And the Black Hole award goes to . . .

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(Image: KELO-TV) This is a picture of a sinkhole that erupted overnight in SF.

It seems our city council gathered another prestigious award (SD Newspaper Association);

And the “Black Hole” Award goes to…

Since this is Sunshine Week, a national observance about the importance of openness and transparency in government, I think it is a good time to give what I call the “Black Hole” Award. Webster’s in part defines a black hole as a space that light cannot escape. Certainly true in the case of the Sioux Falls City Council, which last week was reprimanded by the Open Meetings Commission for violating state law. The complaint that went to the open meetings panel was initiated by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

Last year in a special meeting executive session the Sioux Falls City Council decided to fire the city clerk. The problem: the official action related to the decision to fire the clerk was never conveyed to the public in the official minutes of the Sept. 14 special meeting.

Rather, Sioux Falls councilors decided, apparently based on advice from their attorney, to approve this motion following the executive session: “to authorize Councilors Erpenbach, Anderson Jr., and Entenman to take the personnel action that was discussed in Executive Session.”

Huh?

The city attorney said the council needed to be non-specific in its motion in order to “protect” city clerk Debra Owen and afford her the same rights as if she was a private employee.

Yea, right. Benevolent-sounding, but it appears to be more about city councilors wanting to protect themselves rather than Debra Owen.

At any rate, the open meetings commission was right to reprimand the council, and the subsequent media attention has helped put some bite in the reprimand.

The Sioux Falls mayor has since said the open meetings laws are “confusing.” The Sioux Falls city attorney has said the reprimand is no big deal and he would welcome the opportunity to work with legislators to “clarify” the open meetings law.

Really? Confusing? Clarification needed?

South Dakota’s open meetings laws are pretty clear cut when it comes to taking any official action related to executive session discussions. Public boards in South Dakota generally have operated well under those provisions of the law for 25 years. The law allows public boards to keep discussions and rationales regarding personnel actions in secret. The law is clear that any official action regarding those discussions must be made in public. It also must be clear exactly what those official actions are.

Why Sioux Falls city officials suddenly find it confusing is rather amusing. And sad.

Nevertheless, the 2012 Sunshine Week “Black Hole” Award is no laughing matter. It’s a serious reminder that open government in South Dakota is always a work in progress.

The Mitchell Daily Republic decided to chime in;

It seems that many boards do not take great offense when they are reprimanded by the Open Meetings Commission, a panel that hears public complaints about possible violations of procedure by elected boards.

That Brown is so offended shows he cares, and it shows that he truly wants to conduct the people’s business appropriately.

We don’t care that his scolding of the city attorney caused offense. If the attorney’s advice was bad and caused embarrassment to the board, so be it. The attorney works for the people; so does the City Council, for that matter.

And further, Brown maintains that his role on the board does not trump his First Amendment rights to state his true feelings about this issue.

Hear, hear.

Good job, Vernon.

Posted in: Open Government, Open Meetings, SF City Council, Sioux Falls, Vernon Brown

Is Lewis & Clark looking for another handout from the taxpayers of Sioux Falls?

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Looks like Lewis & Clark is trying to hoodwink us again. I would suggest Mr. Larson buy a plane ticket to DC and start talking to them about funding his project. Sioux Falls taxpayers have already coughed up plenty for a project that we will never use to full capacity for decades. I got this update from a South DaCola foot soldier;

Troy Larson gave an update (FF 24:00).  He said that in spite of delegations from three states (SD, IA and MN)  meeting with the Feds, they had made little progress to resolve this. The remaining liability for the 20 members is 194m if the Feds are not forthcoming with what they have promised. Larson said that because of the large amount of pre-payment that the members have already made and the percentage of project completion that it has moved Lewis and Clark from 7th to 2nd on the list (?)  He did make the comment that he didn’t think that this would have much effect.

Councilor Jamison made a comment at the end about “helping out the little guys,” Troy Larson also brought up the “nuclear option“.  I have only heard him mention this one other time and I think that was several years ago when they were discussing Sioux Falls $70m pre-payment.

One of the Councilors did ask about SF’s need for additional water in 2012.  The answer was that we do not need the water, but we are obligated to buy it anyhow, something to the tune of $2m for next year alone! No wonder those “user fee/taxes” had to go up so much.

This was something that Cotter did confess to me and group who met with him earlier in the year. I seemed confused by this. Why spend $80 million for a pipeline we will only use if we need to? He did tell us it was ‘more expensive’ to use Lewis and Clark and that is why it will be for backup only.

I hope the city treads lightly this time when it comes to Lewis & Clark. We have already bought the farm on this deal, we don’t need a second plantation.

