Board of Ethics Meeting June 8, 2021
l3wis Sorry this took so long, Cameraman Bruce has been very busy;
Great interview with the author of Benjamin Franklin, An American Life
There is a lot to learn about this great person, the working man’s founder. Ken Burns will be releasing a 4 hour documentary about him soon.
UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council Agenda August 3-4, 2021
UPDATE: The Planning Agenda is NOW posted, if you go to the Med MJ Item 5B, you will see how convoluted they have written it. Read the final two paragraphs first. Basically, they want any dispensary to apply at the 1000′ foot variance, but they can request to be at 500′ feet through conditional use. In other words, every dispensary will have to go begging to planning and likely the city council for the variance. They have made this much more complicated than it needed to be. They should have just reduced to 500′ feet for ALL dispensaries. There is NO difference between Bob’s MJ Dispensary or Mary’s MJ Dispensary, they do the same thing, why would the variance change from store to store? This is what happens folks when you have legislators not listening to the public, a big fat cluster.
Notice the agenda for the Planning Commission meetings have NOT been posted yet. This is not unusual, they have until tomorrow to do so for the briefing. Remember, the Planning Commission is scheduled to vote on the zoning restrictions for Medical MJ on Wednesday. The proposal is for 1000 feet, but advocates have asked for 500 feet. I have no ideas what is going on behind the scenes. I have had radio silence with ALL councilors, city officials and moles and planning commission members. My guess is that there are some very ‘delicate’ negotiations going on. Hopefully we will know more Monday afternoon.
On the council agenda is the budget hearings and the regular council meeting.
Item #6, Sub Item #13, More money for screwing around with SAM on demand, $140K. Interesting that we have NO idea how the first round went, too bad they couldn’t have a PTAB meeting to tell us, oh that’s right, they couldn’t because that would have been a violation of open meeting laws for not posting an agenda 24 hours in advance.
Item #41, 1st Reading, TIF for Cherapa II. As you know I am opposed to this, as I am with ALL TIFs in Sioux Falls that don’t help with affordable housing. If you glance at the 92 page document attached to the item, you will notice that the land purchase agreement was signed back in November of 2019 by the mayor. Once again not only are we giving TIFs to wealthy developers who have the resources to do these projects on their own, we hold onto the land for them for almost 2 years tax FREE. You know who owns and runs this town, and it ain’t you and me.
UPDATE: Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken should be doing more to encourage vaccination
UPDATE:Â Actually, when you think about it, giving people $100 for two shots would NOT be a handout. Technically two shots cost us $90 as Federal taxpayers, so you could look at it as a tax refund on the vaccination and NOT a handout.
While I somewhat agree with the premise that we shouldn’t have to pay people to take a FREE vaccine, there is much more the city and the mayor could do to encourage vaccination;
“While we want those who have not been vaccinated to step up to the plate and get their shot, I think we can trust people to make their own health care decisions without the need for a government handout,†TenHaken said in a statement sent to the Argus Leader.
This is certainly an interesting statement about government handouts considering this;
South Dakota has received more than $2 billion in federal stimulus since the start of the pandemic, with more than $50 million of that funneled to the city of Sioux Falls.
So instead of incentivizing people with a Bennie, the city has spent most of this money on paying off bonds, building parks and other NON-RELATED covid expenses. I have even thought that how they spent some of this money was against Federal mandates.
Like I said, setting the precedent of giving people money to get a FREE vaccine would NOT be good, and I disagree with Biden on this, but the city already set a bad precedent by spending Covid money on things un-related to Covid which I think is far more nefarious.
They could have spent just 10% of the money and plastered this town with billboards, media PSA’s and print ads telling people why the vaccine is safe and should be taken. The billboards could show people dying on a ventilators, they could point out that 99.4% of all people getting hospitalized or dying of Covid are unvaccinated, or more importantly they could be telling people that the science and technology behind mNRA has been studied for around 30 years!!!! The only thing experimental about the vaccination is that it hasn’t had long term clinical trials, which I will admit does cause some anxiety, but the science has been around a long time.
Also, instead of the $100 incentive the city could also spend the money on workforce development, affordable housing, and public transportation. They could also put residents who have already been vaccinated and those willing to get it (2nd shot) to enter a city lottery where we could give out FREE community development grants to do needed repairs to their homes.
There are many ways to get creative with vaccination promotion.
The city should also have a vaccination clinic that runs Monday-Friday at Falls Community Health. Maybe they do, but I have not heard of it.
Let’s face it, the quickest way to get back to normal and turn around the economy is if herd immunity can be achieved, that is why Noem and TenHaken’s rank hypocrisy astonishes me. I agree people have the right to refuse the vaccination, but you have a duty as elected officials, with billions in your coffers from Federal taxpayers to educate people on the importance of this.
I ask Kristi and Paul the simple question I ask many conservatives who chose personally to get the vaccination. Didn’t you get it for the safety of your own health, your family’s health and the health of your community? They usually answer yes. Then why wouldn’t you encourage others? It’s mind boggling.
This is what ALL Levitt Concerts should look like
I was a little surprised yesterday with all the rain that the Levitt concert was NOT cancelled but to start at a later time. The opening act played until 8 and the headliner played to almost 10 PM. It has been my opinion that the concerts should ALL go from 7:30-10 PM on Friday and Saturday nights. As you can see from the pictures, this is what a night time outdoor concert should look like with stage lights. The sound was also cranked up towards the end. I can honestly say, this is the first time I stood in front of the stage and the music was loud. The band, The Foxies are a pop punk band that pulls influences from Green Day, The Cure, Blondie, No Doubt (the lead singer voice and dance moves remind you of Gwen Stefani) and you even hear the Clash, The Smiths and ‘X’ in their songs.
The only unfortunate part of the show was half of it was in the rain (I watched live stream until the rain ended and showed up in person) this also limited the crowd to about 30 people. But the performers treated this like any other show and rocked their asses off.
I have often said it is ‘the little things’ that can make the Levitt better;
• Start the shows at 7:30 PM on Friday and Saturdays
• Turn up the volume
• Allow people to bring their own beer and wine
• Ban pets
The city council has the power to make all 4 things above happen, if they just had the courage to do it (which they don’t).
