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Sioux Falls

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, June 1-2, 2021

l3wis 4Comments

Informational • 4 PM • Tuesday June 1

MEP fee update (Mechanical, Electric & Plumbing) – No supporting documents

Regular Meeting • 6 PM • Tuesday June 1

Item #6, Approval of Contracts, Sub-Item #9, $187K to the Multi-Cultural Center. Wondering when we are getting an update on the dismissal of the director, oh I forgot, we don’t have open government. Still waiting to see our open government consulting contract with Putin.

Sub-Item #25, (re) Painting new buses. About $9K a piece. What are these? Bentley’s?

Item #31, Village River (Bunker Ramp fiasco) is transferring their liquor license to a hotel (likely owned by Lamont). ‘Yeah, heading over to the Homewood Suites for a High Ball and a steak.’ For F’cksakes.

Item #64, 1st Reading, Motorized Foot Scooter (rentals). This is an update to state law. I am assuming that one of the National companies lobbied in Pierre to get added to the books. They are cool. Have fun.

Item #75, A RESOLUTION DESIGNATING THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER FOR THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD. Apparently this thing still exists? Who knew.

Item #77, citizen board appointments. Apparently we are appointing former AG and Judge, Larry Long to the Charter Revision Commission. Get out the popcorn, this is going to be fun (not really) watching him kill proposals. He apparently is the new CRC hit man? Maybe not?

Item #78, Appointing Greg Neitzert and Erica Beck to Med Mary task force. I’m still curious why we need a task force to read a 24 page law that already passed.

Planning Meeting • 6 PM • Wednesday June 2

Item #5C, An Ordinance of the City of Sioux Falls, SD, Adding A Temporary Ordinance Regarding the Issuance of Local Medical Cannabis Establishment Zoning Permits and Licenses. Notice there is no recommendations. This will be an interesting convo.

Item #5 D-E, rework of Sioux Steel TIF. Apparently you can sit on your hands for a year, change stuff and come back and still get the developer welfare deal. Can you imagine going to your mortgage banker and setting up a loan to buy a house and postpone it for a year? Do you really believe you would get the same rate? Hell no. It may be better or worse, but either way, you would have to re-work it. Not with the city, developers can get millions in tax rebates and put that timeline out there for as long as they wish. Just look at Phillips to the Falls, the city held onto the land for around a decade, tax free, and handed out a TIF on top of it all to a developer. You would think the MOB is operating in Sioux Falls.

Item #5 F-G, TIF for Cherapa II, I guess the Planning Commission is going to busy Wednesday night handing out developer welfare while raising taxes on the rest of us. I find this TIF curious because the developer says it is for a parking ramp, but the councilors who had to wear knee pads at the informational meeting about it say it is about building roads, pipes and stuff. So which is it? Oh, that’s right, it’s for streets paved of BS.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Is a Foot Motorized Scooter rental business coming to Sioux Falls?

l3wis 8Comments

Just curious, does anyone know who is starting a rental business for foot motorized scooters in Sioux Falls? Councilors Jensen and Erickson are bringing an ordinance change Tuesday night to license them. I am assuming they wouldn’t be doing this unless someone asked them to. Would have been really nice to get an informational to the public about it. When I was in California a few weeks ago they are everywhere.

Item #64 on the Regular Agenda.

Isn’t ironic that the city council has time to create ordinances for friend’s businesses that don’t even exist yet, but sit on their hands over a law that passed with around 70% of the vote. What a bunch of losers.

Medical Mary Jane Mitchell Sioux Falls

Hick Cities in South Dakota are figuring out Medical Marijuana, Why can’t Sioux Falls?

l3wis 10Comments

Besides the fact that our city council and mayor’s office is on cruise control, our legal department is being ran by lazy numbskulls.

Just listen to the common sense legal advice from Mitchell’s City Attorney Justin Johnson;

“If we don’t put anything in place, then it is essentially the Wild West. I think it is important we get our regulations in the books even if we have to come back and make changes down the road,” Johnson said. “There is importance in getting our regulations in place before the state laws become effective, and the zoning side of things will determine where these types of businesses can be located and operate.”

Yeah! What a concept, making changes later (if they have to) and having something in place so there isn’t chaos on July 1st.

