangled in a lawsuit over the failed HVAC system) the Finance Director at the time suggested that leasing is way more affordable than building and maintaining. And with COVID we have learned that many, if not all of the pencil pushers with the city can easily work from home.
Saving money by leasing office space makes sense on many levels. You have NO maintenance costs, no bonding costs and if you need more or less space you simply pack up the office and move.
Working from home could also save the city bundles of money in office space. Obviously many city workers can’t work from home, but I think most of the office staff could.
I also think the Mayor (he is the city manager per charter) should look into selling off city property we don’t need anymore after moving many people to work from home or to leased properties and we should use the revenue to pay down bonds on current properties like The Denty, the Bunker Ramp, the City Administration building and water treatment expansion.
I have often been baffled by not only this mayor but past mayors who want to expand FTE’s for the city (23 this year) because with advances in technology, etc, we should be finding ways to reduce the city workforce by making working conditions for city employees more efficient. I have also suggested that the city terminates most of their middle management. There really should only be team supervisors and directors. I have found following city politics over the past 15 years that middle management really does very little except talk a lot.
I believe if the city would take a 3 tier approach to our building infrastructure and workforce they could save the taxpayers millions of dollars a year. This of course would require the Mayor, any mayor, to follow the charter and do their job, which is managing the city, it’s properties and employees instead of getting in the weeds with legislative priorities which is the council’s job.
I have often taunted councilors to start violating their charter duties and start talking directly to city employees about complaints. Of course they are NOT allowed to do this by charter, so why does the mayor think it is OK to screw with the council?
I think this city could run way more efficiently if we had a mayor that actually concentrated on managing the city instead sitting in his garage coming up with cute program names. Just listen to hisbudget address, I couldn’t even keep track of all the acronyms he presented about employee improvement and mentoring. The only thing city employees should be trained on is CUSTOMER SERVICE to the citizens. That should always be their top priority. Holding hands and singing campfire songs doesn’t really matter when our streets are full of potholes and violent crime is on the rise. I am all for training city employees and keeping them up with the latest standards and procedures, but we need a city manager that understands that public employees serve those who pay their wages not the mayor. I have noticed since the Munson days that administrations have used city staff (mostly management) to serve their whims instead of the people.
Something needs to change with it comes to managing our city, because the current administration isn’t cutting the mustard.
The other day I heard Dusty Johnson talking about this issue, so I decided to email him the other day with my ideas;
Dusty,
I heard you talking the other day about the struggles with affordable housing in South Dakota.
We are in a crisis mode in Sioux Falls. I’m afraid the combination of developer and contractor handouts to build has caused this situation, plenty of businesses coming, not enough people to work those jobs. I’m afraid Amazon will have to build an RV Park/Campground to house the workers, because there will be no other place for them to live. While we can’t go back in time, this all happened because we used taxpayer resources to incentivize the developers and contractors instead of the workers and housing buyers. We can do differently moving forward though. We need to end the welfare to big out of state businesses who pay below living wage salaries and start using Federal, State, County, and City programs to fix up our core neighborhoods where the affordable housing exists if the buyers are incentivized. We can do this through low interest or no interest loans, property tax rebates, fixing up infrastructure, etc. I call it starting from the bottom up. It also would prop up local contractors and businesses to fix up these homes. It also helps fight crime and neglect and it would be great for transferring slumlord neglected rental housing to first time homebuyers to fix up.
Trickle down has never worked, in fact it is proof that it has created this crisis. Instead we need to prop up residents to create more density in Sioux Falls and clean up these neighborhoods.
I know you are a Republican and may this agree with some of my suggestions, but the opposite just hasn’t worked, and never will. I told the planning commission and city council all these TIFS, tax rebates and breaks to big business and developers is just like pouring gasoline on a fire. We don’t have the workers, and even if they move here, we don’t have the housing. If we don’t do things completely opposite of what we have been doing, in five to ten years Sioux Falls is going to be a crime ridden dump. Thanks for listening. Scott L. Ehrisman
I figured since no one at city hall or in the state legislature is doing much about it except suggesting prisoners in Springfield work harder at building Governor houses, I would suggest to Dusty what is really going on here, is that we are failing, miserably, because of the bullcrap theory that if we give the rich developers and contractors at the top, somehow magically it would trickle down to us and solve our affordable housing issues. We also have to find a way to control rents in Sioux Falls and stop realtors from falsely inflating home prices in Sioux Falls. The value of my home changed very little over 17 years, usually 0-2% each year and then within two years it jumped up over 25%. Give me a break.
I finally figured out what the city, or should I say a developer, has requested as a reasonable decibel level for the Levitt. The story I was told is that the Levitt’s decibel level has to read 90 or below by the South Entrance of the Cascade Apartment building/complex, which I find to be an interesting boundary considering the level determined by city ordinance should affect the whole area. I have argued to the do nothing city council, who have literally done nothing about the decibel levels downtown (especially when it comes to trains, planes and motorcycles) that they need to be increased, at least on the Levitt grounds which is a publicly owned park. It is NOT the taxpayers fault or problem that a developer who takes massive amounts of welfare TIFs from the city built apartments across the street from a live outdoor music venue. If I were the Levitt, I would crank it up, and if the private developer doesn’t like it, they can sue the city and we can cancel their TIF. I would also suggest the next time they build an apartment building in a noisy DT area, they need to insulate the windows and walls.
I will say though last night at the Levitt I was pleasantly surprised, the volume was perfect, so they must be experimenting with the Spinal Tap amps after all.
This reminds me of the other issue with Levitt, selling alcohol in a park that by city ordinance bans alcohol. I have told the city council that this is silly and they should just lift the ban, let their be private sales AND let people bring their own. But like I said, when it comes to our city council doing things that benefit the public in general like noise levels and alcohol ordinances they put on the cruise control, look into their laps and do nothing.
Also folks, I am pleading with you to leave your dogs at home. They don’t want to be sitting in the heat and it is not good for their physical or mental health and as an audience member, I really get tired of them pooping and peeing around me. I still think the Levitt in coordination with the City Council should ban pets from the premises, or at least have an area for people that are too dumb to not bring their freaking dog everywhere.
l3wis 