Time to repeal Home Rule?

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Oddly, the Gargoyle Leader had a story about Home Rule today;

“This would be a more efficient government because you had one guy to answer to. That was the argument at the time,” said Bob Jamison, who has served on both the City Commission and City Council. “The mayor was the one that ran the show because he was the elected leader of the city.”

Problem is that under the current administration (or whatever you wanna call the clusterf**k) the department heads tell the mayor what to do and the mayor sidesteps the council.

“It was a new form of government and not as much power as the commission form. Not everyone knew how it operated,” she said.

That is the major problem with it, no checks and balances. Who is keeping the mayor accountable? Who is keeping the department heads accountable?

“Our new strong mayor form of government required the not-so-glorious but extremely important and complex task of reorganizing and synchronizing the former City Commission government of five kingdoms into a coordinated mayoral council,” Hanson said.

But this could have been accomplished under the old form of government. You don’t have to change the entire structure of city government to get a couple of departments to consolidate, you just change a couple of ordinances, have the council approve it, and it’s done.

But some residents, Jamison said, prefer the old system.

“I think both systems work,” he said. “No question about that.”

No, the old system worked better because citizens were better represented.

Posted in: SF City Council

Sioux Falls city council dogpiles councilor Staggers during today’s informational

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The discussion was pretty heated from the beginning (in between Quen Be De Knudson’s babbling – do you even know WTF you are talking about half the time? She made this comment about ‘working as a team’. What team are you talking about De? The Dave and De team that meets in secret and doesn’t let any of the other councilors in on anything?)

But Greg Jamison’s anti-first amendment and anti-citizen dissent speech was strange at best. I’ll have to give Kermit credit on this one, he took the high road. I think he realized trying to explain citizen’s free speech rights to Greg Jamison would have taken a lot of time so he just said “I’ll just disregard your comments.”

The video is well worth watching. As usual, Bob Litz gets frustrated and makes smartass remarks. He said that he was wondering if he was going to be charged for listening to Kermit’s lecture at last week’s land use meeting (referring to him being a college professor).

This is a good old fashioned political lynch mob, make no mistake about it. I hope Kermit continues to take the high road.

• On a side note, Kenny Anderson Jr. brings up the Arena contract negotiations and their contract renewal and asks why he can’t get any info from the mayor’s office on the issue. Kenny gets quite mad, especially since the city attorney was not there to answer his questions. Kenny, I’m sure Judge Bob was busy at Michelle’s coffee giving dirty stares to sarcastic bloggers 🙂

UPDATE: The Gargoyle Leader explains the situation, but leaves out some deets;

Jamison said he was disappointed by Litz’s behavior, and he said Staggers used the meeting to issue a “political positioning statement.”

“I really think we took a step backwards,” Jamison said.

First off, Kermit asked Greg what political statement he was referring to, and Greg proceeded to read a statement Kermit made during the land use meeting, and Kermit reiterated, “What part of that statement is political?” Greg couldn’t tell him. The irony of it all is that anything politicians say or do is ‘political’ they are politicians, so it was an incredibly stupid statement by Greg, but not surprising, the theatre major often has ridiculous speeches. Remember this is a guy who wore a AC/DC shirt to a informational meeting and tore up fake million dollar checks during an informational in a strange attempt to promote a new Events Center. Secondly, Kermit agreed with Greg that it was a ‘Step backwards’ especially when you try to squelch citizen’s free speech rights.

And Pat put it in persepective;

Costello also tried to put the issue to rest.

“From time to time, there’s going to be disagreements, and that’s probably a healthy thing,” he said.

Pat is right, that is the job of governing bodies, to debate issues, sometimes those debates are ugly, that’s government folks, take it or leave it. Playing nice and rubber stamping every piece of legislation isn’t always a good idea. Just look at what we got the first 6 years of the Bush administration with that approach, a freaking disaster.

And in reference to the campground ordinance that they were debating, I found this statement to be funny;

Regardless, the people there now are heading out. Dennis Nelson said he plans to move his camper to another campground outside the city, as do other residents. Nelson said he has to laugh when he hears city officials talk about affordable housing and homelessness, but then they come down on people living in campers and RVs.

“None of this is making any sense,” he said. “With all of this, it’s just not worth the problems.”

That is typical of the city, in the name of ‘progress’ they are often pushing the working poor to find other places to live. They did it when they tore down Penn View and they did it again when they tore down houses in the Pettigrew Heights neighborhood. They say they want to clean up the neighborhoods and give these people better places to live, but what they do not realize is that they cannot afford these ‘better places.’ Some councilors really need to walk a mile in these people’s shoes sometime, and wakeup to what is going on in this community.

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Finally, someone calls SF Mayor Dave Munson out publicly on his fiscal irresponsibility

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The chickens are coming home to roost

Ah, I told you so. It seems I have been beating my head against the wall over the past two years trying to inform the public about the reckless abandon the Munson administration spends money.

Councilman Pat Costello, who introduced the unsuccessful amendment, said the budget is based on an unrealistic projected sales tax revenue increase of 9.6 percent in the next 16 months.

BAHAHAHAHA! 9.6 percent increase during a freaking recession? Give me a break.

Councilman Kermit Staggers said he is worried about the message the city is sending by increasing spending during tough times. “The city is not setting a good example for the citizens of Sioux Falls.”

Well, Kermit, I have never gone to the city for an example on spending priorities. But I think this exchange speaks for itself;

For more than an hour, council and administration discussed an amendment proposed to decrease the general fund by 1.5 percent or $1.84 million based on the sluggish economic climate.

The debate became heated when Mayor Dave Munson asked department heads to outline what will have to be cut if the amendment passes.

“It is some ploy to bring up the fire chief and the police chief to come up and say all these bad things are going to happen to our city when I asked you for help,” Costello said, noting that he asked Munson twice for help to trim the proposed budget but was turned down.

“I said, ‘This is our budget we submitted it’s in your hands now, you make the decision’,” Munson said. “I think we have every right to ask every director what impact it has on them.”

“And that’s fine and we can hear how the world is going to come to an end tonight. But the reality is that these monies can be moved around at a later date and it’s not the intention to take this out, to have public safety in our community to suffer,” Costello responded.

“When do we balance the budget then?” Munson asked.

Costello answered: “Whenever your administration wants to get engaged on coming up with reasonable cuts.”

“I don’t have any cuts,” Munson said.

We know Dave, that’s the problem, you can’t stop spending, you are addicted to it.

Costello’s concerns come from the budget relying on sales tax revenue to increase by 2 percent by the end of the year and an additional 4 percent increase by the end of 2010. As of the end of August this year, sales tax revenue was down 3.6 percent.

Finance Director Eugene Rowenhorst, whose office formulated the projections, said the 3.6 percent drop doesn’t include this year’s school and Christmas spending. He stands behind the prediction.

“That’s the same logic that brought us to what you projected in 2009 at 6.5 percent growth,” Costello told Rowenhorst, whose office has since adjusted revenue growth to 2 percent for this year.

Once again Eugene ‘Montgomery Burns’ Rowenhorst uses the ‘Christmas toys haven’t been bought for Billy and Dolly yet’ excuse. Gene, that song and dance is getting old and I am glad Pat called you out on it.

After 70 minutes of discussion, the amendment failed.

Councilman Greg Jamison voted down the amendment, stating that the council must trust city employees. “Let them fix the problem later if it becomes a problem,” he said.

And that action and statement tells us all we need to know about how fiscally irresponsible our city council and mayor are. Their spending priorities are screwy to say the least. As for trusting the city employees, that is what got us to where we are at currently, in a bind. If anything it is time to start questioning our city employees more.

The video is well worth the viewing (the fireworks start at about 1 Hour 20 Minutes)

And I see the Rapid City council gets it, you don’t raise taxes during a recession.

Rapid City will not take the optional property tax increase in 2010, reversing an earlier decision after a heated debate in special session Monday.

With the council’s action, the city will give up $369,224 in additional revenue, saving someone who owns a $150,000 house about $13 in city property taxes.

Posted in: Munson, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Shape Sioux Falls 2035 – What is the big hurry?

