I’M BACK!

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Before I do a recap of everything that has happened in our beautiful city over the past two months, first the reason why I returned. Honestly, I was starting to become bored, and missed writing about the events in our city. Secondly, I have had some soft ‘naggers’ over the past few months asking (begging) me to at least come back once in a while. I did plan on returning late this Fall once the weather got cold but the main reason I came back early is the utter incompetence at City Hall has been staggering, and just in a matter of months. While the local media has touched on some of the topics and issues, they, once again, have left out the small details that matter. For instance, did you know that it is most likely that Amazon is the new project being built at Flopdation Park (though I haven’t heard that officially from anyone in the know), but did you also know that one of the reasons the announcement has been delayed is NOT because of this mysterious company, it’s because The Development Foundation is trying to swing a deal with the city and using this company as leverage for a . . . wait for it . . . TIF! I found out about this last week. And get this, they don’t even know how much they want or if any company would be interested in it, they just WANT IT because they know at the end of the day our rubber stamp council will approve it even if they were proposing building a nuclear waste dump out there. Yes, folks, in the middle of a pandemic, with tax collection down, the developers still want their welfare, and this time, they don’t even know what for!

Either way, I’m glad I am back, and if you see this post, please share with friends. Also, the comments section is back on and as before, all comments will be moderated.

Now for a brief recap of what has been going on over the past couple of months;

• A few days after I started my blog break I got an email from a citizen telling me that the Midco Aquatic Center is slowly turning into a dump. The ventilation system in there is failing bad or not working properly and a lot of people stopped going because it is hard to breath, the therapy pool is being used as a kiddie pool and I guess there is significant rusting going on throughout the building (something we were promised would not happen).

• On July 14th councilors Selberg, Starr, Jensen and Ethically Challenged Neitzert were installed on the council. Mayor Stoneless said that he wanted to invite people around the world to watch the ceremony on internet, which is ironic because you can’t access the city website out of the U.S. You would think when you are trying to promote international business the site would work? That’s innovation folks!

• On July 15th the Sioux Steel Hotel project finally admits to a delay;

Lloyd Cos. will begin its Sioux Steel redevelopment in downtown Sioux Falls later than originally planned, pointing to pandemic-related market conditions the company said have “created a time of unprecedented challenge in multiple industries.”

When I first heard the rumblings about this I suggested to a city councilor that the TIF needs to be rescinded. They reached out to the Planning Director, the response? Crickets.

• There is also several rumors swirling around about Sanford Health. Since most of them are 2nd hand rumors, all I can say at this point, expect some surprising and big changes. Not all bad either.

• Councilor Neitzert’s ethics problems have been spiraling out of control over the past two months. I will have a post about it soon.

• Downtown Sioux Falls finally experiments in a plan I have suggested for years. Closing Phillips off. Of course they do it in the middle of a pandemic, provide no vendors (food and drink) and no picnic tables. It was dismal to say the least. I was told that the city didn’t bring any tables down because they lacked ‘manpower’ and no volunteers for beer tents. It was a disaster and DT business owners told me they were not included, knew little about it in advance and some worried about liability. Lame. I guess the idea came from the new tech director with the city who lives DT. Next time, don’t let a great idea flounder so badly.

• Councilors Errakticson and Kiley presented the ‘Transparency ordinance’ which is a good idea (shows who sponsors ordinances on the agenda) but I found it a bit ironic that Rick talked about how he supports transparent government while during the operations committee on Thursday (transparently held at 10 AM in the morning during the workweek) the proposals were ANYTHING but transparent and open. I also have a future post coming about this topic.

• Mayor Stoneless said the SFPD will be getting 150 body cams for the police. This was something that citizens have been asking for over 10 years. It will be interesting how many times the cameras get ‘accidentally’ turned off, misplaced, or erased. I’m a STRONG supporter of reallocating police funds to other programs that help with crime prevention before enforcement has to occur.

• After Mayor Stoneless’ budget address, and a quick one hour regular meeting that ended at 8 PM, the municipal band members found out that night that the city (Parks Department) is cutting their $130K yearly budget essentially, disbanding the band. They just celebrated their 100 year anniversary in 2019. While I understand maybe taking the Covid year off and scaling back, I find it a bit hypocritical of Paul, who proposes a almost $600 million dollar budget ($22 million dollar increase from the year before) that he can’t find the money for the band. If we can give $1.5 million to the State Theater they can find the money. I know that this is something the Parks Director, Mr. Pants on Fire himself, has had a wet dream about for years, he has attempted it in the past. Of course a lot of misinformation was spread around and Chris Hill, the director of the band showed up to a budget hearing to clear it up. Paul, the self-proclaimed ‘Arts Mayor’ (I guess taking multiple selfies of you and your manly friends working out qualifies as art) thinks that they should just raise the money privately or as Councilor Errakticson suggested ‘volunteer’. While I agree some changes should be made, cutting it totally is idiotic and just shows the lack of leadership and innovation this mayor has, especially on something so simple as scraping some bones together for this 100 year tradition. Many people have testified at meetings since the cut was announced with passionate support.

