South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Sioux Falls

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Another Domino falls at Sioux Falls City Hall

l3wis 7Comments

In April I told you about all the people leaving the administration over the past year. Well this shoe dropped today;

Dr. Charles Chima is out as Mayor Paul TenHaken’s top official in the Sioux Falls Public Health Department — two days shy of his second anniversary in the post, The Dakota Scout has confirmed.

While no reason yet has been given for his departure there have been rumors about the doctor and the mayor not seeing eye to eye on things.

Hopefully, for once, we will get his version of the departure. But like most directors that come from out-of-state he probably just left quietly in the night and never looked back.

A bit of a rant here; A city employee, any city employee, especially a director, has the obligation to be honest with the public. And if the administration or council is doing something they know is wrong or mis-guided, they have an obligation to tell the public.

I’m not holding my breath.

I GUESS COUNCILOR CURT SOEHL THINKS YOU CAN REMODEL A HOUSE IN 30 DAYS

Ironically, it has taken a guy 10 years to build a house that is still not finished! Curt is proposing we stick it to vacant property owners IMMEDIATELY (Item #17)!

(a) The owner of a vacant building shall pay an annual fee of $1,000 for the first year period
the building remains becomes a vacant building. If the property is located in a historic district
identified by the city of Sioux Falls, the owner shall pay an annual fee of $2,000 for the first year
period the building remains becomes a vacant building. Thereafter, if any property remains
vacant unoccupied, the subsequent annual fee shall increase by $1,000 increments each year.
(b) The first annual fee shall be paid not later than 30 days after the building becomes a
vacant building. Any subsequent annual fee shall be due upon renewal of the vacant building
registration. If the fee is not paid within 30 days of being due, the owner shall be in violation of
this subchapter.
(c) The fee shall be paid in full prior to the issuance of any building permits, with the
exception of a demolition permit.

While I support the vacant housing fees, especially for vacant properties that are not being refurbished, I’m not sure 30 days is enough time for a remodel job. In other words if you are renting a property and the tenants move out and you want to do some work to the place before re-renting it, you only have 30 days to get the permits and knock it out. I would suggest an amendment that clarifies if the house has permits pulled for a remodel they should have 6 months before registering the property. If a property owner is actively trying to keep up with maintenance on their homes by remodeling between renters, we should encourage it, not punish them.

Once again the council and administration are pulling rules from their butts without reason or explanation.

Liquor Licenses Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

City of Sioux Falls Liquor License proposal will squeeze out small business owners

l3wis 10Comments

The city (more specifically the mayor’s office) is proposing this (Item #13);

Updates city ordinance related to the sale of and application for on-sale and off-sale dealer liquor licenses by replacing the liquor license lottery procedure with a sealed bid process. Additionally, updates city ordinance to allow for on-sale liquor licenses at various municipal-owned facilities to reflect changes to South Dakota Codified Law that becomes effective on July 1, 2023.

Since there has been NO presentation to the public OR council (they found out Friday morning) there seems to be more questions about this POLICY change then answers;

• Why is the mayor’s office directly sponsoring policy that by charter should be introduced by council?

• Does the city NEED more then $240K per liquor license? Where do licensing fees go? To alcohol compliance with the SFPD? As I understand it, all licensing fees go directly into the general fund.

Recently PTH did an interview on one of our 30 second news clip TV stations and proclaimed that MJ is a gateway drug to other hard drugs like opioids. While any kind of drug use can lead to doing other drugs, there is often a connection between alcohol use in minors and using harder drugs like opioids. While MJ is a lot stronger then it used to be and is classified as a narcotic, it doesn’t have the addictive qualities that alcohol or opioids may have. Many long time suffering alcoholics and opioid drug addicts have actually used MJ to beat their opioid and alcohol addictions.

So are we using these licensing fees to combat alcohol consumption in minors?

My bigger concern besides policy disputes, compliance and speculative budgeting is the obvious; putting local business owners in competition with large investor groups and national franchises will virtually eliminate their opportunity to buy a liquor license in this town. While the lottery system is messy (I don’t approve of it) it is still more fair then giving licenses to the highest bidder.