Posted in: Lewis & Clark

Kylie Huether; The Daily Show is not a credible news source (H/T – TCC)

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Yeah, because like, MSNBC, CNN and FOX news are;

“Teens are Wired”
By Kylie Huether
Teenagers have a reputation of being lazy and careless when it comes to staying up to date in the world of politics. Of course there will always be the exceptions like myself who choose to pride themselves on being well informed US citizen and choose to be active members in the local politics. This select few will become the leaders of tomorrow, but ignorant followers who are emerging due to new technological advancements will destroy democracy as we know it. The current generation of teenagers spend ungodly amounts of time in front television sets and computer screens. Plus, nobody can forget the iPod, BlackBerry, MP3 and camera cell phone crazes which have captivated the lives of many America’s. Teens can only be described as wired, a scary fact. Every teenager is wired to an electronic device which could hold endless opportunities for advancements. Unfortunately, their uses are not in the areas of educating the public on foreign policies, current events or basically anything worth while. Entertainment is the main focus and in some instances the public may become dumber by wasting their time on these machines.
Instead of receiving information from highly acclaimed news sources, teenagers are choosing to watch MTV and the Daily Show. This is a problem. Teens do not comprehend the dramatic impact politics plays in their lives. The attitude towards politics in the eyes of many teens is “who cares.” They wonder why they should waste time watching politicians attack opponents with negative campaigning. When time could be better utilized watching reality television programs where everything is make-believe and does not affect people’s personal life. The easy alternative is not always the most worth while.
When a teenager is looking for information to write a research paper the first word that pops into their mind is Google. They see Google as a quick, easy, accessible choice. When there are thousands of reliable sources to click on teens go and believe everything Google has to offer. Do not get me wrong Google has saved my grades on numerous sleepless nights, but this technology teaches students to forget about old school source like the public library, old newspapers, and radio broadcasts. Students need to strive to receive creditable information.
New technology has created the unnecessary need for speed. Multi-billion dollar companies are competing to create the next obsession. My fear is that America is moving to fast and loosing quality in the race.

Funny she would bring up public libraries. She should ask her father what he thinks of funding them.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

Argue Endorser; We’ve talked about the EC long enough – just go vote (yes, please)

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The state can’t afford to help with a new events center, they have Canadian oil companies to help first.

Of course the AL cannot resist to spread a little beautiful sunshine before telling us to go vote;

The plan calls for a $115 million center to be built adjacent to the Convention Center. It would seat 12,000 people, and no new or raised taxes would be used to pay for it.

Until the next council and mayor take over, there is nothing stopping them from raising taxes. There is also no mention of the current council shifting enterprise funds out of the 2nd penny to make infrastructure upgrades be rate supported only (why do you think water rates have gone up almost 200%?). Or that the facility will cost almost $200 million when it is all said and done.

More than 1,500 jobs would be created, and 85 percent of local contractors would be used for the project.

A commenter on the AL site had this to say about that half-truth;

According to both the Mayor’s EC update to the Council (see siouxfalls.org September 12th Informational meeting) and the EC public presentation that they gave at the public libraries this week:

1,100 jobs are TEMPORARY construction jobs
184 jobs are PERMANENT jobs (their comment: these will be mostly in the hospitality industry)

This is a total of 1,284 jobs, of which 1,100 are TEMPORARY (an important omission of the facts, esp. when job creation is such an important and timely topic).

AND, I think that this is a good example of why the pros and cons of this project need to continue to be discussed!

(This is a sentence taken directly from this editorial: “It’s time to stop arguing about the pros and cons of an events center and put your ballot where your mouth is.”

And I’m still wondering whose butt they pulled this factoid from;

The estimated economic benefit is $36 million a year.

I have mentioned to councilor Jamison in the past that having Pat Costello sitting on the Governor’s staff as the main dude when it comes to economic development that you would think we would get something from the state? Anything would help. This commenter says it best;

Lastly, the big talking points about why we should build this thing is tax revenue from visitors. Well, doesn’t the state get 2/3rds of all sales taxes collected in this state? I realize they are broke thanks to a decade of mismanagement, but the state stands to gain quite nicely from a new facility, yet they are unwilling to provide ANY type of support, either monetarily or via fiscal policy.

Well they are not broke. They have almost a $800 million sitting in an investment fund, untouched. They also have all kinds of money to throw at foreign oil companies for tax breaks. Yeah, you would think the state would give something? Right?

Posted in: Event Center, Sioux Falls

Mayor’s 4th of July Picnic is going to be pretty rockin’

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I got this insert in my water bill today and noticed Sioux Falls’ most kickass R & R band will be playing the main stage, The Blues Bashers, or as the city calls them the Blues Basher Band. I asked Rocco if I could write the playlist, but that probably won’t happen. I told him it will probably be the largest SF crowd he has ever played for besides JazzFest. They feed the first 5,000 for free, and the stage will be setup next to the food line. I think they should open with this tune;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ4NFsw4bOU&feature=related[/youtube]

Posted in: Blues Bashers, Music, Sioux Falls