• Councilor Pat Starr is running for Minnehaha County Treasurer. All I can say is YEAH!

• The SFPD released plans for the police/fire training center and metro 911. Originally said to cost around $30 million now has skyrocketed to $52 million with a $5 million constingency fund. Here we go again. Crappy built facility so we need extra money lying around to fix crappy contractor work. Maybe we have learned something from all the times we have gotten the shaft on the Pavilion, the Denty, the Midco, the Admin building, and you wait, on the Triage Center and Bunker Ramp.

• Speaking of the Sioux Failing Downtown Parking Ramp, there was zero ribbon cuttings, or announcements of it’s opening. Yes, we must protect ourselves from the embarrassment from this colossal failure and fraud on the taxpayers of Sioux Falls. When the finance director was asked why no announcement, he said “We wanted a soft opening.” Hey Shawn, this isn’t a coffee shop, it’s a $26 million dollar F’up. Oh, and the opening has been soft. I ride my bike in there (to get awesome photos from the roof) and on most nights there is about 4 cars in there. That’ll pay the mortgage for sure.

• The city continues to fail at posting board meeting agendas 24 hours in advance. Cameraman Bruce showed up to the last solid waste board to tell them they couldn’t have the meeting because it was not properly posted. They quickly disbanded. Not sure what was on the agenda, but my guess is they are planning to keep the Covid inspired taking your cans to the end of the driveway permanent, which saves the haulers in labor costs that they probably won’t pass on to the consumers.

• City Leaders decided to have a ‘Diversity’ conference at the Downtown Holiday Inn, the problem? The all white panel forgot to invite any leaders with any diversity. It blew up on FB, I’m sure you saw it.

• At a recent city council meeting Councilor Errakticson decided to present us with the ‘Hot Mess Moms’. You can come to your own conclusions.

• Denny Sanford gave $12.5 million to the USD Law School so they could name it after Dave Knudson. I said to someone it would be like naming the SD DMV after Bill Janklow. Ironically, Dave didn’t even attend the school. Go figure. The school should really be named after the late Mike Myers who dedicated years to the program. God Bless his soul.

As I said above, there will be some more posts about some specific things that have happened this past couple of weeks. Stay strong and as always, Transparency and Open Government is essential to a healthy democracy and community. Now if we can get those at City Hall to figure that out. It’s good to be back, I think.

Posted in: Mayor TenHaken, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Elects ‘Non-Leaders’ to Leadership

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Besides Councilor Stehly saying, “Wham, Bam, Thank You Maam” there was a lot of elitist eye-rolling and laughter going on when councilors Brekke and Stehly were making nominating speeches for their choice for Vice-Chair, Pat Starr. Of course, Neitzert got it, in a pre-determined vote, which gave them plenty of time to laugh at the nominating speeches since the fix was in.

I was watching from the comfort of my office at home, but from talking to citizens watching in the chambers, it was purely disgusting and disrespectful. It amazes me the level of disrespect the RS5 (Rubber Stamp 5) have for Pat and Theresa, especially after the entire city got to see how incredibly idiotic, careless, reckless, fiscally irresponsible and just plain stupid their votes were for the downtown parking ramp, in which none of them have apologized for, just said ‘oh well’ and blew it off. I also hear now that Mayor Selfie is looking for a competitor to Stehly.

Please forget about the mistakes of the past and elect me to leadership. Not only are they extremely arrogant and dysfunctional, they are in complete denial of their mistakes and stupidity. This is the worst city council I have seen in 15 years. Complete Losers and Failures. The ironic part was when Erickson and Neitzert were working with the minority, they were getting things done, but once the rules got changed for Air BNB and Erickson started rolling in the dough, she flipped, almost overnight. It may be time to implement a lodging tax on Air BNB.

Oh, but it gets better. At the city council informational meeting, the IT department (growing in employees with many of the other mayoral departments) requested to raise the tax for Midco and Vast from 2.5% to 6%. It took bringing up Midco’s attorney (thank you Theresa) to admit that that tax will just be passed onto the consumer and the communications companies won’t pay anything.

So our innovation manager’s greatest feat so far is a plan to tax us more for internet and cable. This is what a HS diploma will get you.

 

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, May 21, 2019

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City Council Informational Meeting, 4 PM

DTSF presentation with other non-profit orgs.