I really don’t know why this change is being suggested besides the GREED of the big guys and their firm grip on city hall, there really is NO other explanation.

COST OVERRUNS! COST OVERRUNS! COST OVERRUNS!

It hasn’t even been a week since the mayor mocked a former city councilor while mumbling into his microphone like an old man waiting in line for his prescription at Lewis Drug and we have this from the supposed fiscally restraint administration;

But the new project timeline also means the city will have to pony up its portion of the $16.5 million endeavor sooner than expected, however. The donations are contingent upon the Sioux Falls City Council approving an additional $3 million for the project, which will bring the city’s commitment to about $8.5 million. The Council will consider a request from the mayor’s office to supplement the city’s 2023 budget next week.

So a project that was going to originally cost taxpayers $2 million (capital costs) has ballooned to 4X that!? I thought the city doesn’t have cost overruns? LMFAO!

Of course the administration has tried to cleverly hide the cost overrun with this ordinance (Item #12);

Notice how they packaged the supplement as helping out several departments. But does the Fire Department really need another $500K to finish out the year?

HEY BONEHEAD! LOCK YOUR DOORS!

While there is a part of me that laughed when I read this ordinance (Item #16), it is not such a bad idea;

The proposed ordinance adds $50,000 to the Police budget for a community awareness campaign to remind the vehicle owners in Sioux Falls to lock their vehicles.

In the late 1980’s I moved to live with my dad in a large West Coast city. While I was living there I got my first car and learned very quickly if you don’t lock the doors on your car you can expect just about everything to be stripped from the interior of your vehicle in the time it takes you to pick up a soda at Fred Meyers so it has often baffled me that people will leave valuables and especially loaded guns in unlocked cars. I think a great PSA would be a dramatization of a criminal stealing a loaded gun from an unlocked car in an affluent neighborhood and using the weapon in a crime.

1st Amendment County Commission Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

Daily Affirmation

l3wis 3Comments

What a week of craziness in Sioux Falls. Most of what I am going to talk about deserves a full blog post, but I decided more of a snark;

• Classified documents at Carnegie Town Hall. Last night a constituent told me they showed up to the city council meeting and went to the entry podium to collect the agenda. To their surprise there was a stack of legal documents sitting on the podium. They suspected they were left there accidentally and turned them over to the council.

At least they didn’t find them crumpled up in the toilet.

• The Sioux Falls City Council hires a new city clerk. Mr. Washington was hired Tuesday night by the council. Mr. Washington was NOT in attendance (he lives in Rapid City) but I was at least expecting a phone in to answer a few benign questions. Nope. Council Chair Selberg said he was a great guy and they voted for him. The council did have a private interview with Mr. Washington but it would have been nice to get an intro to the public.

• 1st Amendment Minnehaha County case taking to long to decide. Call me old school, but when I read the 1st Amendment it is not to hard to figure out, especially this line;

to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I’m puzzled why it would take so long for a Federal Judge to make such an easy decision? It will be interesting to see what is carved out for the county, because it doesn’t take over 20 days to figure out our civil rights.

• Minnehaha County Commissioners bail on carbon setbacks. Not surprising the new bought and paid for MCC has decided that property owners only get 300 feet to save themselves from an exploding pipeline. How thoughtful of them. I still concede that in 10 years most hazardous pipelines are moth balled as we realize the benefits and cost saving measures of wind, solar and nuclear. This is a money making scheme and always has been.

• Pride Festival this weekend! The good news is we get to celebrate LOVE this weekend, the sad part is there are still elected officials in our community who refuse to acknowledge that love. F’k em! They would ruin the party anyway!

• YIELD FOR BICYCLISTS! I was in three close calls this week, one was my fault, but I encourage drivers to always be aware of your surroundings and look for pedestrians, motorcycles and bicyclists. I also encourage bicyclists to be sharp when riding and yield twice.

