City of Sioux Falls Top Ten Wins

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I won’t comment on any of these, okay, maybe I will. In summary I will say that some of these are great accomplishments (that already happened a few years ago), some of them are stalemate, some are flat out false, and some are just fluff, smoke and mirrors.

  1. Our new Events Center rocks! The Denny Sanford PREMIER Center opened on time, under budget, pumps out cash, and (yes) has plenty of parking.
  2. Sioux Falls citizens want progress, and the April 8 election proved it! Sioux Falls residents overwhelmingly supported the indoor aquatic center at Spellerberg Park, the Shape Places Zoning Ordinance, commercial zoning at 85th Street and Minnesota Avenue, snow gates, and public servants who get things done.
  3. It’s the economy, and oh my, ours is booming! In Sioux Falls, good jobs are everywhere, there is record-breaking construction again, our piggybank is fatter, sales tax revenues are sky-high, and in the north, south, east, west, and downtown, our residents are living, working, playing, and thriving.
  4. City government is being run like a business, including implementing innovative and long-overdue technology systems like the EnerGov land management system, the Munis payroll system, and a new public computer reservation and printing system at Siouxland Libraries.
  5. One of the best community health providers in the nation is in Sioux Falls, and America knows it. Falls Community Health is now directed in-house by City employee caregivers and leadership and has received Patient-Centered Medical Home Level 3 recognition. The Health Department also provided strong leadership and due diligence in our search for an ambulance service provider.
  6. The City of Sioux Falls streamlined our approach to Code Enforcement. Being a good and responsible neighbor is a big deal here!
  7. More needs to be done, but Public Transportation is more sustainable due to tough decisions being made. Demand has never been higher, but reality is that it is extremely expensive. This city is not shying away from the challenge.
  8. Railyard relocation in Downtown Sioux Falls moves one major step forward. The independent appraisal is done so negotiations between BNSF and the City of Sioux Falls can begin to capture almost ten acres of land in the heart of our city.
  9. The City’s Legal Team has never been stronger. These public servants are defenders of progress and liberty and are saving Sioux Falls taxpayers millions.
  10. Sioux Falls homes and businesses are now protected from a 100-year flood event. The flood control system is complete and accredited and long-awaited development opportunities are on the horizon.

MY REVIEW

1) I have actually heard positive things about the parking at the EC. Many have said to me there isn’t any hassles. And I will agree that it is generating cash flow, to be expected from a new facility, and dare I say, needed. But getting the place done on time and on budget has caused many problems (some we can see like the bad siding and cracked floors) some we cannot, time will only tell how these problems are solved. Also, the ticketing procedures need to be fixed, because lets face it, we cannot continue down the path we have been going so far, and management telling us that ‘there is nothing they can do’ is hogwash. Our council can take action, and pass some simple ordinances to make tickets more available and affordable to the public. But that would require them to ‘do something’.

2) I will agree, I was shocked by the results of the election, but I am not all the way sold that it went off without a hitch. There was too many irregularities (like the undervotes, confusing ballot language, advocational presentations, super precincts and the mayor winning all the precincts except one). There were issues, and I hope the county election review commission digs into this a little and gives us some insight. We may not be able to change the results of the election, but we can do better in the future.

3) The low unemployment is a good thing, and I think eventually it will help to raise wages in Sioux Falls when employers run out of other options. Because while business is doing well in Sioux Falls, pay inequality is rampid, don’t believe me, just ask one of the parents who have kids attending our schools and the almost half that are getting free and reduced lunches, or our expanding food banks and homeless shelters.

4) I will give props to our libraries, they haven’t been run better in years, and they are a fantastic resource for our community, recently adding education programs free of charge. I will also commend the city on being more efficient with managing software, but we have a long way to go with efficiency. I wouldn’t be so quick though to attribute this to running the city like a business. Businesses are set up to make a profit, government is set up to provide us services. Besides, many of these updated programs were in the process of transition before our current mayor was even in office, much like the success of Downtown. We must become more transparent with the public, or at least fill our councilors in on what is going on at city hall, this should be Job #1 of government.

