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Sioux Falls

ADA Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

City of Sioux Falls & Mayor TenHaken being sued for ADA violations

l3wis 7Comments

I had heard about this lawsuit this past summer, but I couldn’t figure out who was filing it or what it was specifically about. It was first filed in June of 2022 and amended in September;

Mayor Paul TenHaken and the city of Sioux Falls are being sued for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The suit is filed on behalf of Sioux Falls resident Robert Elliot. It claims that the city has failed “to design, construct, maintain public facilities and enforce city ordinances related to sidewalks for ADA compliance, access ways, sidewalks and roads that are fully accessible to, and independently usable by persons with disabilities.”

The lawsuit also claims that barriers also violate city ordinance.

Besides the residential sidewalks (the adjacent property owner’s responsibility) the ‘barriers’ have been an issue for years. As a person who has rode the sidewalks in this town on a bike for years I have often been astonished with how bad the sidewalks are mainly on Minnesota Avenue and 41st street. They look like sidewalks in a war torn country like Ukraine.

I was curious why the city decided to spray paint to their heart’s content thousands of sidewalks last year and offer a neighborhood grant program to fix them. Looks like they were trying to play catchup. As it was explained to me the city could not use ARPA money to fix adjacent sidewalks due to liability. In other words if the city just used ARPA money to fix the sidewalks they would take on the liability of the sidewalk if someone got injured falling on a crack, BUT the city could have used the money to fix barriers and put in ADA accessible ramps to the sidewalks.

Which brings us to this claim in the suit;

The lawsuit also claims the city has the ability to pay for repairs and construction. As an example of ability to pay, it cites the several million dollars the city received in federal COVID funds in 2021 and that the city spent zero of that infrastructure aid money on ADA compliance.

This lone sentence in the lawsuit is the kicker. While the city literally threw money at butterflies, tennis courts and ‘other stuff’ at the DSU (private) research facility they spent NO money fixing ADA problems.

Let’s not kid ourselves, a Federal lawsuit like this will be in the courts for years and the city will likely fight tooth and nail with our tax dollars instead of doing the right thing and just complying.

The city should really just work on a compromise and a plan to do the right thing but with a lead city attorney with one foot out the door I have a feeling this is going to end badly.

Audit Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE*II: City of Sioux Falls considering eliminating internal audit

l3wis 6Comments

UPDATE II: At their discussion today, Council Vice-Chair Alex Jensen said the reason audits have been down is because of staff turnover. They currently have only one full-time auditor. So why not hire more people! What a concept. As the city’s human resources department has been handing out hiring bonuses like candy maybe it is time to take that approach to finding more auditors. The city isn’t looking to hire a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, if you hire a employment consultant to do a national search I can almost guarantee you would have qualified applicants within 30 days.

The committee voted to explore a hybrid model for the internal audit in which they would have internal staff and external auditors. I am adamantly opposed. It would make more sense to just hire a couple more auditors instead of fiddling around with private CPA companies auditing our departments. The name of the department is ‘internal audit’ and it should remain that way, internal.

If you look at the agenda for Wednesday’s Audit Committee meeting you will see this;

• Internal Audit Outsourcing

I was told today by a city hall mole that the council was unaware of this recommendation and that is likely coming from *COUNCIL LEADERSHIP.

While we do use some outside auditing for the city it is important to maintain an internal department that is a check on the administration and it’s financial systems. The council needs to be in control of this department. If we outsource internal audit there would no longer be an internal city government check on the mayor’s/department’s spending power.

Sioux Falls

Neel Kashkari at CEO Summit

l3wis 4Comments

Siouxfalls.business held their first CEO summit today. The guest speaker was Kashkari from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Some highlights of his appearance;

• Immigration is important to our economy and we must work to make it better and more common

• Innovation comes from looking at what others are doing that works (don’t reinvent the wheel)

• Crypto currency is useless

• Childcare will ultimately have to be subsidized by taxpayers to become more affordable

Neel talked about a host of several things and it is worth the listen.

Audit Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Internal Audit determines NON-RFP’s lack oversight and transparency

l3wis 1Comments

DUH!

