Former Pizza Maker & Parks Board Member gets nod for new IT Director for city

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Not since Paul appointed that FB cusser, TJ Nelson, as his deputy COS has he made a flub in an important appointment. Today that changed;

Mayor Paul TenHaken today announced the appointment of Jason Reisdorfer to the new position of Director of Innovation and Technology.

Where to begin with Jason? When he was appointed to the Parks Board, we decided to check his voting record. While he was registered to vote, he seemed skip the important part of that registration by voting. In anything.

You may also remember Jason’s very public attacks on FB towards councilor Stehly for trying to convert the Parks Board into districts and get their meetings video recorded. I guess I am not real keen on Jason’s disdain for government transparency and fairness when he will be running our secure data for the city.

But let’s move on to his stellar resume;

In 2012, Jason sold his restaurant business to go work with his long-time friend Eric Weisser.

I guess I am puzzled what business he sold? Or was it more like a liquidation? As I understand it the business he is referring to is a very successful pizza chain in the region that is still alive and well. I think Jason had a small ownership in a branch of the business that has since closed in Harrisburg.

Together, they built Weisser Distributing into one of the fastest growing companies in South Dakota. They recently earned their fourth consecutive selection to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the United States. As the Director of Operations, Jason led Weisser Distributing’s growth from four employees and $1 million in sales to over 130 employees with warehouses in three cities and are on pace to record over $65 million sales in 2018.

So this part of his resume actually has me asking more questions than anything. If he was just an employee that helped build the business this much, why would they let him go? If he had actual ownership in the business, why isn’t he staying? Did he sell his part? Or will he still have ownership and involvement while working for the city? Is that a conflict? I don’t know.

Also, I find it curious that he wants to work for the city of Sioux Falls when this company decided to move to Tea, SD to grow and not stay in Sioux Falls. How can you have pride in working for Sioux Falls when you decided to grow your business in Tea?

There is a lot of questions the city council needs to ask before approving this appointment.

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

Falls Park Safety isn’t Rocket Science

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It has often amazed me when Former Mayor Coors Light & Olives would talk about all of his ‘WINS’ and wouldn’t address ‘REAL’ issues in our community, like Public Transit and the Meth epidemic. But he also wouldn’t address the little things that just needed a ‘tweak’.

There was a lot of excuses about Falls Park Safety, but no action. It seems TenHaken gets it, it needs to be fixed, so let’s get on it;

“We are moving fast and furious on a proposal,” Nelson said. “Our approach is to enhance not only the safety but also the visitor experience in the park with improved accessibility.”

And that is the job of good government. When you see a need for something to be better, you dig in and do it instead of making excuses about mystery reports and having multiple press conferences about nothing.

Next big tweak Paul? Transparency. Let’s move fast and furious on that to.

Posted in: Former Mayor Coors Light & Olives, Mayor TenHaken, Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Park Board Meeting, Tuesday

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SIOUX FALLS PARKS AND RECREATION BOARD MEETING

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

3:00 p.m. Regular Board Meeting

Downtown Library, 200 N. Main Ave., Meeting Room B

ORDER OF BUSINESS

1. Roll call and determination of quorum

2. Approval of minutes from January 16, 2018 meeting

3. Public input

4. Report of standing committees

a. Marketing and Public Needs

b. Park System Planning and Development

c. Partnerships and Recreation

5. Unfinished business

6. New business

a. Gate Fee Applications:

Tournaments – Scott Juhnke

JazzFest – Jackie Nelson

b. Great Bear Management Agreement – Kelby Mieras, Dan Grider, Steve Sanford

c. CIP 2019-2023 Work Session – Tory Miedema, Mike Patten

7. Report of Director of Parks and Recreation

a. Community Center report – January

b. Aquatics report – January

c. Ice Rink Report – January

d. Golf Course – December/Year End

e. Administrative issues report

8. Items added after the agenda deadline

a. The Parks and Recreation Board may include other such business as may come before

this body.

9. Reading of communications to the Board

10. Open board discussion

11. Adjournment

Upcoming events: No scheduled press conferences or ribbon cuttings

*DaCola Note: I find it interesting that they will be discussing the CIP 2019-2023 before a new administration come in.

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

The City of Sioux Falls should build a modern new skate park

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Sioux Falls Parks worker polishing a turd.

I can hear the hypocrisy calls already. I know, I know, I’m not a fan of spending tax dollars on special interest projects, but when you compare the popularity of skate boarding with the minimal cost it would be to build a new skate park, you will see my argument.

Skate boarding isn’t some ‘new’ trendy sport kids are getting into. In fact skate boarding has been popular since the 60’s (or earlier). My brother had a skate board in the late 70’s and one of my past work managers was featured in THRASHER magazine in the early 80’s. This isn’t something that is a trend, skate boarding is here to stay.

Also compare the millions we spend each year on Great Bear, swimming, bike trails, football, soccer, tennis and pickle ball (yes, pickle ball!).

Just take that last one for instance, did you know that since Huether has been mayor there have been several new outdoor tennis court complexes built throughout the city. I know it’s hard to tell when driving by them because besides McKennan Park YOU NEVER SEE ANYONE PLAYING AT THEM! Someone I know lives across the street from one of these new complexes and he has told me he doesn’t understand why it was built because he has NEVER seen anyone playing at it.

