As Cameraman Bruce was taking a picture of this enormous hole, someone decided to drive thru it (she was yapping on her phone). In fact dozens of people hit it while we were walking to the Elmen Center last night (33rd street).
Click on photos to enlarge
What doesn’t appear on the video is Sierra being arrested on public property (sidewalk) for filming a property that has already had legal problems. (FULL VIDEO HERE) The massage parlor in the background had a person working their without a massage license and I believe she didn’t have a work visa either. The landlord calling Sierra ‘Crazy’ doesn’t seem to be to concerned that illegal activity is going on on her property. She then lies to the police that Sierra was trying to come into the place of business. While Sierra did walk around the parking lot, she filmed the rest of it from the public sidewalk. She was arrested for trespassing based on testimony from the landlord who claims she has ‘Erickson’ on her side. What is sad is that this lady decided to drag in a city councilor on this (the council has no authority over the police force, that is under the executive branch, mayor). If I was Council Chair Erickson I would NOT be to pleased that her name was being used this way.
UPDATE: What is even more scary is the Emergency Declaration clause (not the clause itself) but what it permits. It gives the executive/legal branch the authority to hire contractors without going thru the RFP process or ‘lowest bid’. In other words contractors will be coming in and probably charging their ’emergency rates’ you know, like they do for our 100 buildings 🙂
I told a councilor last night if I were mayor, a couple of things I would do is ASK some of the big contractors in town to do the right thing and be fair in their rates, especially with an emergency. We are all in this together. I would have also asked ALL eight city councilors for ideas or references of people that can help. When you have something that could potentially be this big of an issue, you need as many people at the table as possible, good leaders rely on others for expert advice and frankly any advice that is helpful. I’m glad to see they are warning the public in advance, if you do the math, this has the potential to close down the entire city whether your neighborhood is in the flood plain or not. After watching the press conference, I have a feeling they are not telling us everything YET. Everyone was pretty nervous, including the State Hydrologist.
As I have already said, I have tempered my remarks about PTH’s leadership skills in this whole mess, from how Yankton Trail looks like the film set of the Titanic or how it should be renamed ‘Glacial Trail Park’. Or how they finally decided today to close Falls Park (sometime tomorrow – you still have a few more hours to get in your risky behavior). PTH kindly reminds us in this FB video that it is a misdemeanor to cross barriers. Ohhh, a misdemeanor, so baddddd! I’m also wondering why he is wringing his hands so much, reminds me of that scene where Lady MacBeth is washing her hands or is it Mr. Burns at the board table? I’m still debating that one. Fortunately I could not find any Seinfeld references.
But the kicker of this week is the below picture of Mayor TenHaken standing on his tippy toes during this very uncomfortable photo op. And people call me a weird little man. Stay safe Sioux Falls, we may all end up on Giligan’s Island. And for those who will rip me apart for this post, I always remind myself what has gotten me through difficult times is laughter and humor. I only PRAY I don’t split my pants.
Ms. Schwan wrote a great article about how digital media still works, if you do it right;
One headline proclaimed “BuzzFeed and the digital meltdown” and explored the challenges facing the once-darling of digital media. The next headline read “Decline in readers, ads leads hundreds of newspapers to fold.” It detailed a Montana community that lost its newspaper and now looks to a one-man operation for news, mostly through his Facebook posts.
Take those two examples, multiply them out across the nation, and you’ve got a glimpse at what media leaders are grappling with as they attempt to build sustainable business models.
In midst of the latest ‘reporter shield law’ signed by Governor Noem, I still find it a bit odd that they excluded journalists who are independent and work exclusively on the internet. Yes, there is a world of difference from what Jodi does and what I do, but we still work in the same platform, opposite of the failing one;
I used to half-joke when I was in the newspaper industry that, as a business editor, I had pretty good job security.
Someone would have to write the story about whenever the place went out of business, and it seemed logical the role would fall to whomever was left writing about business. By that point, it was really only me, anyway.
It became clear to me that my future wasn’t in that industry, though, during an earnings call in late 2016 when my company’s CEO was asked to “score” the opportunity for continued expense reduction. He compared it to being in the third inning of a baseball game. In other words, they saw plenty of room to further cut costs. I’m not sure where they would consider themselves at today, but I suspect they haven’t reached the seventh-inning stretch.
And it’s just not the dead tree version that is actually dying, the digital format our local newspaper applies is dying also. It’s almost like they are trying to kill off the traditional paper by putting stories online sometimes 2-5 days before they print in the paper. Only to direct people to a website that you have to pay to read (which I felt was a horrible idea). I always thought that they should have kept the online FREE and posted teasers to stories that you could read in the daily printed subscription getting people to read both. I was even surprised with all the stories about flooding emergencies in SF, they still were not offering FREE online readership (I think they had one story available for FREE?).
Jodi says it best, digital media works depending on your platform and opportunities. I often have people tell me across the state that they wouldn’t know what was going on in city government if they didn’t read my site;
I don’t know if this is the future business model for local media, but it’s working so far, and it definitely can grow more. I would argue it has to in order to deliver what the community needs and deserves.
The sad irony is that, in the case of Sioux Falls, there has never been more to talk about. We’ve never had this level of development and industry change. We’ve also never encountered the corresponding challenges that growth brings to a community in quite this way. Look even at this week, when unprecedented weather demanded we have credible information-gatherers spread throughout the state.
In short, there have never been more stories to tell in this city. And it’s sad to me that there is a decreasing number of journalists to tell them. It motivates me to figure out a better way. And two years into it, at least I can say I’m on my way. Thank you so much to all who help make it possible.
I would agree, there are so many stories out their to be covered and lack of experience, lack of creativity, lack of resources, lack of historical knowledge and just plain lack of people and lack of good leadership if there is any leadership at all. This all reared it’s head last week when KSFY reporter, Vanessa Gomez accused city councilors Starr and Stehly of ‘putting her in the middle’. Uh, it’s kind of your job to ferret out the truth (I will give you a hint, it wasn’t coming from TJ TypeOver and City Hall). Ironically shortly after their press conference there was an announcement from city hall to run 3 pothole shifts with a goal to get caught up by April.
Maybe other media digital platforms are failing, because essentially they have a losing team. Sorry Jodi, I wasn’t as polite about it.
l3wis 