Sioux Falls, South Dacola, Year in the Review (Part II)

 

• Sioux Falls hosts Pheasant Fest for the first time, yet no one stays at our hotels for the event.

• Trains running through DTSF have two derailments this year, but nobody seems to be worried. Maybe that’s why Billion pulled out?

• Sioux Steel announces big redevelopment project Downtown. Maybe we will finally get our secret hidden park back?

• Nobody in the city knows if an actual safety study of Falls Park has been done after a little girl drowns. First it WAS done, than it was mis-information, than it was a training exercise, than lastly it was just an ‘Oral’ report. We finally got a real study done last month (that didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already knew).

• Mayoral Candidate Loetscher proposes Police Precincts, the TenHaken campaign beats her up over it, than after becoming mayor proposes precincts but calls them by a different name.

• Council Candidate Brekke holds news conference about the mayor’s Executive Orders and gag order on city employees.

• Legacy Developments ‘tries’ to blame the media and blogs for their negative image. I guess that building collapse and illegal asbestos removal had nothing to do with it.

• Argus Leader endorses TWO mayoral candidates before runoff. WTF?

• Several city election candidates violate sign ordinances by posting signs in the city owned boulevard (parking strip).

• Mayoral Candidate Jim Entenman spends a record $41.40 per vote and gets his ass handed to him.

• Liquor license parking seems to be the new trend for the rich and well connected, first Sanford then the Lamont companies.

• TenHaken campaign donor has his children donate thousands to campaign to skirt donation limit rules. Slimy.

• The GOP hate machine, once again gets involved in a non-partisan mayoral race. They know no limits. Slimeballs.

• TenHaken’s 100 day plan goes to Sh*t!

• Former Republican Lavallee co-chairs TenHaken’s mayoral campaign, than runs as Lt. Governor for Sutton’s campaign. Only in South Dakota.

• Highlight of the year, interviewing Mayor Pete Beuttigieg;

• Mayor Huether gets nominated for a Golden Padlock award for the Secret Siding Settlement. He doesn’t win.

• Rex Rolfing exits the city council than runs for District 13 and gets beat by a newbie. Thank Gaia.

• Transparency is promised by the new council and mayor, we are still waiting.

• Mr. Bendo moves, but told his pipe holding is a violation of sign code. The ridiculous notion gets sorted out.

• Newly Elected Mayor TenHaken appoints former Developer Executive his COS. Didn’t see that one coming. Yeah right. He also appoints a partisan hack as deputy COS who in his free time enjoys bashing liberals on FB.

Sioux Falls, South Dacola, Year in the Review (Part I)

• The new year started with a NEW Golf Contract due to an emergency meeting and a secret city RFP process.

• Repeal of Downtown parking ramp fails.

• Judge orders McKennan Park big house must go, after some appeals it is eventually demolished.

• Pat Lalley continues independent local political show, but ends it before the year is up.

• Huether has multiple pointless press conferences up until the end of his reign. He never does reveal his ‘big plans’.

• Independent(?) siding report reveals very little. Huether still refuses to admit he probably authorized the bad siding.

• New blog; thesiouxfallsheadliner.blog keeps us laughing.

• Ribfest finally ends, and nobody seems to care.

• Nick Weiland switches from the mayoral race to run against Erickson on council. The GOP Hate machine beats up ‘Man Bun’ over it.

• The push for a state veterans cemetery in Sioux Falls is successful, thank you SF taxpayers for the generous donation of land.

• Entenman’s ties to Huether doom his race for mayor, even though he spends almost triple of what his closest opponent did. That’s too bad.

• A rumor gets started that Stehly may run for mayor. God tells her not to.

• Hard copies of executive orders mysteriously disappear, rumor has it that Fiddle-Faddle and Erpenbach had a shredding party before they left the city. The world may never know.

• Representative Jamison’s secret settlement bill fails in Pierre. Secrecy continues to rule South Dakota government.

• Frequent public inputer calls Mayor Huether a SOB, twice. It causes major changes to public input.

• Charter Revision Commission allows NO changes to ordinance on the ballot. One member said that if they allow ordinance changes on the ballot, they may pass. Oh, Heaven forbid.

• Council Candidate Soehl gets funded by the big wheels, and after only winning by 40 some odd votes, he doesn’t let them down.

• Paramedics Plus changes ownership, city council approves with little discussion or concern.

• The debate over public ambulances is in full gear, due to me bringing it up during the Mayor’s race.

• City still struggles with using snow gates properly and on EVERY property.

• David Z doesn’t make the mayoral ballot, his temp help collection signatures lost track of time.

• Dumbass buys a condo DT with a patio facing a long standing nightclub and wonders why it is noisy.

• Mayor Huether goes on Belfrage’s show and says that most people probably think he is running for a 3rd term and don’t know he can’t. He basically accuses the mayoral candidates of not getting their message out there.

• We find out that Mayor TenHaken likes to take selfies, and a lot of them.

• TenHaken promises to get tough on crime during campaign, then fails to negotiate a fair contract with FOP.

• In one of the strangest votes, the city council denies a beer license to a discount movie theatre, 8-0, then turns around and approves them for several axe throwing venues. It is still baffling.

 

Interesting article on Lewis & Clark Water

I have often argued that Lewis & Clark sustains itself for Lewis & Clark;

When I looked at data from two longstanding state monitoring wells located near the water system, it suggested that from 2009 through 2018 there was a decline in the observation well water levels. Neither the state Geologic Survey, the DENR or the operator have provided any public reports on these water levels since 2015. This should be done.

Was Sioux Falls almost $100 million investment worth it?

Brandon/Sioux Falls City Council Joint Meeting (Public Input)

Sioux Falls City Council Invited the Brandon City government over to have dinner and conversation on December 20, 2018. Most of each Council showed up for a nice dinner in front of our cameraman Bruce.

As the only public, guess who was the only one to speak (tough guess for ya, right?). The night’s topic was regionalization of resources. Its about time and its about the right thing to do.