I’ve lost all confidence in the supposed legal advice our city attorney gives, heck, he doesn’t even understand the 1st Amendment and prior restraint. I think it is pretty embarrassing and frankly egregious that towns like Yankton and Mitchell can figure out this simple law (which is spelled out in the initiative that passed into law) but for some reason in Minnehaha County and Sioux Falls we are too busy having secret meetings with our lobbyist (Municipal League) to find ways to kick the can down the road instead of facing reality.

If Commissioner Barth didn’t go to the media and myself, we would have never heard a peep from Councilor Neitzert and his secret endeavors and his hatred towards open government. At least we still have a handful of elected officials in local government who are willing to blow the whistle, it’s just too bad we have to look to local officials in much smaller cities for legislating common sense. Time to turn off the cruise control Paul and start being a mayor.

1st Amendment Curt Soehl Medical Mary Jane Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Chair Soehl is quite the Authoritarian

l3wis 3Comments

The newly elected chair, Curt Soehl, has quite the authoritarian streak. Yesterday while chairing several of the meetings he kept limiting public input to 15 minutes or about 3 people. They should not be scheduling these meetings back to back and should be spreading them out over a couple of days. But this does not give him an excuse to limit public input, it is a blatant violation of the 1st Amendment in reference to prior restraint.

While I thought maybe this was just a one-time decision someone told me he pulled the same trick today at the 10:30 AM, downtown library Working Session. Hey, I get it, they don’t like open government, that’s why they have meetings in the middle of the morning at the library instead of Carnegie, but now it seems they want to limit it also to the ones that can actually attend. I have never seen so much disdain towards the public’s opinion on matters. Yes, the council hasn’t been very open for a long time, but now there seems to be a lot of openness about NOT being open. They seem to wear it like a badge.

As for the meeting itself, it was a bunch of Covid money handouts to the Parks Department projects including more tennis courts, because you know, it is such a huge sport in Sioux Falls, LOL. I am often reminded of this when I drive by the parking lot at the Huether tennis center with 2-3 cars in the lot. Wondering if we will ever get our Half-Million back.

Speaking of open government and transparency, during the working session yesterday, I found it a bit bizarre that the council hasn’t asked the very people who wrote IM26 (Medical Marijuana) to be a part of the discussion. Wouldn’t you want the very people who wrote the successful measure to help advise you on what is in it? Or do we want to just do whatever we want to (basically sitting on our hands) then come up with regulations without their input then let them sue us? Seems counterproductive to me. Not sure the council or county commission has done their research (not likely) but the national movement to decriminalize marijuana has a lot of Benjamins behind it and they take their investments seriously.

This is what you get when you have a local government that works behind closed doors, is not transparent, limits public input and does the bidding of big business instead of the work of the people. All the hub-bub about TIFs, Mary Jane regulations, zoning, etc. doesn’t mean a hill of beans if you don’t operate government in the open. As I said last week, only crooks, scammers and schemers do business behind closed doors. Add authoritarians to that list.

Employment Sioux Falls South Dakotans

Low wages in South Dakota? Get out!

l3wis 11Comments

As if this story is ground breaking. I do appreciate the update in our dismal wages, high regressive taxes, and high cost of housing, but this has been going on for decades;

State and federal data routinely show that:

  • South Dakota employers pay some of the lowest wages in the nation.
  • A high number of families pay an excessive portion of their income on housing.
  • The state has a regressive system of taxation.
  • Many workers are not seeing their pay cover the rising cost of living in the state.
  • Meanwhile, the state is seeing a sharp spike in the cost of housing and health care, two critical components of living a happy life.

I will admit over the past 5 years or so I was able to quit my part-time job and only work one full-time job and make a decent living wage. I am also debt free. But this didn’t come from not working hard. I worked around 60 hours a week for over 20 years and I have NO dependents. But sometimes I wonder how much better off I would be if I just got paid a decent wage.

When I moved to Sioux Falls in 1991 my first job paid around $4.20 an hour.

Let’s face it, as long as we keep electing Republican business owners to the legislature we will continue to have regressive sales taxes, low wages and unaffordable housing. We need a progressive state legislature that stands up for workers.

I know, I am dreaming.

I have suggested to Sioux Falls city councilors that they institute a wage listing ordinance that forces businesses to list there minimum/maximum wage in a job listing for the Sioux Falls metro. Research has shown that not only will employers pay more they will get better and more applicants. It’s not just a win for workers it is a win for businesses.

It’s time we stop screwing around, especially in Sioux Falls, and invest in our workers.

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