Agreement with Midco and Vast broadband open video (there were no attached docs, so I’m not even sure what this is about. It is coming out of the Innovation Department). But it seems it has to do with providing city videos with subscribers. This is a total waste of money for many reasons. As I have stated before, you can watch city videos in YouTube for free without subscribing AND it’s FREE to the city to post there. To spend a buttload of money to create a subscriber video program NOT only goes against fiscal responsibility, it goes against open, transparent and FREE government. It also creates a BIG BROTHER system of monitoring the subscribers. In simple terms, It’s creepy, expensive and overstepping. It will be interesting to hear the arguments for this proposal. There is also several expenditures in the approval of contracts in the regular meeting.

City Council Regular Meeting, 7 PM

Item#6, Approval of Contracts/Agreements

Legal services for Open Video, $25K

Legal services for new IT department in the City Center, $15K. It amazes me that the city’s own legal counsel cannot figure this out. They are truly turning into a purchasing department and NOT a legal department.

Washington Pavilion asking for building improvements of $1.1 million. While some of the stuff is probably needed, I’m wondering about a almost $500K retaining wall. As I have mentioned in the past there are rumors that there have been issues with the structural soundness of the Northeast portion of the building, and one wonders if this has to do with an expensive retaining wall?

Item #42, Resolution, Orpheum contract with the Pavilion. I find this line in the contract questionable;

WHEREAS, this agreement also serves as a memorandum of understanding of a long-term relationship between the City and Management Company by standards appropriate of an accredited institution of the American Association of Museums; and

As I understand it the Pavilion has been putting off their recertification with the AAM. I wonder if the city has looked into this?

Item #44, Resolution, Sioux Empire Leadership Council participation. I’m still puzzled about this organization and why the private healthcare monster-plexs are involved? If this is about workforce development as part of the mission, how is having wage-colluding institutions like this involved going to help?

Item #46, Resolution, instituting the city’s official legal notice newspaper. I think with such low subscription numbers (15,300 weekday & 36,606 Sundays) how on earth does this even make sense? I know by state law they have to publish in a subscribed paper, in other words NO other publication would work like ETC., Motor Weekly or Shopping News. But if you are NOT reaching the public, what’s the point? I have suggested that ONLINE should be bare minimum and a printed published bound piece at all of the public libraries should be good enough for those without the internets. Enough of wasting money on 4 pt type and 1″ square maps in a paper no one reads. Wake up state legislature change the law.

Item#47, Resolution, Appointment to citizen boards

Most of the time, this is NOT controversial. The mayor gets to pick friends or friends of friends. But there is some curious appointments this time around, lets review;

Charter Revision Commission;

For reference, the CRC is responsible for allowing citizens to vote on revisions to the charter. These revisions are often brought by the city’s attorneys office, the administration, city councilors and citizens. Most of time they are very cautious about what they allow. Usually mundane legal language cleanup. In fact the last commission didn’t allow anything. Chief apologizer, Justin Smith (who is getting reappointed) felt that if something got on the ballot, citizens would tend to pass it. Oh My, the pitfalls of direct democracy! What an elitist brat!

It is NOT the concern of the CRC as to whether something will pass, there concern should be whether something is legal to be put on the ballot. Fascism is a form of government, but not Sioux Falls form of government. He should not be reappointed.

Anne Hajek, former city councilor, county commissioner and legislator will also be appointed. I spoke with Anne about this morning and she is excited about the appointment. I asked her if she would be willing to have stuff put on the ballot, and she said yes based on it’s merits.

But just when you thought it couldn’t get even worse, the past president of ultra-conservative x-tian college, Mr. Zylstra gets appointed to the commission. If the fascist lawyers won’t stop you, the right-wingnut pastors will. At least the meetings will be entertaining. I wonder if they will serve communion?

Let’s move on to the Planning Commission;

Erik Nyberg is attorney in Real Estate law with Cutler Law firm. The same firm’s whose owner, Kent Cutler has properties that have been being busted for illegal massage, illegal workers and illegal immigrants. Erik also serves on the Events Center Campus Book Club. There is no evidence that Erik is investing with his partner, but I find it a little curious that he works with a person that has a track record of allowing illegal immigrants to work in his rentals.

Items 48-50, Council Leadership Election. As I said last week at the council meeting, anyone who voted for the downtown parking ramp should not be allowed in leadership. This should be another dog and pony show. Wonder if the city will allow the rubber stampers to speak?

MORE INFO TO COME

Click to Enlarge Calendar

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Was Mayor TenHaken handed a turd sandwich?