I live within blocks of the current crappy skate park, it is always busy. I even have seen kids skating there in November and February!

Another factor is that it wouldn’t cost much to build a new park. My guess is you could probably build a decent one for a million and really nice one for 2 million. Private donors are prepared to donate $500K to the project (you know, the same amount we gave to the mayor’s private indoor tennis complex).

One of the last arguments for the new skate park is that it should already be done. You can blame all the rat finks that still have sour grapes over the Drake Springs outdoor pool. It’s been over 10 years, and they still want to punish the entire neighborhood and city because Stehly did a petition drive. A little clarity for all the haters;

We are lucky we didn’t build an indoor pool at Nelson Park due to groundwater issues it would have been a maintenance nightmare, that’s not coming from me, that is coming from our consultant we hired to study pools in our city.

We were promised a much larger pool at Nelson Park than what we got (not sure where the money went? Maybe it was part of the secret siding settlement?), we were also promised a flower garden comparable to Mckennan Park in the old location of the pool which could be spectacular with all the natural springs in the area. And guess what else was promised? A new and improved skate park.

The skate park community also likes the Nelson Park site (Northeast corner) because of the natural slopes it would create a really cool skate park. Since the space is currently open, owned by the city, and has such great natural sloping it would also be the most economical area for the park. It is also truly ‘centrally located’ unlike Spellerberg Park, and much more accessible to kids. I think the city should just drop a cool $5 million, build a new skate park, floral garden and expanded parking in the old skate park location and turn Nelson Park into the city’s finest park. Drake Springs pool is already the most popular outdoor pool in the city (something the city doesn’t like to admit).

Though money is going to be tight over the next couple of years, a new skate park is one of the most economical upgrades to our parks system considering the millions we have spent on the river greenway which is just a landscaping handout to certain downtown businesses.

Besides the Bike Trail which is the true gem of our city and FREE, a new skate park would be the cherry on the top and used a lot more than all the empty tennis courts in this town.

I just suggest the skating community wait until after the Spring 2018 Municipal election before starting the REAL discussion. Besides Huether, many of his directors may be looking for new employment also. Might as well start fresh.

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Is it time for a concrete skate park in Sioux Falls?

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Skate activists have been after this for awhile, I was pointed to this post on FB of the city farting around with sanding the metal ramps and repainting them;

Dear the City of Sioux Falls, SD – Parks and Recreation Department

SO SOME OF YOU DONT TAKE THIS OUT OF CONTEXT AND THINK WE ARE JUST WHINING AND UNGRATEFUL, PLEASE READ THIS WHOLE POST THROUGHLY FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING PLEASE.

PLEASE SHARE THIS AND LET OUR VOICES AND FRUSTRATION BE HEARD

Speaking on behalf of every skateboarder or anyone that is involved in action sports in Sioux Falls that goes to Drake Springs or Kuehn, we are all SO SICK of putting up with the lack of care, and disrespectfulness we as skateboarders receive. Last year Mike Huether came to Drake Springs promising to make “Big Changes” to our skate environment in the upcoming year and even the Park and Rec department came to the park with Surveys asking “What changes should be made that YOU would like to see?” Every single one of us put down “CONCRETE SKATEPARK” but why in the world would we ever get one right? Today Nick Haugen and I came to Drake Springs to see Park and Rec employees sanding down the metal ON the ramps which is TOTALLY unsafe, and skateboarding on METAL RAMPS on dangerous enough as it is. One of the guys continues to tell us “Oh we’re sanding it down so we can REPAINT it all next week and we’re gonna close it down for a week as well” and instantly got infuriated by the fact that the only things that they are changing, is PAINTING this AWFUL skatepark. Once they were done sanding the ramps, one dude continued to just blow all the metal dust across the skatepark, WHICH IS ALSO DANGEROUS. And continued to laugh as he got metal dust in Nicks and my eyes. Two Police Officers later showed up and talked to Nick and I about what the problem was and after I voiced my opinion about how bogus this park is one them just said “Well don’t come here if you don’t like it, it’s as simple as that, and if you want something new voice your opinion to the city”, and TRUST ME we have all CLEARLY said the best changes would be to add a CONCRETE PARK in our city so the youth can flourish on skateboarding as well. The police officer just didn’t understand my passion for what I love doing and why so many people have quit skateboarding in this town because they don’t have the RIGHT MATERIALS to benefit and flourish of off. I don’t know what this post will lead to and it’ll probably lead to nothing more than likely. But if you support the Skate scene unlike the City Of Sioux Falls does, share this everywhere because I want this to be heard because we are all sick and tired of this.

Robert.

I would also like to Follow up in saying Mayor Huether responded to me a couple months ago about fund cuts all across the city and that I do understand nothing comes free.

I will say this;

• A concrete park is safer.

• It is affordable. When you consider we have given millions to youth football, ice hockey, indoor tennis, indoor swimming and even pickleball, I think SF can afford to pony up for at least ONE nice outdoor concrete skate park.

• Nelson Park was promised MANY things after the pool was built, but it seems sour grapes got in the way of those plans. One of them was a better skate park and a large floral garden area like McKennan Park over the area where the old pool was. None of it has happened.

I also heard that there was private donations being collected to help improve the park and someone stole the kitty this week 🙁

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec