UPDATE: What was supposed to be announced today is the healthcare systems plans to combat the pandemic, and they did touch on it a little bit in the city’s press conference today. Hopefully we will hear more later. Also, the 2nd part is that at least one of the hospitals have sent all non-essential employees home if they can work from there. Not sure what will happen with the ones that cannot work from home.
Mayor TenHaken said today that there will be an announcement tomorrow. I’ve heard what it is, and it is going to be shocking. I just wanted to be on record to be prepared. I have had several employees reach out to me about what they think it is, but I will leave it for the official announcement. Let’s just say they are preparing for the pandemic to hit Sioux Falls, but not in the way you would expect. Let’s hope the predictions are wrong.
This was a presentation that was only given and shared with city employees until given to DaCola by one of those employees, enjoy. Transparency, it is what we strive for.
What was supposed to be a simple meeting about taking further action against the corona virus pandemic in Sioux Falls turned from a goat rodeo to a real sheep sh*t show.
While the health director was addressing the council about possible further action, some councilors decided this would be a great time to discuss some of those further actions. Stehly was well within in her rights to ask these questions, and a very respectful exchange was occurring between her and the health director Franken when the mayor decided to cut off the questioning because it wasn’t relative to the ordinance, even the city attorney jumped in to say this wasn’t about what may be further done.
Starr called for the adjournment of the meeting and Stehly seconded it, to the mayor’s befuddlement, he asked why? Starr stated that basically if they couldn’t have a discussion and ask questions they might as well go home.
But it got better, councilor Brekke, who was joining the meeting telephonically, basically said it was their right to ask these questions and told the city attorney she was ‘confounded’ as to why he thought he could shut it down.
Of course the mayor and the health director went into apologetic mode as councilor Erickson complained about the barking dogs of one of the telephonic councilors joining (funny, I thought it was her barking, as she normally does during the meeting. She is starting to remind me of a former . . . erp . . . councilor).
From D.C. on down, I’m beginning to wonder who is really in charge right now. The answer is simple; The virus.
Tonight at the City Council meeting Councilor Starr offered a a simple amendment to the $1 Million dollar gift to the Community Foundation (specifically the $750K from the general fund). He wanted the city to have the ability to audit the rental assistance program after it was completed.
A fair amendment that was actually suggested by Councilor Neitzert just minutes before the amendment was proposed. Greg basically said he discussed it with the internal auditor and thought it was a good idea (he of course didn’t know Starr wanted it in writing and quickly melted with the rest of the RS5 after proposed).
Even the CEO of the Helpline Center, the ones processing the applications for rental assistance and in charge of dispersing the money (starting this week) agreed they would let the city look at the program and dispersements in a spreadsheet. (this was also before the amendment was proposed).
But since Pat is part of the Right Way 3, the RS5 has a fit. I thought Councilor Soehl was going to pop a vein in his head he was so pissed that Pat dared to suggest transparency with taxpayer funds.
Why? They hate transparency, because the public would get to see who greases the palms of the RS5.
Heck, when Soehl questioned City Attorney Stacy Kooistra, Stacy couldn’t even figure out if this was a contract or a supplemental appropriation, but gosh darn it, he was pretty darn sure it was the job of the ‘administration’ to negotiate the contract or whatever it is. So sure that Mayor Selfie handed the gavel over to chair Marshall Selberg so he could look like a powerful leader who had a pout fest earlier today because the State Legislature wouldn’t give him the authority to close businesses (than Noem later said he has that authority thru the city’s health department) but Pauly is scared some of his buddies might sue. Please Paul, take off the trucker hat and Converse All-Stars and put on your big boy pants.
It got even better when Councilor Ricky Lee Kiley accused Councilor Starr of aligning himself with folks who are ‘critics of the Community Foundation’. Who are these mysterious folks he speaks of? I think the rental assistance program is a good idea, and I happen to agree with Pat that it should be transparent. You know Ricky Lee, if you were talking about a certain blogger, you can use my name, just make sure you mention my URL also, because if you are going to insult me, at least give me some free advertising. Maybe I’ll volunteer to print you some flyers for your next violin concerto.
But Theresa had the last word when Soehl said we needed to get this done ASAP and worry about the auditing later. She mentioned that we have heard this before and reminded them of the colossal mistake, the Bunker Ramp. You could have heard a pin drop.
Once again, it’s ramrod, ramrod, ramrod than worry about the hurried mistakes and secrets later. Pathetic.
I guess recently Mitch McConnell was mouthing off that the reason the Federal Government didn’t act sooner on the Corona Virus Pandemic was because they were busy with the impeachment trials. Even Trump said today in his daily press conference that was not the case. He pretended he was not distracted by the proceedings. LOL.
I kind of agree with McConnell, if Trump would have just resigned gracefully, we would probably be in a lot better shape right now.
As you know, Jim Jordan lied non-stop in defense of our law breaking president during the impeachment trials. It was nice of Noem to tap into such great ‘talent’.
