UPDATE: We spend Millions on River Greenway but fail to clean up the ****!

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IF PARIS CAN CLEAN UP THE SEINE WE CAN CLEAN UP THE BIG POO

I found this story amazing (imagine what you can do when you spend actual money on cleaning up the problem);

But now clean up efforts, which started in 2018 as part of what is known as the “Swimming Plan,” are coming to fruition, and local authorities say residents will be able to make use of the river once again as part of the legacy of the Olympics, which is returning to the French capital after 100 years.

They cleaned up the river in 4 years!

Two disinfection units at wastewater treatment plants run by the Paris region public sanitation service will be operational from this summer, and structures that will help to improve water quality, such as a rainwater storage basin, are under construction.

The basin will hold rainwater and gradually release it into the sewage network, preventing pollution when wastewater overflows during periods of rain.

These basins would obviously have to be upstream from Sioux Falls, but we could build a filtration damn in Sioux Falls that would actually help with water flow of the Big Sioux. I heard an estimate several years ago of $75 million (probably closer to $150 million now).

I know a lot of people make fun of the French, but if it wasn’t for them we all would be drinking tea and eating Spotted Dick.

THE LEVITT CAMPGROUND HAS OFFICIALLY OPENED FOR SUMMER!

I like to go for nightly bike rides around 8-10 PM Downtown. Last night as I was riding thru Levitt and I saw two separate couples sleeping within 50 feet of each other with blankies on the Levitt Lawn. But Monday night was a real laugher as I saw two private security officers with heaters in their hands (who are supposed to be stationed at Shriver Square) yelling at the homeless who were sitting on a tree bench in front of Oshima. As they were instructing them to leave, one of the fellas says, ‘This is public property we can be here.‘ I had to laugh that a homeless inebriated person knows their civil rights better than the rent-a-cop. We are NOT going to fix the homeless problem downtown overnight, but I am not sure we are approaching this the right way.

UPDATE: Yes, that is a guy passed out on 14th street. Not sure what is going on, but it was an interesting scene.

GET YOUR MANURE FITNESS ON!

The mayor is hosting this event tomorrow, and I am wondering who the poor schmuck will be that has to power wash all the goose crap off the sidewalk and around the fitness park before the event? I love this new park, but the only time you can get a real workout is before 7 AM because after that the kids seem to think it is a playground, even though they have a wonderful play set just to the south of the fitness pad. Great edition, the only other critique I would have is that a cover, even something linen like at the DTSF dog park, be put over the pad for shade. Just make sure you show up early so you are not tripping over toddlers to get to the stair stepper.

100 DAY CHALLENGE IS COMING TO A CLOSE

I believe the final day is July 31st. I put myself to the challenge this year and I am averaging 14 miles per day with 1,331 miles as of yesterday. About 10% was stair stepper, 25% regular bike and the rest E2 on low setting with NO throttle assist (I do not count throttle miles in the challenge). Since the E2 threats from the SFPD I have NOT ridden on the trail with my E2 which has given me a great opportunity to explore residential routes. A great one is if you take 4th Avenue and 26th from Mckennan Park going South to 33rd which takes you all the way to 41st street. Even at 4:30 PM I see very few cars. I know the city is trying to setup residential routes, but I would encourage commuters to avoid all primary and secondary arterials and ride on residential. I can count the number of cars I encounter on one hand and you can cruise along at a safe 15 MPH.

RENEWABLE ENERGY IN SOUTH DAKOTA IS NOT AT 80%, ALL OF THE TIME

I had a chance encounter last week with an engineer operator from a major energy company in South Dakota, he told me he works at the plant near Sioux Falls and the generators run on Natural Gas. I asked him about the 80% claim. He said that it is NOT wrong, but out of context. He told me that when Hydro, Solar and Wind are at max capacity they supply 80% of the power, the problem is the wind isn’t always blowing, the water isn’t always flowing and well solar doesn’t work real well at night. He said that the yearly average is closer to 45%. He said the advantage of Natural Gas generation is that you can switch it on and have it operational within hours.

Is the Sioux Falls City Council having policy discussions in Executive Session?

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I would really like to know.

Why is this important? City Councilors have executive sessions with legal counsel almost weekly, by state law only certain legal matters are discussed, like pending litigation, current litigation or personnel issues (like potentially demolishing an immigrant’s unfinished mansion or disciplinary action towards a council employee).

Things they cannot discuss is potential policy changes (like creating new ordinances, advocating for consulting or outside assistance, or giving employees bonuses). Basically anything that is an ‘idea’ cannot be discussed because of the quorum.

Now councilors can have offline conversations with each other, and that is perfectly legit, but NOT as a group, those meetings and conversations must be public.

So why am I suspicious this is going on?

A few years back when that rascal Tex Golfing (Rex Rolfing) was on the council (you know the guy that beats the gavel puck like a rented mule) he was having policy discussions about having a car rental fee go towards some capital improvements. When opposition to his idea became aware of his backdoor policy discussions his plan crumbled.

This is an example of why you need to have public policy discussions, while his idea was horrible, what was even worse was he was trying to do it under the guise of pending litigation discussions.

Last week the council had a scheduled executive session, before the session they have to vote in public to go into that session. Forum News Reporter Patrick Lalley witnessed a councilor walk out before the session started telling Lalley that they left because they were not following procedure and they had no idea what the session was about.

But way before this incident several past and current councilors have told me about different policy discussions they have been having or had and I have been puzzled by how I have not heard of any of these proposals in a committee meeting or informational meeting (this is where policy is supposed to be discussed). I just assumed councilors were having offline convos with individuals but it seemed odd to me that after hearing about the proposals first hand all of a sudden they are on the agenda. These kind of discussions about in depth ordinances HAVE to be done with a quorum to be successful, playing phone tag won’t cut it, so obviously they are having these discussions somewhere, just not in the public eye.

Like I said, I would really like to know if the council is having policy discussions in executive session, because if they are, that’s a BIG NO NO and at least four of them should know better and the other four should have the common sense to distinguish between actual litigation and policy discussion.

The next time an executive session is called and policy is brought up I encourage the entire council to adjourn and walk out.

“Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.” Robert Louis Stevenson

City of Sioux Falls promotes property tax increases

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The city’s finance director is pushing for a property tax increase again this year. I found this proposal interesting considering the mayor is increasing the budget next year for pools. The city can only use the money for OPERATING expenses. So while they CANNOT spend the money on capital improvements they can use the money to fix potholes and pay lifeguards.

2022 Property Tax $84.9 M – 37%

2022 Assessed Value, 80% Residential, 37% Commercial

ASSESSED VALUE OF SINGLE-UNIT RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES, $200K – $317.7K, 34%

As you can see, residential property taxes are the biggest chunk of property taxes paid. In other words we are OVERTAXING residential property owners to subsidize things like $25 million dollar parking ramps for condo dwellers.

When people talk about TIFs or rebates for large developers they claim there is this mysterious ROI, even though NO independent study has been done to show us what that ROI is. I would argue that a residential property owner actually has a higher ROI, besides the taxes they pay to help with street and curb and gutter improvements, they may hire a lawn care company or hire a contractor to do work to their property, creating actual jobs.

I have argued for a long time we have NO reason to increase property taxes each year because of natural growth. If we also started taxing commercial properties at their actual legal assessment (and not a reduced TIF assessment) we would also haul in millions in property tax revenue.

Once again, the city is sticking it to the little guy so the big guy has a small tax bill.

The Sioux Falls Rec Trail is ‘Shared Use’

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Dakotanewsnow did a story about park master plans, and I took a screenshot of this sticky note from a constituent.

Dogs have multiple parks in Sioux Falls, they also have sidewalks, any greenspace, your house, backyard and even at a bar or restaurant. As a bicyclist I only have a few options, but if you have to ‘find’ places where your dog can be walked in Sioux Falls, you really have deeper issues, like how to smell ‘fer’.

Shape Places rears it’s head

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Recently a prisoner transitional housing proposal came in front of the city council (Item #38). While the council moved it to 2nd reading, they seem to be opposed to approving the rezone to institutional from multi-family residential.

The problems are evident, changing from a regular apartment to a recovery home, buying the property BEFORE properly zoning it (the client in this case has pulled this song and dance before with other properties, so they KNEW exactly what they were doing, asking for forgiveness later, the oldest trick in the book).

While many have mentioned the sex offenders living at the facility, this is actually NOT a bad thing because 1) they would be supervised and 2) several unsupervised sex offenders already live in the neighborhood.

So what’s the problem? Shape Places, passed by the city council, and after opponents had a successful petition drive to repeal it, the voters also approved it. I helped a smidgen on the petition drive, and the ONLY real substantive change they wanted was to KEEP conditional uses in zoning (this gives the planning commission and city council the ability to put conditions on the rezone). Shape Places was stripped of this, so the Planning Commission and City Council really only have one option, approve the rezone and all the headaches that go with it, or DENY it which will likely leave this property as is, which is a dump.

If the council had the authority (before Shape Places) to put conditions on the rezone they could have worked with the property owner to at least make this a transitional, unsupervised housing (and that may be their plan moving forward).

As I tell people, the developers in town wanted this to ‘speed up the process’ or more like put things under the radar, the council passed it, and the voters passed it, it is what we have now.

The council CAN revisit Shape Places whenever they want to, and they have the power to modify it to re-allow conditional uses. I believe BOTH Minnehaha and Lincoln County Planning Commissions allow for conditional uses.

This probably happens more then we think, someone buys a property only to find out they are stuck with stringent zoning.

I support deregulation when it makes sense, but not giving our elected officials the ability to modify zoning on a case by case basis has really tied their hands.