It was unfortunate, as one commenter stated, that the mayor wasn’t in the chambers to hear it. The city had a presentation on the gutted sustainability program presented by a coordinator whose only experience in sustainability is with the city over the past year or so (she does have an environmental degree).
Before public input councilor Rich Merkouris asked the question, ‘How can we call this the city’s plan if the city council wasn’t involved with that plan? Help me understand that.’ They gave a non-germane answer.
But the public input was where the meeting really got interesting. From not upgrading the 2009 environmental building codes, to the mayor caught in his lies about collaboration and meetings to the basic tenants of open and transparent government. It was so fast and furious I could barely catch my breath just listening. Of course the Homebuilders Association is just fine with ‘leaving it up to the consumer’ and how well has that worked?
As I have told a couple of people on the steering committee, we must first have open government in Sioux Falls then we can tackle some of these bigger issues. We must first STOP this precedent of the mayor forcing his policies and ideas onto the public and council.
The funniest or should I say most troubling thing to come from this re-written program is that the mayor proposes we further study the issue right up until he walks out of office right after they break ground on the can kicking park.
l3wis 