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Art Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Hall still pushing for a Full-Time Arts coordinator

l3wis 8Comments

At the informational meeting this Tuesday the mayor’s office is still pushing for this position after the council has already denied the position last year;

A. Arts Task Force Update on Arts Coordinator Position by Jeff Eckhoff, Director of Planning and Development Services; and, Janet Brown, Arts Task Force

If you read the attached documents you will see the position would work with the VAC (Visual Arts Commission).

After watching the Bunker Ramp mural debacle, I am even more confident that this position would give the administration the upper hand in making final public art decisions and as a position in the Mayor’s office they would do the bidding of the mayor making the VAC almost obsolete.

While I agree with most of what is being said when it comes to public art coordination I believe it takes an effort from multiple non-profits, artists and other stakeholders. An actual public art commission or committee would make more sense helping guide these organizations.

I’m not sure the council has changed their mind on the position, but with this renewed vigor, even after the failure of the mural, it makes you wonder what kind of deal is being cut with council leadership (Council Chair Soehl was the biggest opponent when first introduced).

I’m sure an argument will be made that the failure of the mural process is a reason we need a person making these decisions.

The mural didn’t fail because of the process, in fact I fully commend the artists, VAC and the SFAC for their due diligence and incredible work they did to bring forth a candidate. It was their first go around at doing this, and they checked all the boxes. The mural ultimately failed because ONE person was offended and that is NO way to institute public art.

Mayor TenHaken Public Utilities Public Works Sioux Falls

Is the city data mining with the FREE dump pass?

l3wis 10Comments

The city has already been using a private contractor at the recycling center that uses the special software to scan your driver’s license and they will deny you if you abuse the dropoff;

The Sioux Falls Regional Sanitary Landfill now will scan driver’s licenses or state ID instead of collecting the free passes. It’s still one load per household address and up to 10,000 pounds. The goal is to start the digital approach April 3 and allow residents to use the pass until the end of the year.

While I agree mailing out postcards can be costly and apartment dwellers deserve the passes as well, I think they are making this more complicated then it needs to be. You simply keep a data base of all adult residents residing in Sioux Falls with their address and when they present their ID (not scanned) at the dump, their name is searched and removed from the list after utilizing the opportunity. This could be done in under a minute by simply doing a search of the name in the data base.

Many residents have reached out to me telling me they don’t want there DL scanned and this may be an attempt to data mine more information from citizens.

While this kind of information gathering is allowed by law where it gets grey is if this information can be shared with private political campaigns or candidates. As I understand it, it can be. Mayor TenHaken learned thru his Bloomberg connections how to data mine on citizens, but what is stopping him from using this data personally to run for higher office?

The rumor mill says that Marion Mike Rounds will likely run for governor leaving a Senate seat and Congressional seat open. Dusty Johnson will likely run for Senate (with maybe a primary challenge from Noem) and TenHaken is gearing up to run for Congress (you know, the guy who hates politics and isn’t a politician 🙂

Employment SF City Council Sioux Falls

City Employees getting a raise

l3wis 2Comments

I was glad to see that most city union employees are getting a raise (Resolutions 41-44).

While the police, fire and regular staff are getting a 6.5% COLA, council employees are getting 3.5%.

This really could have been negotiated last Fall when the administration knew there was high inflation. Instead they screwed around with a bonus before the election and now this first quarter raise.

Like I said, it is good to see this is happening as our city employees are taxpayer assets that need to be taken care of, I just don’t understand the piece meal approach.

Air BNB County Commission Minnehaha County Sioux Falls

Should Air BnB (short term rentals) be regulated in Sioux Falls?

l3wis 10Comments

The short answer is YES, but it is complicated. I’m all for regulating this industry but we should probably only do some small changes instead of broad sweeping changes that will hurt the industry.

One thing to remember is that most of the people who manage and own short term rentals in Sioux Falls are local owners who use local contractors and local goods and services. In other words any capital made from these rentals is circulated back into the local economy unlike a franchised hotel.

Minnehaha county has dialed back a bit on their recommended regulations;

Regulations for these short-term rentals would include:

  • A maximum occupancy of no more than three people per bedroom,
  • Requiring a minimum of one off-street parking space per guest bedroom,
  • The properties must be registered with the state as a vacation home,
  • And contact info for the owner/manager of the rental must be both submitted to the county planning department and displayed within the home.

I think two off-street parking spots is plenty. But instead of regulating how many people can stay in a room or how many cars can park there there should be regulations when it comes to registration of the property (state, city and county). There should also be quarterly health inspections, a small registration fee and a BID tax.

The city has just been mulling the idea, but there is talk they want to remove short term rentals from residential neighborhoods. First the obvious, if these are NOT in residential neighborhoods, where would they be? This of course would be an attempt to eliminate the short term rental business in Sioux Falls to delight of the hotel industry.

Short term rentals already have to follow the same ordinances as a homeowner or a long term rental so any other regulations would be above and beyond. But since this is a hospitality industry operating in Sioux Falls there should be a BID tax applied. All the other regulations are simply mushy-mash busy work bureaucrats cooked up.

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.

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