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Sioux Falls

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UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor Neitzert’s challenger needs to learn the rules of engagement

l3wis 4Comments

    UPDATE: I see after 4 years on the city council, Neitzert really has nothing to say about his service. It’s all about the Benjamins.

    So I have been hearing for the last couple of months that the owner of Swamp Daddy’s would be challenging Neitzert, he will announce formally tonight.

    But Mr. Beaudion needs to learn a little about challenging a popular incumbent;

    “My campaign has nothing to do with him. It has everything to do with the people of Sioux Falls,” Beaudion told the Argus Leader Friday morning. “I’m not running against Greg. I’m running for the people.”

    Oh boy, another one of these positive campaigner. For the record, I have never spoken to or met Julian.

    If you are going to beat a popular incumbent like Neitzert, you need to reveal the bad aspects of his record, and he has quite the list. He has flip-flopped on about every issue from the city administration building, bunker ramp, tax increases, and numerous zoning issues.

    In order to ‘beat’ your opponent, you have to show us why you would do a better job, in other words you need to counter Neitzert at every front, and confront him about his horrible record. Simply just telling us you are running for ‘US’ won’t cut it, and Neitzert will easily beat you.

    To tell you the truth, I would like to see a lot more people in that race.

    Sioux Falls

    UPDATE: The city ‘COULD’ help clean up private property, & it should!

    l3wis 27Comments

    During the ice storm the city did come through neighborhoods and pick up branches in the boulevard from private property. The city also got a reimbursement from FEMA for those efforts.

    In this last Spring’s flood the city decided to buy up some homes that were in a problem flood area. We also got FEMA money for flood prevention/relief.

    This is from the Mayor’s Chief of Staff;

    Councilors;

    I was texted a screenshot of Councilor Stehly’s most recent Facebook post and asked to clarify what seems to be a misunderstanding of the information within Mayor TenHaken’s email below.  I am not able to comment directly on Councilor Stehly’s post in order to ensure the public is receiving accurate information.

    For clarification purposes – if a tree originated within the boulevard and has fallen due to the storm then the City will work to remove that tree.  If there is debris from trees originating from private property or buildings in the boulevard then we need the community’s help in moving that to either the landfill or one of the two drop-off locations.  If the community has the ability to remove trees that were growing in the boulevard that have fallen, we certainly would appreciate the assistance in doing so.

    We appreciate the community’s help in taking a #1SF approach to cleaning up from Tuesday night’s storms.

    Best regards;

    Erica L. Beck, Chief of Staff to the Mayor, City of Sioux Falls

    I would agree with Beck on one point, if you ‘CAN’ cleanup your own yards, you should. If you ‘CAN’ transport your rubbish to the drop off sites, you should. But where I disagree is that many people cannot do this. They either don’t have the resources, money, time or youthfulness to do so. Volunteers can only do so much. If a resident of this city ‘CANNOT’ manage to cleanup after these storms, the city should HELP. Make no mistake, we have millions and millions of dollars in our reserve fund, it is there for incidents like this, not for private non-profit theaters or extending bike trails. On top of that, we could get reimbursement from FEMA. Not sure if the Mayor and his COS are aware, but we were hit by 3 tornadoes, those are natural disasters, those are covered by FEMA, an agency we fund through our Federal income taxes.

    This administration needs to get it’s SH*T together!

    If people are unable to cleanup their mess, HELP THEM! We pay taxes for services not for popcorn and Garth Brooks concerts! This is a SERVICE, NOT A HANDOUT! Enough Already with your Facebook shaming, trucker hats and mixed messages, just pick up the f’ing branches! Why do you have to make everything POLITICAL and COMPLICATED?! That’s my job dingbats.

    UPDATE: Look at the fun graphic the city created to tell taxpayers what they WON’T do. Apparently they will take your tree ‘but just the tip’. The amount of time, energy and money spent telling people what they WON’T do could be put towards storm cleanup.