The recommendations of internal audit on NON-RFP’s shouldn’t surprise any of us;

Recommendation 1: We recommend updating EO 104 to reflect the current qualifications-based selection practices. We also recommend that updated verbiage provide significantly more detail outlining the procedural steps (soliciting proposals, vendor qualifications, staffing evaluation panels, documenting evaluation panel outcomes, and negotiating contract price/specifications) and documentation required to enhance internal controls, accountability, and consistency.

This applies to how the city hands out Architecture and Engineering design contracts (City spends about $10 million a year). When NOT using the tried and true system of RFP (Request for Proposal) things are kind of being done in the dark with NO paper trail;

Finding 1: EO 104 Language Out of Date.
• We found that Executive Order 104 lacked adequate, current detail to provide a uniform procedure for securing A/E professional services which is the purpose of the Executive Order. Additionally, some of the procedural language currently included is out of date with current practices. EO 104 refers to a guideline no longer available from the American Council of Engineering Companies of South Dakota.
Finding 2: Lack of Documentation for the Selection Process.
• We were unable to verify if several of the procedures for selecting A/E services were in compliance with EO 104, City policy, and best practices due to lack of supporting documentation stored with the contract in Munis. Documentation must be maintained to provide support and transparency for the QBS process to be in line with best practices.
Finding 3: Maintenance of Approved A/E Firms list does not comply with EO 104.
• Engineering currently does not maintain any qualification documents on the A/E firms selected for projects that don’t need to undergo an RFP. However, EO 104 states that, “It shall be the responsibility of the Engineering Department to establish and maintain an approved list of A/E firms that have submitted qualifications for each type of professional services that may be sought by the City of Sioux Falls. The selection of all services are to be limited to those firms on the approved qualified list.”

There is no list of NON-RFP qualified bidders, no paper trail (or at least one saved), no qualifications or requirements listed and no reference to the selection criteria. In other words this is entirely up to the administration as to who gets picked based on a secret process.

The council really needs to put their foot down and demand we eliminate the NON-RFP process for these contracts. It’s dark; figuratively and literally.

Art Bunker Ramp Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Should the city be mitigating risk when it comes to public art?

l3wis 9Comments

This is a rendering I did of what I was told the Bunker Ramp mural would have looked like. A Native American taking a nap next to a river dreaming of buffalos frolicking in a rainbow sky. I still have NOT seen the image.

Mr. Lalley is suggesting that is what the mayor exactly did when rejecting the selected mural choice and cancelling the project all together, mitigating risk;

This wasn’t a commissioned piece, as Boice had to explain to me, which could include parameters on the theme or content.

In this case, the intent was to allow the chosen artist “control the narrative,” as Boice put it.

That’s new.

It’s a great idea when you’re fostering and supporting artistic endeavors in your community.

For a government, for people who want other people to approve of what they do, it’s risky.

But you have to know that going in.

Rejection from the wider public is always a possibility. In my experience uncertainty is the artist’s constant companion, whether they are painters, musicians, sculptors, writers or quilters.

There’s always risk in art.

City government is inherently about mitigating risk.

We may never know the content of what was intended as a short-term mural, that was recommended by the Visual Arts Commission and rejected by the mayor.

Which highlights a more perplexing theme.

We may never know if the mural in question was patently offensive to one or more groups of people in the community.

We may never know if the mayor was reacting to some real or perceived public consequence if he approved it.

With public art comes public scrutiny.

Artists usually want that.

Government usually does not.

While I still struggle with this supposed offensive mural, you can only look a block away to a naked dude that has been standing there for 50 years (with a short stint in a parks and rec boneyard).

While it appears that the mayor was mitigating risk, it also suggests to me he was more worried about what Taupeville would think of the mural and not everyday folks.

Just another shirtless Native American in front of the Bunker Ramp of Democracy.

Which brings us to Ben Black Elk;

As the unofficial greeter at Mount Rushmore, Black Elk spent 27 years welcoming guests and promoting Native American culture. A Huron Daily Plainsman article noted that he posed for an estimated 5,000 photos daily during peak tourist season, earning Black Elk the distinction of being the most photographed Native American in the world. In addition to his photo record, the Sioux City Journal reported that Black Elk was the first person to have a live image broadcast over the Atlantic — via the Telstar satellite that launched in 1962.

It seems the state did a fine job of mitigating the risk of having a shirtless Native American pose for pictures in front of Mt. Rushmore now if we could just figure it out in Sioux Falls.

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