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While there are many things the PTH administration needs to work on within their own philosophies of leadership, I think Paul was handed a lot of problems caused by the last mayor and rubber stamp city council. Unfortunately he seems to be eating the sandwich and liking it. Here is a list of things Paul is battling on those fronts;

ROADS. Let’s face it, while the weather hasn’t been the best for our pothole situation, some question what progress was done over the past 9 years? When Munson left office, our roads rated 7 out of 10, when the last guy left, the rating was identical. There was NO progress made (I’ve even argued that neighborhood streets in central SF have gotten much worse). I have contended that it’s not just a matter of money, it’s a matter of engineering the streets better.

THE BIRDCAGE. This facility has been losing money for well over a decade, and it really is just a money pit. It’s time we bulldoze the facility and find a better use for the property. I think another hotel with retail center surrounding it would be the best use. As for a new baseball stadium, I think the big wheels in town can fund that on their own or they can play at Harmadon Park.

THE EVENTS CENTER MONEY VACUUM/CAMPUS CASASM. As I mentioned above with SF stadium, we have issues with the area, it simply was built in the wrong location. It’s easy for visitors to pop off the interstate, go straight to the show, and leave right afterwards. The approximately $55 million in sales at the facility last year go straight out the door to promoters, artists and other vendors without recirculating in our community. This needs to be addressed.

DOWNTOWN PARKING RAMP. This project is the mother load of sh*t sandwiches. Paul had the chance to halt the project before ground was even broken, but moved forward anyway. Now we are faced with the unknown of a possible lawsuit, a new developer and RFP and Gawd knows what else. The administration should really be OPEN and TRANSPARENT about the process. I know they are acting like they don’t want to scare off the developer, but last I checked that may not be such a bad idea. If someone doesn’t have the money, that means they don’t have the money. It would be like feeling guilty for NOT giving a lazy panhandler money.

BUILDING COLLAPSE. The city really should have done their own investigation of this disaster. Furthermore, PTH doesn’t seem to concerned about it either. Not only should there have been an independent investigation by the State’s Attorney’s office, but there should have been a full audit of the building services department for ignoring repeated complaints about what was going on there. The illegal asbestos removable should have been the first red flag.

TRANSPARENCY. Speaking of the DT Parking Ramp fiasco, the last administration ran city hall like a cold war dictatorship. While Paul has been trying different things with getting more information out to the public, it’s very select, and the important things are still done behind closed doors, something we like to call ‘smoke and mirrors’. Sorry, Paul, we learned all the tricks from Bowlcut, they are NOT going to work this time around.

RAILROAD REDEVELOPMENT. This of course was the worst negotiated deal in the history of the city. Just the other day, after giving BNSF millions for land that Federal taxpayers essentially owned anyway in easements and reversion rights, the State has to take them to court over a $50K piece of land. Paul needs to cut the city’s losses on this banana shaped plot and sell it to the highest bidder ASAP.

ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. What did we say all along? We didn’t need the extra space. In fact, after building the new City Center we are finding out we have so much space that we are putting the IT department there and clearing out an entire city building for the Triage Center. Don’t get me wrong, the Triage Center is a worthy cause, but the taxpayers are really being taken to the cleaners on the city center and we still haven’t heard whether or not we are footing the bill for the defunct HVAC system.

MIDCO AQUATIC CENTER. Still not really at capacity, and worse yet, customer service reports from the facility are less then favorable. This will be another money pit for years to come. If I was PTH I would try to sell the facility to a private organization and wash our hands of it. Maybe the VA would be interested, they already own the land . . .

MASSIVE FLOODING. We know how the last guy thought about massive growth and development. If it was up to him he would have paved the entire city including all the public parks. Paul needs to slow this down, it is resulting in a lot of pavement and very little runoff and drainage. The action they are taking in the Rose/Lotta neighborhood is a good move, but more needs to be done by dedicating more of the 2nd Penny to drainage upgrades.

Like I said, Paul was really handed a plate of poo, but besides trying to re-polish it, he really isn’t tamping out the fires of closed government and corruption, but if you looked at his campaign donor list, you would know why. Follow the money folks.

Posted in: Mayor TenHaken, Sioux Falls

UPDATE: What’s going on with the tallest hotel in South Dakota?

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UPDATE: I guess someone in the SF MSM is working on a story about this, this should be interesting.

If you drive by the downtown parking ramp that is being constructed you will notice that most of that structure is completed (besides the outer façade).

So when will the beams start going up for South Dakota’s largest building?

There has been a lot of chatter in the Downtowner gossip circles that it may not happen.

I’m not sure why? But it could be anything from the ongoing Federal investigation into Legacy and the Copper Lounge collapse to the lack of investors (in which the investigation could be hindering investors).

We haven’t heard a peep from Lamont Companies since they bought a liquor license. It was their last appearance in a public meeting updating us on the progress of the project.

Posted in: Downtown Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls