Fun times at the Sioux Falls city council meeting 7/7/2015

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Lots of odds and ends going on at the city council meeting this next Tuesday.

• In item #1, approval of contracts, we are paying about $71K for a land purchase agreement. That’s a whole lot of cashola to draw up a purchase agreement.

• Items #15-17, Badlands Pawn is asking for a malt beverage license, a liquor license and, you guessed it, video lottery terminals. BIG SURPRISE!

• Item #33, zoning signs have to be bigger. It’s about time.

• Item #40, exemptions to inspection fees. While I agree totally with the list of entities, I’m curious about one of them;

Section 41.007. EXEMPTION FROM PERMIT AND INSPECTION FEES.

Habitat For Humanity of Greater Sioux Falls, Incorporated; Make-A-Wish Foundation; Repair Affair Projects of the Home Builders Association of Sioux Falls; and the Home Modification Wheelchair Ramp Program of Independent Living Choices; South Eastern Development Foundation; and Community Development Department Neighborhood Revitalization Program projects are exempt from payment of fees for plat and/or plan reviews, permits and inspections from the following major organization units:

(a) Planning and building services; (b) Public works; (c) Fire prevention division; and (d) Police.

Am I missing something? Why would the Make-A-wish foundation need this exemption? Just curious.

• Item #41. Approving ‘complete streets’ in a resolution. While I support this proposal, I am curious why this did not go through an ordinance process instead of just a ramrod resolution process? Let’s pray about it.

• Item #43-44, oddball annexations.

• Item #44, Notice the overbid on the re-roofing of the Pavilion took over $400K from other projects planned at the Pavilion (this does not come out of the Pavilion operating subsidy, this comes out of our CIP).

• Item #45, the beat down of Councilor Dr. Kermit Staggers. Each year when Kermit wants to go to a conservative municipal government conference, he gets scrutiny. Yet none of the other councilor trips get this kind of scrutiny. As I told Kermit today, while I don’t agree with every aspect of this conference, it is always good to get different perspectives on municipal governing. I have often said, maybe he will learn ‘what not to do’ at this conference?

The Mayor’s ‘Shut Up & Listen’ session, June 29, 2015

(FF: 26:50) A resident of Prince of Peace asks a question about better education funding in rural Minnehaha county. The mayor says it is out of his control, which is NOT true. The more TIF’s the city approves, the more it affects education funding. Also, the recent vote with school boundaries at West Central was very much a city issue. Some very close Huether supporters were VERY involved with the campaign to uphold the school board’s decision to allow SF to suckup West Central school boundaries. Mike might want to say he isn’t involved, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The interesting part of the West Central campaign is that they didn’t need to financially report their donors. I would be curious to see how much Hizzoner donated to the campaign?

(FF: 43:40) A resident says she is dismayed about eliminating the free pool passes. The mayor blames no fee increases, and then blames the poor (52% swim for free). He also is troubled about the program ‘growing to large’. Then he starts to talk about the indoor aquatic center, and how ‘we’ need to pay for it. Then he brings up being the beer can collecting poor kid from Yankton. He calls the 52% free passes as an ‘imbalance’. DAMN RIGHT IT IS! People are broke in this town, we don’t have a jobs issue, we have a WAGE issue.

He ends the discussion by saying ‘Nothing is for FREE’. Hypocrite. You mean like the $500K of public dollars that went to a tennis club that bares your name for 102 members? You did not pass up that ‘freebie’. He talks about ‘working for it’. What amount of ‘work’ did you do to swindle the taxpayers of Sioux Falls out of $500K for your ultra-wealthy membership of the Huether Matche Pointe? It’s good to be King.

UPDATE: One resident gets up and chews his ass about the importance of FREE swimming for the poor children and learning how to swim.

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

UPDATE: But do SF Police Officers ‘Value’ their FREE lunches?

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Apparently they value them so much, that they need to take up emergency parking spots to eat them;

mindy-n2

When you hear the mayor and our finance director talk about the ‘value’ of things when they are not given away for free (Pool and Bus passes) and our police receive a FREE meal card at one of our fine hospital industrial complexes, let’s talk priorities. I often see them parked in the ER parking lot and on the adjacent street around ‘meal time’ by Avera. While I guess I could care less if Avera wants to give away FREE food (while charging the sick and visiting family members) the least the officer could have done was assist the gentleman into the ER if he didn’t want to give up his parking spot.

A few years back, councilor Staggers questioned this program and the parking situation (he lives one block from Avera’s ER) of Chief Barthel. While it is against police force policy and city policy to receive ‘free’ meals, Barthel said he doesn’t actively enforce the policy, only telling Staggers he ‘discourages’ it. If this present incident actually happened, I think it is about time the FREE meal program ends at Avera, it’s evident that some officers don’t value the program enough to help a sick person (you know, the people that are actually funding your FREE meal program).

