Commending the Mayor for what?!

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Councilor Neitzert in his bizarre attempt to swat down councilors Stehly and Starr for their resolution to make sure the Events Center Campus Book Club meetings remain open, he offered an amendment praising the mayor and the group for deciding to OPEN their meetings, at last night’s city council meeting.

Huh?

First off, the meetings should not have been closed to begin with, if any amendment should have been offered it should have been for censuring the administration for closing the meetings. Even councilor Brekke said that state open meeting laws are a bare minimum of what should be open, or as she said a ‘Starting point’. Local government should go above and beyond those standards.

Neitzert’s amendment was obviously offered to try to make Starr and Stehly’s resolution irrelevant. Councilor Soehl who attends the meetings said that they really haven’t decided how the open meetings will be conducted yet because they are uncertain how they will take public input.

Huh?

State law requires public input at all open meetings, so there is no debate on how you will ‘take public input’. It’s just a matter of when, which most likely be at the end of the meeting.

Stehly and Starr gladly supported Neitzert’s amendment in the end (they knew they had to, to get it to pass, which it did).

Some councilors feared that this would set a precedent on how these kind of task forces would operate, I think that is a good precedent, not bad.

OPEN = Good, CLOSED = Bad.

Neitzert also bragged about how the annexation meetings were held at Carnegie with ample public input. Remember, that was NOT the original intent and after Councilor Stehly, the public and ‘the blog’ complained that the meetings were going to be held in the middle of the afternoon at the DT library where people had to feed meters that quickly got changed after several property owners complained about the meeting situation. Maybe we should ‘commend’ the annexation task force for changing those meetings also. LOL.

 

UPDATE: Potholes and Open Meetings

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Here is the copy of the proposed pothole funding supplement ordinance; Pothole Supplemental TS

Funny how these things work;

Thanks to the absence of precipitation in the coming days, the Public Works Street Division is increasing the number of crews dedicated to this spring’s pothole repair efforts.

“It has been a rough winter for our city streets,” says Mark Cotter, Director of Public Works. “The current condition of our streets has prompted us to take a more aggressive approach to our annual spring pothole repair efforts.”

To increase its emphasis on patching potholes, Street crews will be working the following adjusted work schedule for the next three weeks:

Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Public Works will have a minimum of six crews addressing potholes.

Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to midnight and from midnight to 8 a.m.:Public Works will have a minimum of one crew addressing potholes in high-traffic volume areas.

Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Public Works will have a minimum of three crews addressing potholes.

 

While the media got their panties in a bind over being put between the mayor and the council (give me a break!) it seems Pat and Theresa’s pressure may have gotten the public works department to re-think the pothole situation moving forward. As I have been telling many people over the last couple of days, it is the Mayor’s job to run this city (direct Public Works), it is the council’s job to set policy and budgeting. No reason to get our shorts in a bunch.

I would also like to thank all the ‘grunts’ in our city’s workforce who have gone above and beyond to help people. You are appreciated, even if I am tough on the mayor and council, I do want you to be happy with your employment. I also would like to hear about any private contractors who decided to help the city out with flood management or cleanup. I haven’t seen anything in the media about that, but maybe they are just silently helping out?

Sioux Falls City Council ‘IS’ the policy making body of government

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As we have all read, the Argus took the mayor to task about the lack of transparency in their ED board column on Sunday. This line I found the most interesting;

Now the topic is being revisited with a group that includes members of the hotel, construction, architectural and banking industries – all areas where avoiding questions of conflict of interest would be prudent.

This is one of the main reasons these meetings need to be public. When you have a group of powerful business men in town (even if they are volunteers) making recommendations, we need to be clear that their suggestions are for the good of everyone, not just their pocket books. Their is a part of me that wonders if some of the members asked that they be private meetings. We wouldn’t want that pesky Bruce showing up with a camera while we are planning our future investments.

During the informational meeting yesterday, councilors Stehly and Starr reminded the rest of the council about the importance of transparency (while the rest of them just stared into space and made no additional comments. I think even one of them was laughing at Stehly’s comments about ‘loving thy neighbor’). Starr went on to say the obvious, the City Council is the policy making body of the city, not the mayor’s office or his appointed study groups. The city council should be heading up this group, yet only ONE member is invited to attend (Soehl). We seem to be going even further backwards these days when it comes to transparency. Many city hall watchers have even been stating that TenHaken may even worse than the last dude.

What even bothers me more is that we seem to have a majority of the city council that isn’t questioning this. I’m sure Brekke agrees with Starr and Stehly, but where was Erickson and Neitzert who used to rail on the last administration about transparency. Or what about our chairs, Selberg and Erickson allowing TenHaken to usurp the powers of the council? It’s an outrage, and they remain silent.

It’s because they HATE public input and TRANSPARENCY, they proved it this summer while limiting public input.

That’s not the only thing that has disappeared into the night. I guess proclamations are no longer read at the council meetings because TenHaken found them to be a waste of time that takes away from the regular meeting. Part-Time Mayor Beck now handles them internally, I guess. Why don’t we eliminate the invocation to? There is no requirement we have one, the county commission only does the pledge of allegiance. Some of those pastors tend to be winded anyway.

I can’t say it enough, there is never a good excuse to keep government closed. And saying we need candid conversations as one of those excuses is just ludicrous. I think the best conversations about policy happen in the open when feet are held to the fire.

Bee Keeping and Benson’s Flea Market

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Crazy who you run into at the Flea Market. Old Cartoonist friend Tim Benson and Representative Saba. You can still talk to Stehly & Brekke at the Flea Market today.

Stehly also wanted me to tell you she will be attending an upcoming meeting for Bee-Keeping within city limits. I support this. I hear from a lot of people that we don’t have as many bees as before in Sioux Falls, and they help with personal food production. I think you could limit the size of the hives so you don’t have a massive population at one specific spot, but bees are good, and they are our friends.

I also think any city ordinance that is proposed needs to be tied into with how we spray for skeeters. It has been proven time and time again that spraying is very harmful to ALL beneficial insects, just not bees. The residue left on gardens and vegetables is also harmful especially to small children. We need to take a more natural approach to limiting skeeters in the city.