I guess it is time the vice-chair of the Sioux Falls city council, Christine Erickson shows a little leadership now that she has a challenger;

City Councilors Christine Erickson and Marshall Selberg plan to introduce an ordinance that will require the mayor to open up facility management contract drafts for public inspection no fewer than seven days before councilors are asked to vote on them.

While the proposal isn’t completely worthless (it does let the public see contracts a week longer) it does NOTHING to help the council get involved with policy decisions;

That means if City Hall wants to renew a contract or enter a new one to authorize a third-party to run a city-owned facility, the proposed contract will need to be posted online a week in advance of an official hearing.

The idea comes just weeks after the Council was asked to approve a new golf course management contract that councilors had limited time to review.

The major problem with the golf contract wasn’t the timeframe that it was dropped on council, it was the fact the council had little or nothing to do with the decision to change over to a management agreement. As councilor Neitzert pointed out, the council should have been able to negotiate that policy change, and that change should have been approved by them before it made the RFP.

It is no surprise the mayor doesn’t have a problem with Erickson’s proposal;

In an email Friday, Huether said while his finance staff is meeting with councilors to further vet the proposal, he’s inclined to support it.

Of course he supports it, first off he has one foot out the door, and secondly, as I mentioned above, it does nothing to give the council negotiating powers when it comes to policy changes, even though they are the ones that should be setting policy.

Lastly, who cares if the Mayor supports it or not? That has been the major problem with the council over the past 8 years, their fear of what MMM thinks.

2 Thoughts on “Erickson-Selberg proposal does little to help the contract approval process

  1. Warren Phear on January 28, 2018 at 2:43 pm said:

    If christine was that concerned about having a 100 page document dropped in her lap on a Friday night, WHY did she vote the way she did?

  2. The D@ily Spin on January 28, 2018 at 3:50 pm said:

    Erickson is looking for attention and free publicity before the election. She joined the Huether clan. This is a little to late. She should be replaced with a new councilor who’s not a groupie.

Post Navigation