South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Sioux Falls

Charter Revision Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

It’s time for citizens to fix the City of Sioux Falls Charter

l3wis 1Comments

If you watch the meeting, you will see the CRC (Charter Revision Commission) did their darn best to make sure nothing (so far) gets on the ballot for the Spring election. They consistently refer to the council to make changes. Quite honestly, when it comes to pay or how elections are run, that should be a CITIZEN decision, and should be put on the ballot by the CRC. In fact, I think most of the council would agree.

Fortunately, Dale Froehlich and Joe Kirby showed up to reveal the changes they would like to see. I’m sure they are NOT holding their breaths. They know as well as I do that it will be up to a petition drive to fix the issues with the charter.

Denny Sanford Premier Center Event Center Sioux Falls

The Denty has very few concerts scheduled over next 5 months

l3wis 7Comments

A business operator adjacent to the EC Campus came to one of the public input sessions for EC Campus Book Club and asked why there are so few concerts and events at the Denty this year.

Over the next 5 months there is only 6 concerts scheduled and about a dozen other events.

This building isn’t cheap to operate, with that few of rentals, how can it even break even with sponsorships?

I have also heard that major corners were cut when building the facility. Someone told me that most of the internal walls are only thin sheetrock, in other words if someone pushed you hard enough into the wall, you might go thru. As with the siding, many things will have to be fixed and upgraded here in the near future. This is what happens when you ‘ramrod’ things on the cheap. Thanks Bowlcut!

Ethics Planning Commission Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Planning Director serves on Excel ‘Advisory’ Energy Board

l3wis 3Comments

Planning Director Eckhoff is asking for an advisory opinion on Thursday, July 25, from the Board of Ethics if it is appropriate for him to continue to serve on the board (he has for over 8 years, and receives a stipend). He says he will forgo the stipend. (Last page of document)

IMO, even if Jeff forgoes the stipend, I don’t think it is appropriate for him to serve on the board, especially as the planning director of the state’s largest city. This is an easy one for the BOE.

I’ve been hearing Jeff has been doing a great job for the city and works well with constituents and councilors, unfortunately he should have known to resign this position before accepting the city job – it is a major conflict.

Event Center Sioux Falls

UPDATE: No show for public input on EC campus study

l3wis 14Comments

The media reported this morning that only one person from the public showed up to the meeting, and Bruce and I were the only ones from the public who showed up tonight (the others were staff, TF members, etc.)

I’m NOT going to harp to much on it, because I think public input is important, and since Bruce and I were the only two there, we were able to give a lot of input. (Video is below, if you want the responses, just pause video since the presenter FF thru them pretty fast).

But a couple of things may have helped the situation.

I would have informed the public better, I never heard any public announcement about the meetings, I heard it from a fellow citizen. Is that the media’s fault? Not sure?

I would have also had all 4 meetings at night, with maybe one during Saturday morning. I would have also had them all in the same place (like the DT Library).

I could say some other things about the presentation itself, but you can watch that later and be your own judge. But two things that stuck out were too many questions about parking difficulties and this notion that somehow magically we could move the entire campus somewhere else, like DT. As Bruce pointed out, too late, and not relevant. It is where it is.

The cookies were good.
SF City Council Sioux Falls

Should agencies being paying for their own employee transportation?

l3wis 0Comments

During the presentation yesterday at the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting on transit, many of the councilors had the same question, “What about paratransit’?

(FF towards end of the meeting to hear several of us comment on transit)

There is NO DOUBT we need paratransit, our Federal funding is actually tied to it, but can we reduce costs by having agencies provide their own worker transportation and only use it for ‘other’ transportation needs?

Agencies could use their own shuttles, or if they don’t want to deal with the capital investment, they can certainly ‘contract’ the work. While I want to see disabled people working if they can and want to, I’m wondering why the taxpayers need to foot the entire bill?

We could restructure paratransit so there are different kinds of service, one for work transportation and one for other needs (maybe it is already set up that way?)

I think there are other funding solutions out there, but it would require the city to put their foot down and demand partnerships with the agencies and healthcare providers.

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