5) Bravo to the community health center for this accomplishment. I would even go as far as saying this should be #1 on this list. This is one thing good local governments do for their citizens, provide affordable healthcare to those who need it. But throwing in the ambulance service to this accomplishment is a bit premature. This will end up in court, most likely.

6) When they talk about streamlining it, do they mean changing the rules in the middle of the game to exempt the city from the same rules we have to abide by? Our code enforcement office main duty right now is vengence. It needs to be dismantled, or better yet, our city council needs to take a hard look at all of the codes on the books and start to take an axe to some of them. Some people in the attorney’s office and code enforcement office also need to receive pink slips. If we really want to say code enforcement is a success we should design it around citizen customer service instead of vendetta. We need to work with our neighbors, not punish them. The irony is that this approach would save the taxpayers of this city millions in legal fees.

7) Cutting paratransit was a knife in the back of many hardworking people in our community with disabilities. I would go even farther and say it was one of the most gutless things I have seen our municipal government do in years. It was dispicable and surely not deserving of a win. The irony of it is that it will have a much larger economic impact on our community when these people don’t have means to get to work, larger then any money we are saving by cutting the program. It certainly doesn’t take a visionary to see that, but it does require having a heart . . .

8) A project cloaked in secrecy and controversy. But hey, we are getting it done, we just can’t tell you how. Little does the public know that behind the scenes a chess game is being played with all the property adjacent to tracks and the discussion surrounds reversion (the rumor is the railroads have a federal easement, they don’t really OWN anything). I have a feeling this one won’t be on the list next year, or the year after that.

9) I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I heard the mayor recite this one (I might have even shed a tear). The fact is the city attorney’s office is not doing their jobs (defending the city charter, State Constitution and US Constitution). That is the main duty of our legal team, not acting as personal attorneys to certain politicians. As for saving us money, that couldn’t be farther from the truth, they are attempting to prosecute the innocent, and losing in court, quite frequently. Do you think there is NO charge when you lose in court, quite the contrary. Just look at the EC siding debacle, that is going to end up costing us a lot of money, win or lose, because someone made a stupid decision in the name of value.

10) While it is a great accomplishment, the levees were completed years ago, this is an old news story. The only thing keeping this afloat is that FEMA is finally changing the mapping. The irony, while it is great we got paid back for our expense for building the levees, we are disguising the money as ‘cash’ and spending it on entertainment (on a rust free indoor pool 🙂

As you can see, this list contains many positive things, but citizens must always be vigilant and peel back the layers. Sometimes that takes a sharp scalpel, but today, it simply took a really big scoop shovel.

Stay tuned for South DaCola’s top 10 wins of 2014.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

Separating Fact from Fiction when discussing the Indoor Pool

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[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcAi5Onx0oM[/youtube]

“Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.” Jean De La Fontaine

City Hall, City Directors, City Councilors and certain people in the media seem to be parroting the half-truths about the indoor pool, and they are spreading like wild fire and it hasn’t even been 24 hours since the aquatic update.

FICTION: The city continues to tell us this is being paid for with ‘CASH’ on hand.

FACT: We are using money from a repayment from the Feds on a bond we took out for levees. We will still have to pay back this bond in a few years. So while we may have ‘cash’ on hand from the repayment, we are using ‘borrowed’ money to pay for the pool. Ironically there was a story in the Argus today about those bonds and levees, just no mention of the indoor pool.

FICTION: The city says the increase in price is due to adding a therapy pool and larger recreational pool from the original drawings.

FACT: The therapy pool was in the original drawings, and the rec pool is the same size, but what HAS changed is that the slides, current pool and outdoor patio have been scaled back.

FICTION: There has been a ‘slight’ increase in price.

FACT: An almost 17% increase in the price of the facility isn’t a slight increase on a multi-million dollar project, it is substantial.

FICTION: The project manager tells us the cost estimates were off before the vote because they just didn’t have the projections.

FACT: The city spent $46,000 on architectural drawings before the election to help project the cost. The drawings may have also been a violation of state law by presenting advocational presentations that swayed the vote.

FICTION: People voted for an indoor pool by voting against the outdoor pool. This statement was made by the city’s finance director and the Argus today.

FACT: There was no ‘indoor pool’ on the ballot.

FICTION: The quit claim deed doesn’t matter.

FACT: We are not sure if it does or not, because the city has made zero attempt to get a MOU from the VA about building the new indoor pool. At the last Listening & Learning session the mayor went as far as pretending he didn’t know what it was.

I’m all for moving ahead with this project, but let’s be honest and transparent in our intentions.

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Mayor and Parks Director continue to peddle the indoor pool falsehood

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I found this statement by the Parks Director and recently in the Mayor’s budget address to be dubious at best;

In the fall of 2016, this first-of-its-kind facility will open to the public, debt free.

“I’m not sure many cities across the country would be able to say that they can do that on a $20 million project. So we’re really proud of that, to be able to pay cash for it. And we’re also working on the operating side too; to try to minimize the amount of taxpayer dollars that have to go towards maintaining the facility either,” Kearney said.

Call it what you will, but his statement is NOT TRUE. Maybe partially, but let’s look at the facts. There will still be the Levee Bond debt when we open this facility. The city TOOK the repayment on that debt and used it to pay for the pool. That debt is and will still be owed when the doors open. We WILL NOT be ‘debt free’ and I am amazed they would blatantly lie about this. It seems this administration is getting bolder with what they are telling the public. As for the operating side, I am happy to see they are trying to find sponsors. I am assuming that since an Avera representative was at the groundbreaking (demolition) they will probably be a major sponsor. Either way, whether we have a sponsor or not, it will still cost around $700,000 a year to operate.

I did not attend the press conference, but I heard the mayor attributed a ‘secret committee’ to get this done. Wonder if that ‘secret committee’ knows anything about the quit claim deed? And who calls a ‘demolition’ a ‘ground breaking’ ceremony? Still laughing about that.

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Council Meeting Highlights – 6/17/14

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The things you find out while watching the council meetings. During the informational yesterday, councilor Staggers asked about the rippling siding on the Events Center. After viewing the structure on Sunday, he asked what the city plans to do to fix the issue, wants to be sure the city won’t have to pay for the fix, and would like an update.

He also asked about what is being done to alleviate the situation of the exploding fire hydrant at 12th and Phillips in February. Cotter said that he would have to talk to Risk Management first (while he was saying this, the director of that department, Reagan Smith, was sitting right behind him, and could have easily gotten up and answered the question) Then Cotter said, “Not sure if a claim was filed?” Yeah, right.

At the regular council meeting, during public testimony, several items were addressed;

– I talked about the outrageous amount of money being spent on municipal elections by candidates, especially Walmart and the Mayor and how the city council needs to look at limiting campaign financing.

– Citizens for Integrity asked why we are not doing more to alleviate drainage in Sioux Falls, especially not using money for Levee Bond repayment on these projects instead of on the indoor pool.

– Greg Niezhert (sp?) talked about the issue with the new billboard regulations in Shape Places, and how the council needs to take another look at that section of the ordinance, and revise it. Good luck with that Greg. As I told him before the election, that is why Shape Places needed to be voted down, so the council could go back and totally review the entire ordinance properly. Since it passed, there is NOTHING forcing the hand of the planning office or the city council to go ‘fix’ it.

– Lastly, was another story of how the SFPD can be reckless sometimes in fighting crime. Things happen, totally understand. The problem is they are taking no responsibility for it. A landlord comes and tells her story of how a fugitive came into the laundry room of her apartment building and in order for the police to capture him, they shot smoke bombs through the windows (breaking them) destroyed the door getting in, and tore up her lawn with the SWAT vehicle. All that being said, that is not the issue, the issue is that the city refuses to cooperate with her (they are ignoring her) about paying for damages.

Surprise, Surprise. Ask Touch of Europe how that works.

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

The final word on an indoor pool at Spellerberg: The city cheats at the game

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A brief timeline of events:

A petition drive was successful to propose an outdoor pool replacement at Spellerberg park. The opposition, CS365 has had 7 years to raise money for a private/public partnership or start a petition drive of their own since the indoor pool vote failed at Nelson park. They have done NOTHING except beg the city to build them a pool to be subsidized by ALL taxpayers whether you use it or not.