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I find it very peculiar that in the last few months of Munson’s administration the city is trying to ram this plan thru. It is no secret, that no matter who is on the next council or sitting in the Mayor’s chair several department heads may be losing their jobs. Is this why they want to implement this before the Spring elections? I’m not sure. The current plan is effective until 2015. Don’t get me wrong, this is an important plan that needs to be implemented, but I feel it should be voted on by the next council and mayor at the end of 2010 after they thoroughly review it. I don’t think this city can afford to implement any more of Munson’s administration’s plans. Several councilors seem to be concerned that the next council and mayor may be too green. Councilor Beninga went as far as trying to extend some of the terms so that we wouldn’t have half of the council changing in 2010, claiming that it takes awhile for a new councilor to learn the ropes. I partially agree with him, but it depends on who that councilor is and their knowledge of city government. It would be like comparing Pat Costello to Gregg Jamison, both new councilors, but I feel Pat has grasped his job responsibilities a lot faster then Gregg has. Yes, change is scary, but it can also be a good thing. I believe the recession will last thru the end of 2010 in SF, and from all signs, it will get worse before it gets better. We need fresh ideas and a new perspective, and I think those new perspectives should be included in Shape SF 2035.

There is a public input meeting September 15 at 3 PM.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

Property Tax Hypocrisy

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While the city and county are considering property tax increases on the rest of us, developers are pushing for a huge tax cut incentive;

Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson’s budget for next year includes a 2.4 percent property tax increase for city residents, designed to raise almost $960,000.

Developers want the city to give them a significant tax cut in the first 5 years they develop new property;

Those officials have proposed a formula that would give builders a two-year window to start projects that would qualify for a lower property tax bill. The program would apply to some commercial, multifamily housing and industrial projects. It wouldn’t apply to single-family residences because state law does not permit local governments to offer tax breaks for that type of construction.

A qualifying project would pay 20 percent of the taxes in its first year after completion. The bill would rise 20 percent each year thereafter until it hit 100 percent in the fifth year.

While our city leaders(?) are lauding a property tax increase as something we NEED to do (actually we don’t) the special interests that fund their campaigns are asking for a handout. I might be for the plan if Sioux Falls was behind on commercial development, but we are not, in fact their is tons of office space available for lease right now, just drive around and count the signs. I have often said that DEMAND drives development, not tax cuts. This whole idea was cooked up by Clayton Jamison who co-owns his development company with his father former concilor Bob ‘General’ Jamison and his brother current councilor Gregg Jamison;

Industry officials are billing it as a mini economic stimulus that could save jobs. Developer Clayton Jamison, who is among those pitching the plan, said there have been widespread layoffs in the industry. For those still employed, hours and overtime have been slashed, adding burdens to families.

Hey, Clayton, every industry is hurting in Sioux Falls. Why not give the working stiffs tax cuts instead of yourself? The worst part about the proposal is that his brother Gregg helped cook this up. Not only should Gregg not be voting on the proposal, he shouldn’t even be discussing it in his official position. It is a huge, huge, conflict of interest, considering Gregg is partners with his brother in the business, which ironically is behind on property taxes on his new developments. Is their proposal a plan to help spur development or is it a plan to help them out personally? I think the answer is pretty freaking obvious.

Steve Van Buskirk of Van Buskirk Cos. said the tax savings could be enough to persuade some businesses to start projects now rather than wait.

Hey, Steve, how about leasing the space you have available right now instead of building new space. I think Mike Cooper and Vernon Brown sum it up best;

“We don’t really have any suitable data to understand what impact this may or may not have,” Cooper said.

Officials also wonder whether the program would contribute to a glut of open commercial and office space in Sioux Falls.

“Does it compound the problem?” Councilor Vernon Brown asked.

During the years a property receives tax breaks, the difference between what it pays and what it should have paid is spread among existing taxpayers, said Ken McFarland, administrative assistant to the Minnehaha County Commission.

“In other words,” Brown asked, “property owners would subsidize this tax break?”

“Basically,” McFarland responded.

I hope the city council is least smart enough to not let this proposal see the light of day at a council meeting. This proposal should be shot down before it even gets voted on – and councilor Jamison needs to excuse himself from the negotiations, because trust me, if he doesn’t he will find out what a real ethics complaint is.

Posted in: Property Taxes, Sioux Falls