There was only four candidates to vie for Litz’s empty council seat;
As of Tuesday evening, three applicants for the Northwest District open seat for the Sioux Falls City Council had submitted notices of interest: Dean Karsky, Mark Millage and James Ysbrand.
Wednesday at noon marks the deadline for the call for applicants for the seat left vacant after Councilor Bob Litz’s successful bid to become Minnehaha County auditor.
It was good to see 4 show up before noon today. I liked Marlin Thompson’s letter of interest. Though he is retired he sounds like he has a lot of experience. I forward to hearing him in the debate.
Millage pretty much is guaranteed this one anyway.
You are right. But who knows who might show up at 11:59 today?
The real question is, assuming he is selected will Millage recuse himself from any discussions surrounding the Events Center location? I tend to think a guy who is sitting on the BID committee probably lacks the ability to be impartial about the issue.
He will probably have to.
BTW, another applicant showed up, so that makes 4. And two more are due . . . but we will see.
Recuse himself from the discussion? Why?
IF he gets the seat, he will be the ONLY member of council with a clearly-stated position on the issue. The rest, I’m willing to bet, certainly have their opinions and are quietly doing what they can behind closed doors to advance their agenda. And the public is none the wiser.
Potential conflict of interest considering he likely has financial incentive to want the EC downtown where he knows his facility will suddenly be worth much more money. They could relocate elsewhere in the city (because having a community college near an EC doesn’t directly help the students) and sell their facility for exponentially more than they paid… which could very well provide a nice bonus to Millage.
Is that a stretch? Probably… but the appearance of a conflict of interest is all that is necessary. We don’t need that any more than we need someone who owns property near the Arena sitting there and voting against downtown. If you can’t be objective then you have no reason being there in the first place.
You all need to watch this latest episode of ‘Ask the Mayor’ where Mike talks about just exactly what the public will get to vote on. He also seems to be leaning towards borrowing $80-100 million for the project. Which is no surprise and his intention all along. I just doubt voters will go for it:
http://www.siouxfalls.org/CityLink16/Programs/Regular_Programs/ask_the_mayor/ask_mayor_0311.aspx
I agree… if the facts are really out there the typical voter won’t go for it, but then again the typical voter doesn’t vote in off-cycle elections, so if they want this thing to pass I’m guessing it will boil down to a special election which will draw the supporters out of the woodwork.
Costner:
“likely has financial incentive to want the EC downtown where he knows his facility will suddenly be worth much more money. ”
Millage doesn’t own the Killian building. And Killian has no interest in relocating. Your stretching = crapping out a watermellon.
“than we need someone who owns property near the Arena sitting there and voting against downtown.”
Especially if that same person was a downtown supporter 6 years ago. So, feel free to show up at Monday’s Council meeting and demand that Jim Entenemann recuse himself from any and all EC business.
In another thread I actually said that exact thing Sy… since Enteman owns property near the Arena he should recuse himself from any vote on the location.
This isn’t about cherry picking who can vote – it is about ensuring anyone who has a vested interest in either direction isn’t voting with an obvious bias. I never said Millage owned the property, but it stands to reason if that property went up in value 1000% and they sold it, it would look pretty good for Millage. Once way or another he would be compensated.