As I understand it they will be discussing allowing E2s on the bike trail. Many on the committee are on the fence so advocates of E2s showing up and discussing the topic would be great.
5:30 PM, City Administration Building, Main Floor, Cooper Room.
The council will have a busy week of meetings touching on countless topics.
Operations Committee Meeting • 1 PM • Tuesday, July 18
Item C, Potential City Council Support Staff Addition
The council has been rumbling about adding staff for about a year. Instead of hiring a support staff person they should have done a national search for an Internal Audit Manager and reviewed just what current council staff does now. I don’t think the council has justification to add staff.
Informational Meeting • 4 PM • Tuesday, July 18
• Monthly financial report (it is interesting to see how tax collection has slowly been cooling over the past couple of months).
• Childcare crisis. I have often argued that if we implemented public Pre-K we would eliminate a good chunk of this issue. I also think that state government is going to have to start subsidizing some of these programs. There should also be an educational part to this of promoting ‘modest’ sized families. It seems in South Dakota we want people to have babies, we just don’t want to help them after they have arrived.
Regular Council Meeting • 4 PM • Tuesday, July 18
Item #6, Approval of contracts,
Sub-item, 1, $105K to continue the failed on-demand programming.
Sub-item, 2, Joint Participation Agreement for cooperative funding of The Link. You will notice that Avera is putting in a big chunk each year where the county is throwing a pittance at it. I’m hoping a city councilor pulls this item so we have a better understanding how this works.
Items 16-20, Special Assessment Rolls, I find it humorous the only time the city practices transparency and open government is when they list the names of PRIVATE property owners who are being assessed to fix PUBLIC property. There is absolutely NO reason to publish the actual names of the property owners. If someone wants to look up the property description on the County’s GIS, have at it. This information is NOT of high public importance.
Items 41-43, RESOLUTIONs IN SUPPORT OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS’ APPLICATION FOR THE HOUSING INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCING PROGRAM (HIFP) GRANT FUNDING. This is probably the money the state has been sitting on for much to long.
Item 44, A RESOLUTION ADVISING AND GIVING CONSENT TO THE APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS TO VARIOUS CITIZEN BOARDS. The good news is Jeff Barth got appointed to the Museum Board and the Planning Commission has appointed a 9th member, Mike Gray;
Mike Gray
While I have NO problem with Mike serving on the Zoning Board since it deals mostly with private property issues and zoning one scratches their head a bit about having a SFDF employee on the planning board. It just appears like a huge conflict of interest all the way around. Now if we can just get this new member to show up to the meetings and vote! I remember the good old days when you would look up at the planning commission’s dais and see 9 smiling faces! I did recently contact the Planning Chair about some of the issues with recusals, conflicts and quorums and she assured me she would be looking into it.
Active Transportation Board • 8:30 AM • City Hall, Commission Chambers • July 19, 2023
Hopefully we will get an update about what is happening with rec trail restrictions. As I understand it councilors Cole and Neitzert are working on a fix that would include allowing E2s and a speed limit (there is NOT one currently in statute).
I guess the mayor is running out of venues, he is returning to the public square to give an address. Where do a I RSVP for my free juice and bearclaw?
I was glad to hear that they are working on this issue;
But that’s not the case anymore, as the city and its public and private partners have adjusted policing, security and amenities to curb the amount of begging along downtown Sioux Falls’ primary commercial corridor. And that’s resulting in what regulars to the bustling Phillips Avenue say has been a noticeable downturn in the number of transients and homeless loitering on street corners.
I am hoping they are NOT applying the same strategy of the last mayor of ‘whack a mole’ where they just chased the transients from one park to another with a roundup Friday afternoon to the County Jail.
Is the organization in cooperation with the SFPD monitoring where a person goes once they have skirted them out of DTSF? How many are getting services? How many are just finding another intersection to panhandle at?
I can tell you as someone who lives adjacent to DTSF, while there is a noticeable difference in the core of downtown, on the fringes the homeless are still gathering.
Obviously this is a work in progress and a huge learning curve but at least they are putting the BID Tax increase to good use and actually making an attempt to do it right this time. Heck, I even saw a drone flying down Phillips Avenue of Saturday night, not sure if it was a police drone or just someone screwing around.
I would also like to know more about this;
DTSF President Joe Batcheller told The Dakota Scout that the organization recently entered two-year, $700,000 contract with Block By Block, a Kentucky-based company that helps groups like DTSF optimize its hospitality and safety services.
Did DTSF get a grant for programming or is it coming directly from their budget? Also, is it the job of DTSF to provide security to business owners? There are good arguments on both sides, but I am still curious why the city did’t just chip in for this programming?
I wish them luck in tackling this, and remember, hand sanitizer is for your hands not a mixer for your cocktail.
*I did leave Joe Batcheller a voicemail with some followup questions and hope to hear back from him.
Someone should have told them to lock their doors, I guess we have a problem with that in Sioux Falls.
While homeowners have legitimate questions about this road;
They’re worried the six-lane highway that will handle close to 30,000 vehicles a day is being built so close to their homes.
“A semi is 70 thousand pounds loaded, it takes 265 feet to stop at 60 mph that’s 130 feet off this person’s property here and the one back further is 120 feet,” Kampa said.
“My concern is the safety mainly and also the noise,” Wayne Wilhelmi said.
Wayne Wilhelmi built his house in 2015 and was never told Veterans Parkway was going to be in his backyard.
The real question is who is investing in development along the road.
But the city says landowners have been well informed and knew about this highway for years.
I will agree that this has been in the news for several years, and not insider city news, I think every major media source in Sioux Falls has been covering this road plan which was first initiated in 2003 and updated to final design in 2011.
I would agree we need another corridor in Sioux Falls, but I’m not sure a high speed road next to residential is the answer.
But one question I have been nagging reporters about for several years is looking into who is investing in development along the road, and specifically if any local elected officials (councilors, county commissioners, mayor, etc.) are investing in it thru various LLCs and different private investor groups.
I understand that getting this kind of information can be difficult, but I would encourage reporters to just ASK all our local elected officials if they or their spouse have any investments along this corridor. If they all say NO, your work is cut out for you, start digging, because guardrails and brakes on a semi-trucks is just a small part of this behemoth running thru our town.
l3wis