• Rapid City gets a new mayor! So this former Veteran, Banker, Alderman and current Pastor wants to be the next mayor of Rapid City. Awesome! I still liked the O’SHT face on him when he had his first presser. He’s going to figure it out. Well if you are so inclined to share your secret recipes, can you pass them on to our mayor? You can usually catch him doing calisthenics with kids at one of our private Sioux Falls Christian schools. I know, super weird.

• Show me the money! Once again city officials had no problem taking money from our old father time and faux namesake of our city. Gifts are Gifts but one has to wonder about funding a spray park for kids with a selfie photo booth? Not to mention a project that has ballooned from around $4 million to four times that. Not sure why we need Disneyland at Falls Park?

The ‘donations’ always crack me up. They are paying for ADDITIONAL infrastructure that we have to maintain for decades as taxpayers. Not sure what the benefit is? It’s kind of like being handed your dream car for free (mine is the Ferrari Dino) but you have to maintain it, pay the taxes and fees on it, store it and insure it. I will stick with my Civic.

• More rail traffic in Sioux Falls. I have virtually given up moving the trains out of Sioux Falls, but what troubles me is that citizens have no avenue of addressing this locally, statewide or Federally. Ironically, roadblocks have been systematically setup over decades by the vicious control by our railroads.

Public Works SF City Council Sioux Falls Theresa Stehly

UPDATE: Who was mocking Theresa Stehly at the Sioux Falls City Council meeting last night?

l3wis 12Comments

UPDATE: It was confirmed to me from those in the chambers that it was Mayor TenHaken who was mocking Theresa, as we all suspected. I still think this clown show could be prevented at meetings if 1) we put public input at the beginning of the agenda and 2) rescind the council rule to interact with the public during input.

I think I know the voice of the gentleman softly mocking Theresa last night during public input of Item #51 (click on the item and the video will fast forward) but I will let you make your own assumptions.

Theresa was reminiscing about her time on the council and the presentation of the new waste water treatment plant when she started to bring up her recollection of the process.

She said she requested an amortization schedule from Public Works Director, Mark Cotter, at the time for paying off the waste water bonds. During her input you could hear someone on the dais quietly mock her. When Theresa says that we may have cost overruns on the project, ‘someone’ on the dais mumbles into their microphone ‘Oh Yeah? Really?’ in a sarcastic voice. Stehly also talks about the public being left in the dark and this same passive aggressive voice whimpers from the dais ‘Hmmmm’ and later ‘Uh Huh.’

Like I said, you have a pretty good guess who was being a brat from the bench, but the individual doing this doesn’t really matter. The fact is the public is constantly told by the chairs of these council meetings that we need to practice ‘decorum’ at these meetings because gosh golly three cub scouts showed up while all the time they are personally acting like kids who got their ball stolen.

Someone needs to tell these folks it’s study hall time not recess time.

Affordable Housing Downtown Sioux Falls Rich Merkouris SF City Council Sioux Falls

What’s going on with our TIFilicious, affordable(?) housing project in North Brandon?

l3wis 1Comments

I was just thinking about this the other day . . . and for me and the good pastor, Sioux Falls City Councilor, Rich Merkouris, to have the same inquisitive thoughts, it was a little eerie.

During the informational Rich asked our housing specialist, Logan Penfield, what was going on with the North Brandon project and Logan responded by saying he wasn’t sure and had to get back to Rich.

Seems a bit odd doesn’t it?

Councilor Merkouris just stepped into the vice chair leadership position a few weeks ago. So now with a few weeks of insider baseball under his belt he seemed to pull this question from the sky . . .

. . . and after doing a long presentation on a housing action plan you would think Mr. Penfield would have the answer to that question on the tip of his tongue. But Mr. Penfield has experience in good old Washington, a place where it is best to ignore the hard questions.

I was thinking about the project because after all the fanfare you would have thought there would have been a ribbon cutting already with dirt moving? Instead a staffer from the administration (who is in charge of projects like this) hands over a big fat I don’t know with a shoulder shrug.

While the administration may think it is Sioux Falls ONE it is more like Sioux Falls IDK.

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