South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Code Enforcement Sioux Falls

Code Enforcement Hearing (Dec 14, 2018)

l3wis 5Comments

Those crazy kids in Sioux Falls code enforcement are up to their old games again. This December 14th, 2018 pretend hearing has real consequences. A family reports vandalism at their property, tries to get police to investigate and a vengeful code enforcement department decides to punish them for having been vandalized. It gets worse. The town’s ticketing agents decide the family should be punished for not accepting their unknown punishments. What?

How does this even make sense? It doesn’t if you actually believe in a truly open and constitutional system. Our code enforcement system sees these crimes and punishments as just their average day’s work.

The kangaroo court system of enforcing property and health codes in Sioux Falls was declared unconstitutional after a previous city attorney with the assistance of the ticketing agent / enforcer were caught making up evidence, reports and transcripts just to win in their special court.

This questionably legal process has been operated for a long time.

In this example of the kangaroo court. watch the video for the snide reactions of the ticket agent. He shows his contempt toward the couple who are only trying to protect their civil rights. It also does if you understand the kangaroo court system was ruled unconstitutional by the South Dakota Supreme Court.

Even though the ticket agent for this trip to the kangaroo court knew the couple’s correct address, he still sent the notice to a totally different address and declared the ticket / citation still valid. Reminds us of the complaints leveled against the ticket agents when the fines were dropped in blue bags and left in water puddles to be found later when property owners were doing yard work.

There is something very wrong about the way our town’s code enforcers seem to think our rights are just suggestions and they are the only ones who matter. The ticket agents seem to think they have a right to climb over fences, climb up ladders to look into private property, assist in vandalism and other known crimes is all in a day’s work.

When is our town’s administration going to fire and prosecute these true lawbreakers? When are we going to quit seeing these kangaroo courts? Does our police department work in concert with this questionably legal process? We don’t know for sure but it does make us wonder.

Sioux Falls Taxes

UPDATE: Correction on Tax Incentives for Dakota Gold

l3wis 0Comments

There seems to be some confusion of where Dakota Gold Alliance was previously located and what the tax incentive is for. I have to do some more digging.

There was a group of properties in the area by the old Avera Sports Dome. The ownership group was listed under Leggett Family Trust. While researching County tax records, they had Dakota Gold listed to the property (which is a possibility because it is a warehouse that could be used for storage, and warehouses fall under the ‘INDUSTRIAL’ designation for tax reductions). Another source tells me that Dakota Gold was located at another office in that cluster, but that would have been their formal offices. So the tax reduction was for the warehouse, I’m just not sure at this point if Dakota Gold was using the warehouse at that time, and perhaps that is why they were listed on the tax records.

Folks, this is what happens when secretive administrations don’t tell the public or council anything for almost a decade.

According to a city ordinance that was passed by the city council in 2008;

March 3rd, 2008 – Sioux Falls City Council

http://amv.siouxfalls.org/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/ViewMeeting?id=1838&doctype=2#

DEFERRED ACTION: 2ND READING: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE REVISED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY REVISING THE NAME OF PERSON TO RECEIVE APPLICATION FOR REDUCED TAXATION ON NEW CONSTRUCTION.

Document:  Ord. 1017

Proposed Amendment:

Section 39-139. Discretionary formula report:

In July of each year, the assistant director of planning and building services shall submit a report to the city council of all eligible completed new construction projects which qualified for the discretionary formula beginning in December of 2008. The report will include the description of each qualified property, the base full and true taxable value, the new adjusted full value of new construction and improvements, and the amount of discretionary loss of taxable value as defined in city ordinance of 100%, 80%, 60%, 40% or 20% for each year of the eligible tax abatement.

In other words, by city charter, the city council was supposed to see yearly reports. This gets more interesting by the day.

 

5G SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: My 5G presentation to Sioux Falls City Council

l3wis 4Comments

5G Rollout Fiasco in Sioux Falls

My testimony last night was based on FACTS I gathered over researching 5G over past weekend.

• No testimony from the FCC or Telecom industry on Health Affects of 5G. FCC currently shutdown. The contract should have been deferred until a representative from the FCC could testify.

• No public hearings. It is illegal for a private corporation to use public utility poles without a period of public comment. While the FCC rules were changed so health affects couldn’t be used as a reason to deny a permit, there are many other arguments (property values, visual affects, etc.). Isn’t it interesting the FCC took out ‘Health Affects’ for grounds of denial. Other communities have had success with 200 FT setbacks from buildings, banning them in residential areas and charging a YEARLY application and inspection fee.

• Extreme intimidation used on City Councilors about potential ‘lawsuits’ if they don’t vote for contract. Intimidation used by Mayor TenHaken, City Attorneys Kooistra and Bengford, and Deputy COS T.J. TypoOver on citizens claiming it is a ‘Done Deal’. It is not, contract still hasn’t been ratified, there is a waiting period. Houston, TX rollout was conducted in the EXACT same manner. It seems the Telecoms are using the same playbook across the country.

• What are citizens rights when it comes to how user data will be used by the Telecoms? The ACLU of California is currently looking into it. We had NO testimony from Verizon on how the data will be used.

• Senator John Thune who chairs the committee on telecoms received almost $1 million in donations from the telecom industry. Follow the money. (Thune’s personal net worth is $5 Million). How does someone get that wealthy working in public service most of their life? Must have went to the Bill Janklow school of investment or Kimberly has one heckuva part-time job.

• What are the health affects of radiation from 5G? Countries like Israel and China have strict regulations on cell phone radiation. The World Health Organization has issued extreme warnings about cell/wi-fi radiation. World famous Oncologist (Cancer Doctor) Devra Davis is leading a grassroots effort to warn the public about 5G. Davis is well known for leading the effort to ban smoking in commercial airplanes. Not some kooky conspiracy theorist trying to find Obama’s birth certificate. In the UK the telecom industry tried to put a GAG order on a citizen advocate after he called them ‘Baby Killers’, a judge threw it out of court saying he had a right to make the accusation due to empirical evidence and the industry had to prove otherwise. It seems now the telecoms are trying to stifle free speech in democratic nations.

This must be stopped, the contract must be voided! This is a BAD example of how to run government in a transparent manner. We have home rule rights. While we can’t fight this on health effects, we do have other means to stop it.

BOONDOGGLE!

 

Public Utilities Public Works SF City Council Sioux Falls

What is the ‘Real Cost’ of the proposed thermal chiller not working at the City Admin building?

l3wis 5Comments

Fast Forward to 47:00

Notice Director Cotter talking about how the system is malfunctioning because of the high level of minerals in the water . . . then he says that the water then has to be discharged in the the sanitary sewer (this was going on during the summer and not now).

How does this tie to the capacity of the current water reclamation plant?

Rough estimates from doing engineering research is that if this system is running at full capacity during the summer (pumping cool water) and not simply discharging the warm water back into the well, as intended (but back into the sanitary sewer) it would be approximately discharging 300 gallons a minute, which equates to about 14,000 homes in Sioux Falls a day.

I wonder why we need a new sewer plant?

 

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