UPDATE: This was a response emailed to me from a former SFPO named ‘Thomas’

“I am throwing the B.S. flag on this! I want to make sure that the original accuser knows the difference between the uniform of Avera security and the SFPD.  Especially since the original accuser is from out of town and may not be as familiar with the city landscape as they think. Avera has a uniform that is very similar  to what the former SFPD uniform looks like. I hope that a mistake has not been made.
Also, Sioux Falls police officers do not enforce parking on private property.  Before any accusations fly you should make sure that you understand who you are accusing and not make a mistake. Please do not forget that many, many times during a shift, officers from all over the city, county, and other area agencies are routinely transporting involuntary psychiatric committal patients into the main Avera emergency room for admission. Just because an officer is parked in the lot does not mean that the officer is there for a free lunch. The cliche that people only see a badge is very true. We should be very careful to avoid a false accusation. Many area agencies use Avera. Just because you see a patrol car you should not assume that it is one specific agency.
 When I was employed by the SFPD,  we were not paid for our lunch breaks. Although, federal law says that if employees are not paid for their lunch break they have to take that lunch break away from their work station. At that time (and I’m sure as it is today),  officers do not have the luxury of taking their break away from their work area,  they are usually limited to how far away they can go out of their assigned area.  During their unpaid lunch breaks, they  routinely are subject to be called out or to have it people walk up and want to speak with them on official business.
Regarding discounts or free meals: if that’s what the business wants to do that business can do that.  It is no different  for a business to extend a discount or a free meal to an officer than it is for an officer to be invited to a neighborhood block party and be offered a meal at the block party. Both of these situations encourage visibility of officers among the public.  Using your logic, any award, accolade, or thank you, should not be bestowed upon any officer or public employee for the job that they do. This would include any officer appreciation dinner that is put on by any local area civic organizations or a citizen handing an officer a bottle of water or soda on a hot day. If this practice were to end,  it will only serve to distance the officers from the public and the citizens that they serve.
Also, and especially during certain times of the 24 hour day, there are very few places open late at night  for an officer to stop and get something to eat.  Because of this, it is possible that because you see a patrol car, that you may not be seeing the same car for hours on end or if you see several patrol cars you’ll see some officers coming into start their break as some others are leaving.
If you have any questions regarding the conduct of any officer you always have the option to speak with that officer’s supervisor. The city has made it very easy for anybody to inquire, complain, or comment on any officer. I am a big fan of this blog, I read it every day. There are very many things that go on in the city (that we should be aware of and are hidden from view of the public) and this blog does an excellent job of exposing that information. This item is not one of those things.
 I would have fully expected this blog to research this incident more throughly instead of just linking to an alleged or suspect incident. As A law-enforcement officer, I learned very early, that you have to have all the facts to make a proper decision in any incident and that until you have all the facts, no conclusions or opinions should be drawn.”
My RESPONSE:
As a person who has friends and aquaintences that work at both hospitals, I will say everything that Thomas is saying is true, BUT, I have also seen quite the opposite, and heard the opposite from hospital employees, that ‘some’ officers do use the emergency parking lot for ‘meal time’. To say it is one way or the other 100% of the time, is not the case. Just like any public employee, some are saints, some just go with the flow.
As for the FREE meals. As I understand it, it is against policy to accept free meals. And for good reason. Anytime a public employee gets a ‘freebee’ from someone, whether they are a police officer or a building inspector there could be an expectation from the giver to get something in return. The state has a long history with state government of ‘pay to play’. Obviously on a grander scale, but it is still there. Is it ethical for a public employee, who gets a salary, benefits and a pension to be accepting ‘gifts’ from business owners? It’s one thing to grab a plate of chicken at a crime watch picnic or at an appreciation night, it is a whole other ball of wax to be getting a free lunch everyday you work. If a police officer doesn’t believe he can afford to buy himself a lunch on what he makes, he best be talking to his union rep, because it is a sad day if we have to start handing out food stamps to police officers because they can’t afford to buy themselves food.
Posted in: SFPD, Sioux Falls

Planning Director Mike Cooper suggests deferral of FREE bus ridership for youth, council disagrees

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=298nld4Yfds

The Sioux Falls City Council voted 7-0 to approve the new pilot program tonight at the special meeting (Councilor Rolfing was absent).

But as of this morning, that vote looked a lot different. Jamison, Erickson & Staggers were on board, Karsky was a swing vote, and Erpenbach, Kiley and Anderson wanted to defer because they didn’t feel the city directors and mayor were included in the deal.

Call a whaaabulance, heard there was a new one in town. Some people are more concerned about getting credit, then getting things done for our community that are truly ‘progress’.