An aquatics study done by an independent contractor suggested a centrally located indoor pool at Spellerberg (ironically the next pool that needed to be replaced and probably the only reason this site was picked). It also said that the Sanford Sports complex would be a good location. The same report also mentioned that an indoor pool at Nelson park would have been a mistake, due to ground water issues in the area that may have caused issues for an indoor pool building. Good thing the indoor pool was voted down there, it could have ended up costing taxpayers millions in upkeep and maintenance.

The city spent $46,000 of taxpayer money before the recent municipal election to provide drawings of an indoor pool that wasn’t even on the ballot, misleading voters.

The city did several taxpayer funded meetings about Spellerberg and indoor options before the election (which was probably a violation of State election laws).

Incorrect ballots were sent to Central District voters by the auditor’s office. The county has asked for an investigation. The SYN group has also asked for an investigation of misleading ballot language.

The ballot language had a date typo and misleading language which prompted a court hearing a day before the election. As a witness for the city, the SOS, Jason Gant admitted that the city did not have to have a complicated and wordy 17” ballot and could have used the standard 14” ballot because state law only requires you name the title of the initiative on the ballot. When further asked if he would have had a ballot with this much language on it, he said ‘No’. But the city can do what they want, since they handle their own elections. The 17” ballots caused complications with tabulation machines.

After the election many admitted they weren’t sure what a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ meant. The meetings, drawings and misleading ballot language confused voters on election day. 70% voted No to an outdoor pool at Spellerberg, but many people who voted NO have mixed feelings about an indoor pool at that location, or what they were even voting for or against.

CS365 claims that the election was a mandate to build an indoor pool at Spellerberg, BUT;

  1. There was not an ‘indoor pool’ on the ballot
  2. There was not enough funding set aside for an indoor pool in the budget before the election
  3. CS365 used a ‘push poll’ before the election as evidence people want an indoor pool at Spellerberg

I have no doubt people want a community indoor pool, I’m just not sure they specifically want it at Spellerberg, and with that location, there is issues;

  1. A quit claim deed with the VA which could be preventing the city from getting a bond for the pool.
  2. Using levee debt repayment to build a recreational facility (This money should be used for drainage and infrastructure) which is extremely fiscally irresponsible and not PRUDENT.
  3. Traffic issues, park congestion, parking.

What is the alternative? Sanford has offered to do a study, give the city the land, offer a donation towards a public indoor facility, and the best part of it all is that it would be built at a location that already has the infrastructure in place, parking and host to other athletic facilities, such as tennis, hockey, basketball, football, wrestling, etc. etc.

There are also other issues with the Spellerberg plan.

Councilors Entenman and Aguliar should not be allowed to approve this deal at their last meeting at the end of their terms. Why? If something goes awry with the Spellerberg plan if approved, what are the consequences for these two councilors?

There is a NEW claim that Spellerberg was only meant to be ‘recreational’ and not ‘competitive’ so Sanford can go ahead with their facility. If this is the case, why do so many people complain about the Drake Springs pool being too ‘recreational’ and not having enough room to swim? The indoorers want swim lanes at the Spellerberg location, not just play aquatics. This is a flat out lie.

The other false claim is that the Spellerberg neighborhood needs to be ‘revitalized’. Since when? It’s a beautiful neighborhood that won’t change one single bit if that outdoor pool gets filled in and more greenspace is produced. The indoor pool at that location will literally look like a sore thumb in this quaint and nicely aged part of town. If they are concerned about revitalization there are a lot of other Centrally located neighborhoods that would benefit.

Sanford will probably build an indoor aquatics facility no matter what is decided tonight, so why not just wait for their feasibility study, then make a decision?

As I have said before, don’t care where this is going to be built, at this point I think we all agree the community wants an indoor public pool. It is the process that concerns me. There is no reason we need to ramrod this, it will get done, let’s do it right and without a bunch of smoke and theater

Posted in: Elections, SF City Council, Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Parks and Rec