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Sioux Falls

Riverline District Sioux Falls

Riverline Committees has another executive session for second meeting

l3wis 0Comments

Still find it funny they are having a PUBLIC steering committee meeting with members of the public sitting on the committee but they can’t share this information with the rest of the public? These committee members are NOT employees of the city and are NOT elected, in other words their LEGAL STATUS to view documents in executive session is the same as ours . . . WE CANNOT view them so they shouldn’t be able to either. My assumption is in these executive sessions they are discussing the strategy on how to roll this out to the public. If you just look at the members of the committee you can tell their is NO NAYSAYERS in the group. I thought the whole purpose of the committee was to examine just exactly what is being proposed and to see if it will work. Why can’t that be done in public? Nothing is decided yet, as far as I am concerned these meetings should be public and let the public see what is being discussed AND RECORD THEM! This of course is not a surprise. One of the Committee Members and an all around bucket of sunshine, Jessie (Pins) Schmidt was on Turdbook defending the executive sessions saying that people get to talk during public input at the beginning. Talk about what? Speculating what you may discuss in the executive session? Like if a certain broker has a conflict of interest? Let’s face it folks, this administration is anti-open government and we will NEVER see any results from these meetings except a convention center being shoved down our throats with a tax increase to boot. Closed government costs taxpayers way to much, and this time it is going to cost us $400 million.

Planning Commission Sioux Falls

Why is the Helpline Center getting so many city contracts?

l3wis 1Comments

If you check the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting you will notice that the Helpline Center is getting ANOTHER contract with the city to handle phone traffic. They also have contracts for other phone services with the city.

I will admit the city DOES need to use private phone services sometimes but it seems they are sending a buttload of duties over to this private non-profit. Why not buy them and make them a city entity? Probably break even.

I find all these contracts interesting since the CEO of Helpline is Janet Kittams who was the previous chair of the planning commission and still has a seat until April of 2025. She also served as chair when attendance was less then ideal. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Heck, she even signed the contract herself!

While the Helpline Center has had city contracts for a long time, it seems lately they are getting quite a bit more.

Wonder if a city councilor can tell me how much TOTAL we spend on the Helpline Center each year and if these services can be spread out to other contractors or better yet, teach city employees how to answer a phone. Seems pretty simple to me.

Mayor TenHaken SFPD Sioux Falls

Should Police Chief Thum be terminated?

l3wis 7Comments

I wasn’t making the suggestion, but a friend and I were discussing all the murders in Sioux Falls over the past year and he suggested it.

I actually defended the police on one aspect, they have no idea domestic disputes are occurring in private residences unless someone reports it, so prevention of domestic violence is a tough one to tackle and actually takes the work of many non-profits in our community.

But I can’t defend the police when these murders occur in open spaces like a public park.

I think Thum has done a good job of trying to clean up a department that has morale issues, BUT he needs to UP the patrols of the officers. Several of these murders were preventable because they occurred in public spaces.

Just look at the Dunham Park incident. Nobody called the incident in while the physical fight was occurring in the middle of the afternoon in a park surrounded by apartments? C’mon!

I’ve said since the city’s covid lockdown SOME city employees haven’t really changed their habits of laziness. I have often said that ALL city employees need to have there workflows annually inspected, and if they are NOT up to par, lay them off. It would be harder to fire them do to how a Union works, but you could lay people off due to budgetary reasons. In other words cutting payroll so the mayor would have NO choice but to lay people off. Now while the mayor has the power to hire and fire whoever he wants to without interference from the council, the council does set the budget and they could slash payroll and leave it up to the mayor to cut the fat.

And the mayor’s lack of effective employee leadership is contributing to the problem. When your a city employee busting your butt filling potholes and you see the mayor that makes 5x what you do doing jumping jacks at an elementary school in the middle of the morning, it makes you not want to fill those potholes very fast. And cute little challenge coins don’t mean nothin’.

I have often said city employees are an INVESTMENT and we should make sure that INVESTMENT is working for us. So whether that is a parks worker or a patrol officer we need to give them all the tools to be successful and effective.

Denny Sanford Premier Center Downtown Sioux Falls Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

What is the difference between an Advisory Election and a Bond Election?

l3wis 2Comments

First the definitions;

An advisory question is a type of ballot measure that is non-binding, meaning the outcome of the ballot measure has no legal effect on a state’s laws. This type of ballot measure is also known as an advisory referendum, advisory vote, or non-binding ballot measure.

A Bond Election is a type of ballot measure in which voters decide whether to authorize a local government to issue bonds to pay for specific projects or services. It is typically used to fund public works projects such as roads, bridges, and other infrastructure. The money raised by the bond issue is usually repaid by raising taxes or other revenue sources. Bond elections are often held in conjunction with other elections, such as municipal or county elections.

We had an advisory election with the Events Center. After citizens voted 54% in favor of building the Denty the city council had to take LEGAL action to take out the bonds, in which they did.

If the election was an actual ‘bond election’ it would have taken a 60% passage to pull the bonds, and since this is a LEGAL election, there would be very little action from the city council to initiate those bonds because the citizens LEGALLY approved the bonds in a LEGAL election.

I am often saying that an advisory vote is actually ILLEGAL because NO LEGAL action is being taken by the public in an election. I have encouraged councilors to have a LEGAL bond election with the Rec bonds and CC bonds. First it makes their job that much easier and secondly you are giving citizens the ability to tax themselves if they choose to (we will need an extra penny sales tax in order for the bonds on the CC to work).

If the city pulls an advisory election on the CC, I encourage any local attorney to sue the city for their ILLEGAL election.

Downtown Sioux Falls Elections Quality of Life Bonds SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

The Predictability of the Sioux Falls City Council is painful to watch

l3wis 6Comments

Former City Councilor Big T wrote an excellent letter to the editor about how the citizens need to vote on the new parks’ expenditures.

I would agree, $77 million dollars in expenses needs to be decided by the voters and I am surprised that most of the council wouldn’t be pushing for a special election to approve these bonds. They will sit and cry and wring their hands about making these gigantic decisions when they can just easily call for an election and wipe their hands of it.

But the pool debate and some of the other debates the new council has been having has been soooo predictable. They pretend they are ‘concerned’ about the expenditures then vote for them anyway. They are NOT concerned and all these media games they have been playing (because someone may be running for mayor) is just smoke and mirrors. They have done this for decades before they have to do a big project. They promise all kinds of cost cutting and savings then once the project gets approved there are massive cost overruns and add ons. EVERY SINGLE TIME! Just look at the Ice Bunker Ribbon; Supposed to be a $4 million dollar project that turned into a $16 million dollar project (the donor must have needed a bigger tax write-off).

The council is going to make it ‘LOOK’ like they are on our side when it comes to financial concerns, but if they were TRULY listening, they would call a special election, but just like the predictability of their policy decisions, I will predict they will forgo the special election, and likely do an ILLEGAL advisory election with the Convention Center tying the two projects together to better SELL it to the public. I guarantee this is what they are cooking up. They did it with the Pavilion and Convention Center, it’s an old playbook.

Not only do we need to demand a special election for both projects we need it to be a LEGAL bond election where it only passes with 60% of the vote.

I would love to blog more about city politics, but the predictability lately has been a gigantic yawn. Oh, but I guess the mayoral candidates are all jockeying for positions, but I think the Skabs and their less then flattering boozer texts may be instigating all of this.

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