Joe Kirby; Sioux Falls Needs a Plan
You ain’t kidding;
In 2018 Paul TenHaken became mayor and soon announced a concept he called “One Sioux Falls”. His intention was “to create a unified vision that people could get behind.” That goal of getting everyone on the same page was commendable. But I’m not sure the mayor’s plan lived up to its potential.
That’s because you cannot create a plan or vision for city government without full transparency. All plans will ultimately fail when introduced in the dark.
While the city pays for numerous expensive plans and studies, I am unaware of an overarching strategic vision for our city. Some current and former city council members tell me they never were involved in strategic planning for our community. And over the past couple decades, I don’t recall seeing any comprehensive and aspirational plans coming out of city hall.
That’s because there is only ONE plan and it was concocted decades ago by developers. Make the council weak by paying them off with campaign contributions, make the mayor stronger and his staff even stronger by negotiating private deals with the city in the dark.
Without an overarching plan, developers, businesses, schemers and volume-focused development officials drive growth in the city. I suspect that is how we end up adding more and more tough, low wage jobs to our community. For instance, in my view it was not in our community’s best interests for Amazon and a second slaughterhouse to arrive in town. Especially not when city leaders routinely fret about workforce availability and affordable housing.
Forward Sioux Falls, which promotes economic growth in our area, is currently putting together their version of a strategic plan for the community. Of course, I will be interested to see it. But their 2022 support for the slaughterhouse makes me wonder if the organization might be too growth focused, with inadequate attention given to quality of life. I think our community should discourage businesses and industries that tend to externalize their costs and offer low paying jobs.
Good plans not only tell you which opportunities to pursue, but also which to ignore.
It is simply growth for growth sakes and relying on the ‘trickle down’ approach to everyone else especially when it comes to jobs and housing. Our lack of quality affordable housing and living wages is eventually going to crush the Sioux Falls economy.
Our city charter says that the city council is the “policy making and legislative body” in city government. But the city council has never been given the opportunity to plan. Or perhaps better said, they have not taken that opportunity. After all, the charter also states that “all powers of the city shall be vested in the city council”.
Instead, the mayor’s office runs the show. Admittedly that may be due to the lack of separation of the legislative and executive powers in city government (see my blog on that topic). Everybody seems too busy putting out fires and dealing with routine problems to plan.
The city council has had since the early 90’s to come up with a plan after the new charter was approved and not one single councilor has lifted a finger except Janet Brekke who simply suggested the council move forward with a long range strategic plan and asked for the rest of the council to get on board. The result; They recruited a young female doctor to run against her with an endorsement from the mayor and thousands of dollars of his PAC money. I guess we know what happens to people who make suggestions on the city council.
I’m not sure the current city council has it in them to make a strategic plan, and why would they want to? They are enjoying the status quo. Let the mayor’s office plan things behind closed doors in the dark and have the council vote on the mayor’s plan hastily put forward and when things go awry, just ask for forgiveness. This is no way to run a city government or any government for that matter.
The only way a strategic plan could move forward is if the citizens specifically amended the charter requiring the council to put together a long range plan every two years. Make it a part of their duties and if they fail to do it, or take a half-ass approach the council should be fined and reprimanded or even recalled.
I think the citizens and media in this town need to stop pussy footing around and start making our city, school and county governments more accountable for their actions (or lack of action).