The city administrators and mayor didn’t need to be included. This was a simple resolution approved by the city’s legislative branch. The directors and department heads have 20 days until the resolution goes into effect to iron out the details – that is their ‘JOB’. And remember, this is a pilot test program for the summer, if it doesn’t work or needs to be tweaked, changes can be made at the end of the summer.

Besides Cathy B. suggesting the program, I found out over the weekend that Councilor Jamison with the help of Erickson spearheaded this resolution. Many non-profits and including the school district are all on board.

So let’s forget about the politics for a moment, and applaud the council for moving forward on this fabulous pilot program. Maybe things will look different in September, but I’m guessing not. There was another pilot program that was poo-poo’d just a few years ago.

Snow Gates.

Guess how that turned out?

Progress Sioux Falls. Progress.

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Who first proposed the use of tasers in Sioux Falls?

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I believe back in 2009, councilor Staggers first proposed testing tasers for the SFPD. It seems, like snow gates, Dr. Staggers was ahead of his time. It often cracks me up when Kermit is labeled as an extreme conservative naysayer, when he is actually very progressive in his ideas. On the ‘Su Fu Stupid’ show the other day, Patrick Lalley determined that ‘Only 5 percent of the community agrees with Staggers’ but somehow gets mysteriously re-elected.

Gee, Pat, do you think there is a correlation there between support and being re-elected? Actually many people support him, just because a rubberstamp city council more concerned about developers and the chamber of commerce don’t always agree, doesn’t mean the public does not.

Remember, besides the snow gates victory, he also beat De Knudson when she spent 6x the money he did for an at-large seat, he also won the general election for mayor, only to lose to the well funded credit card salesman in the run-off.

Maybe Pat was saying only 5% of reporters agree with Staggers? Because when it comes to snow gates and tasers, it seems like Kermit has the best ideas.

Posted in: SFPD, Sioux Falls, Staggers

Letter to the Editor about Initiatives

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I wrote this letter to the Argus, because there seems to be this impression by parents, teachers and elected officials that the I & R process is somehow harmful to the democratic process, couldn’t be further from the truth. It is a check an balance against our elected officials when they make bad decisions.

I had to edit the letter that printed in the paper, so I am posting the pre-edited version here;

Part of South Dakota’s proud history is the initiative and referendum process. South Dakota, the first state to adopt initiative and referendum on a statewide level, did so in 1898. In fact, South Dakota was the only state to originate the idea in the actual state. In the last decade, South Dakotans have approved initiatives regarding term limits, tax reform, freedom of choice (abortion) and gaming. The renewed use of the initiative process in the late 70’s can be attributed to Governor William Janklow. Janklow was a strong supporter of the initiative process and advocated its use.

I have been involved with many petition drives for initiatives and referendums. I have either carried a petition, OR helped behind the scenes for the cause. It is truly an example of democracy at work on a grassroots level.

Recently I have seen many letters to the editor complaining about this very process when it came to the school start date. I scratch my head about how little our supposed educators know about the process and how it works. I kind of wonder what kind of civics lessons our children are getting in school, but that is whole other topic.

I will explain the process very simply; our elected officials are human and fallible, just like you and me. They are not perfect, and they make mistakes, sometimes these mistakes are made in their elected capacity. The I & R process is there to correct these mistakes, not to scold the elected, teach them a lesson or embarrass them.

I pose a great example of this in recent history in our city government. In the first term of Sioux Falls City Councilor Kermit Staggers, he often offered an amendment to the budget suggesting the testing of snow gates. His fellow councilors would vote it down, each time he offered it. When Dr. Staggers was running for mayor, he once again brought up the topic of snow gates, his main opponent, Mayor Huether quickly learned that snow gates was a popular topic with constituents, and essentially stole the idea from the Staggers camp (amongst many other great ideas). But to Huether’s credit, once he became mayor, he authorized testing the devices. The city council, once again, was not happy about the expenditure. Huether was determined to get them in full swing. The city council did not approve.

In comes citizen advocate Theresa Stehly with a very successful petition drive to get snow gates on the ballot. Ironically a petition that Huether refused to sign (but councilors Staggers, Jamison and Anderson did sign). The council was so against the petition drive and snow gates, that after the petition was certified for the ballot, the first attempt by the petitioners to get it on a shared school election ballot was voted down by the city council. In fact the petitioners testimony was limited and censored by the mayor and city councilor Michelle Erpenbach.

Fast forward to the last city election. Snow gates passed with over 70% of the vote, and unlike Walmart spending over $20 a vote for their cause, the snow gate petitioners spent practically nothing and had a nonexistent campaign. They didn’t need to, PEOPLE WANTED SNOW GATES!

Like the August school start date decision by the school board, the city councilors opposed to snow gates were simply making a misguided decision, and the I & R process helped constituents to correct their mistakes. No harm, no foul, just democracy at work.

Posted in: SF School District