    Music Sioux Falls

    Nordic Hall Memories

    l3wis 1Comments

    It would probably take me hours to go into detail about the amount of punk rock shows I have been to. I often chuckle when people make fun of the way someone dresses in public, because if you are ‘punk’ the whole purpose is to make a spectacle. Clothing is a facade that serves no purpose but to impress others.

    I started going to shows at Nordic before I even moved to Sioux Falls in 1991, and was fortunate to have a roommate who was older than me and a private security guard at the shows, so he would occasionally sneak me in.

    I got to know all the players, musicians, promoters and regulars. To this day my 2 favorite bands at the shows were Eight Bark (from Chicago) and God’s Favorite Band (from Mpls).

    I still listen to punk rock on a daily basis, I still love the humor and stupidity of it all. Whenever I am having a bad day, it always makes me smile.

    I was probably at the show below,

    Cartoon Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

    Press Conference?

    l3wis 15Comments

    Paul said this to city councilors in an email last night;

    I hope you’ve had a chance to follow communications shared by the administration during the two media briefings today and the information shared on the City’s social media channels. During a crisis, I can’t stress enough the importance of sharing information responsibly. As a reminder, the administration is charged with leading the public information efforts. Deviation from this messaging could lead to confusion with the public and mistrust of yourself. I would recommend you copy and paste the exact messaging we are providing, or share the City’s media posts. I would also urge you not to conduct any media interviews regarding response and recovery. Again, we want to avoid confusion. Trained emergency responders and public information officers carefully craft our messages and deviation can be troublesome.

    Humor Minnehaha County Satire School Funding SF City Council SF School District Sioux Falls

    Local Govt entities join forces to become ‘Sioux Falls OP-OUT’

    l3wis 0Comments

    For years, there has been a push for Minnehaha County and the City of Sioux Falls to join forces and become one. With this merger, they went even a step further. The City of Sioux Falls, the County and also the School District are now all one entity called ‘Sioux Falls OP-OUT’

    County Treasurer Stan Neilson said, “So many people are confused about where their property taxes go, and with all these increases by all three entities, this will just make it easier to raise . . . uh . . . I mean ‘regulate’ your property taxes.”

    So with this change I wondered if it would actually save taxpayers millions in employee salaries and benefits since a lot of the jobs could be combined.

    “Highly unlikely,” said HR director for the city, Bud Da’Toole, “We are going to actually ADD more employees, mostly in management, because we will need a lot of middle managers to handle the transition, I also expect the the administrators to double in the education side of the deal.”

    There was one bright spot in the whole transition though, and good news in the Parks and Rec department. Parks Director Dave Kornhole explains, “We figured since we are paying teachers a yearly salary anyway, they might as well work the entire year, so during the summer we will have teachers working in our parks mowing grass and during winter break we will have them plowing streets.”

    I wondered if teachers would be qualified to plow the streets. Street director Kyle Skidmore said, “Like our current snowplow operators, if they don’t know how to use the snowgates properly, they’ll just skip a driveway or two.”

    Some wondered who would be the administrator of this new unity. Would it be the mayor, the superintendent or the commission chair? Former county chair Sandy Highpants said that was an easy decision, “I’m in charge. I’m always in charge.”

    We asked superintendent Bruce Mauler if he was aware of the new leadership decision. “Yeah, she may be ‘in charge’ but we all know who makes the decisions around this joint, behind closed doors of course.”

    Mayor TwoSh*ts was unavailable for comment because he was busy with a SELFIE Shoot by a hat rack at Flying J Truckstop.

    We also wondered what the legislative makeup would be. City council chair Marty Selless said that the first process would be asking any of the board members of each of the entities if they would want to resign. The only taker so far was Commissioner Jesse Farth who told Marty, “I’m outta here suckers!”

    The second step of elimination would be done during a joint meeting with all three bodies. “Basically, whoever falls asleep during that meeting or is caught texting would be eliminated. We figured that should whittle us down to about 5 members” said Selless.

    So there you have it, in the name of even higher property taxes, we have made government more efficient.

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