Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, June 4, 2019

City Council Informational, 4 PM (6/4/2019)

Internal Audit report of the Zoo & an Executive Session.

Regular City Council Meeting, 7 PM (6/4/2019)

Item #15, Applications, Arc of Dreams dedication party moved to July 24th. I hope they have a few bones left over from the $2.6 million dollar ego expenditure for crackers and cheese at the party.

Item #40, 1st Reading, Ordinance, Leine’s isn’t popular anymore, we have to go back to the old standby of Coors Light. Yeah, this is some of the stupid crap the city council has to endure. Speaking of stupidity, I guess more and more people are turned off by the ax throwing venues. Besides the obvious that they are trendy and expensive, the number one complaint is ‘They are noisy’ and not in a good way like dance music or live rock bands . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump. I went into the one next to Book COOP about a month ago, and I lasted about 2 minutes before I left. Sioux Falls, we need more poetry readings and less axe throwing. Now if West Mall can get on the Coors Light Express.

Item #41, 1st Reading, Ordinance, Cable Tax increase. This should be an interesting discussion. But no worries, the RS5 will make sure your taxes go up!

Items #42-43, Resolution, So this is interesting that we are going into OVS agreements with this telecoms BEFORE the tax increase has been approved. HMMM.

Item #46, Resolution, Approving more diagonal parking on Main. I find it curious there was NO informational on this.

Planning Commission Meeting, 6 PM (6/5/2019)

Item #2, Consent Agenda, items C & E, Looks as though Councilor Erickson is looking to change a couple of nice McKennan Park residences into another Air BNB properties. I hear her and her husband have been snagging up properties around the hospitals for short term rentals to temp nurses and other hospital staff. The question is if Erickson is using her position on the council as a way to help the people she serves or herself? I talked to a person who lived a couple houses away from one of the properties and they had no idea that it would become an Air BNB. I find it a little curious also that the Planning Department put these on the consent agenda instead of the regular agenda to make sure this goes under the radar of the public when there is clear conflicts.

Item #5B, new restaurant on North Minnesota Ave.

Item #5C. my new favorite restaurant, Abelardos is seeking a beer and wine license. I find it interesting the property is still owned by Jim’s Burgers. Someone needs to figure out ‘curb appeal’ because the weed fest they have going on outside isn’t drawing in the customers. The food however is fantastic!

Item #5D. Garbage handlers being possibly denied a new parking lot.

Item #5E, St. Francis House to change plans.

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Indy Voters in the Democratic Primaries (Bruce Danielson)

There was a group discussion on Friday with some claiming the change in Democratic Party rules allowing NPA and IND voters was a good idea. I decided to pull up the 2017 statewide voter file and see for myself if my gut feelings were right.

I have never considered the experiment to allow independent voters a well thought out plan and the statewide numbers are proving it out.

This data is from the statewide late 2017 TotalVote file I am able to work with.

In 2012 IND and NPA voters were allowed to start voting in Democratic Primaries. The idea of allowing IND and NPA voters to have a voice in Dem Primary’s primary has been a failure. It has encouraged Dems to change their registration and still vote in primary. It is a loser’s mentality. A reason Mike Huether changed to IND?

The real proof of this being a bad decision is borne out in the 2016 election. As contentious as the primary was, it did not bring any additional voters to the process. I remember many voters being confused. A few asked me in 2016 if voting in the Facebook polls counted in the primary between Clinton and Sanders.

We can talk about this in more detail but the numbers show a time and election experiment failure. Instead of tearing the party structure apart, isn’t it time to actually build something?

Was the Downtown Parking Ramp just a ‘SHAM’ from the beginning?

I never did have a good feeling about the project and told several city councilors that the hotel will never be completed, then I hear this;

“The NMTC is a highly competitive economic development program, which incents private investments in the poorest rural and urban communities in America,” Rapoza said in a statement. “To receive NMTC allocation from the Department of Treasury and participate in the program, community development organizations demonstrate a record of financing dynamic projects that improve services such as health care, or create jobs and opportunity in communities where capital is difficult to obtain from conventional lenders.”

Low paying hospitality jobs is hardly a good reason to give such a project tax incentives. This deal was doomed from the beginning and any city official/employee who supported this, worked on this or voted for this should be ashamed and should resign.

Off with their heads!

Over the last couple of weeks I have been enjoying the un-edited version of Inside Stormland. This week was priceless when Angela motioned ‘Off with their heads!’ Remember Angela, it’s just a flesh wound.

I would love to see some of the unedited tape from Bowlcut’s show.