Sioux Falls City Councilors Karsky & Kiley approve of inefficiency and poor customer service in city government

by

During the December edition of ‘Inside Town Hall’ four city councilors had a discussion about Project TRIM (Or as we call it Project Tree Tax). Councilor Staggers of course believes like many cities throughout the Midwest (Brandon, Brookings & Kansas City for example) that the city of Sioux Falls should trim the trees in the boulevard. As a Brandon city councilor brought up in a joint meeting with SF city councilors, “It’s just more efficient and accurate.” then policing homeowners to do it. Councilor Erickson believes the way the city goes about policing the policy is cumbersome and could use improvement.

But councilors Karsky and Kiley think it works just fine (mailing out vague letters about the trees that need to be trimmed, sending out city employees to tag those properties but not identify the actual branches). Kiley goes on to say that it would cost to much for the city to trim the trees. That statement in itself is ridiculous. As the Brandon city councilor pointed out, they discovered it was cheaper to contract out a licensed arborist to just go out and trim those trees then to go through the ridiculous process of paying city employees to drive around and tag properties then send out letters when the time could be better spent at just trimming the violating trees to begin with. Then there is the matter of the adjoining property owners not owning those trees anyway because they sit on city property.

No surprise to me that Kiley and Karsky would find the process A’ OK as is.

UPDATE: Apparently Sioux Falls City Councilor Karsky won a CMA award?

by

UPDATE: As I suspected, the tickets for the CMA’s were bought privately by the Erickson’s and no taxpayer expense. Just to clarify.

Foolish me, I thought outgoing councilor Karsky was going on his last junket to the National League of Cities conference in Nashville to learn more about municipal government that he could share over the last 5 months of his term. It was all a ploy to receive his CMA. (snark)

Notice the conference started on Wednesday, but the councilors needed to move this week’s meeting to Monday so they could go to the conference on Tuesday. But Tuesday night they took in the CMA’s.

Our tax dollars hard at work! Now if we can just get them to unlock the doors at the Huether Family tennis center.

cma-karsky

Another Karsky suggestion . . .

by

huetherville-lr

While Dean doesn’t care who puts shingles on your roof, he seems to be very concerned about who is drinking malt liquor;

Karsky said Sioux Falls law enforcement is overburdened with alcohol related problems, and the calls that come in tend to cluster in specific areas of the city – downtown and the Whittier and Pettigrew Heights neighborhoods. “Alcohol-impact areas” – places where alcohol-nuisance calls are most frequent – could be established with more restrictive booze rules, Karsky said.

Dean, we tried this thing called ‘Prohibition’ it didn’t work out so well. Did you take American History in High School? Did you go to High School? Alcoholism is a disease, they will find a way to get a drink, you are not going to fix anything.

What I want to know is what yahoo on the chamber made you be the poster boy of this idea? They owe you a drink . . . that is at least 40 ounces.

Erickson says it best;

City Councilor Christine Erickson said she’s open to discussing the alcohol rules on the books in Sioux Falls, but questioned whether banning single sales in select areas of the city would significantly reduce the number of alcohol nuisance complaints. She’s concerned also about the unintended consequences of alcohol impact areas.

“I understand the reasoning behind it. My concern is, too, are they going to get in the car and drive somewhere else to get it? Now we would just be encouraging them to get behind the wheel,” she said.

Erickson said a ban in specific areas of town wouldn’t alleviate the problem, only move it, similar to what happened when the council banned alcohol from Van Eps and Tower parks.

“It’s kicking the can down the road again. That was my concern when we banned the alcohol at Van Eps as well. We weren’t really fixing anything – just telling them to go back into the neighborhoods,” she said.

Besides her great points, I also would like to point out that I think product designations are up to the state and maybe the county. Don’t know, but I think the City of Sioux Falls learned the hard way about trying to limit video lottery. They lost in SD Supreme Court. They seem to be very good at that.

UPDATE: Who will apply to be on the Minnehaha County Commission

by

UPDATE: Yesterday the commission decided they will be accepting applications and resumes until December 31 for the appointment job. There was some discussion on whether they should appoint a ‘caretaker’ or basically a ‘seat warmer’. This of course was Dick Kelly’s idea, and Cindy pretty much said that was a bad idea, and they should appoint someone who is prepared to do the job in the fullest for the next two years, and if they want to run again, that would be fine.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4It5tf-y5Uo[/youtube]

I found out yesterday that Dean Karsky has withdrawn his name and said he is NOT seeking the appointment, but expressed interest in running for the seat in two years when he is term limited from the city council.

Mark Millage has also told me that he is not interested in the appointment either.

I’m not sure who the ‘ten’ people are, but it should be interesting when those names are released.

In other County news, it seems that the commission is backing out on their set of rules for picking an election review commission. The names I have heard so far are either elected officials, past elected officials or public employees. Bad idea. This commission should be citizen driven, NO elected officials, NO public employees and NO past officials BIAS to the process. Looks like another Kangaroo court.

I also have some other inside information about the formation of the commission that I will share AFTER the appointments. Let’s just say the cattle wrangling has already begun.

Chamber: Calling out Karsky’s conflict of interest is laughable, but nobody is laughing

by

Well got to hand it to the Chamber, they were quick to respond to me, in a very nice NON public passive aggressive way, (which I expected) with an email story to their members;

During the Council’s public input session, the Council’s constant commentator Scott Ehrisman maintained that Councilor Dean Karsky should recuse himself from any Council agenda item that includes any member of the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce since he is now a Board member. As is typical, councilors do not respond to the public input sessions.  It seems, however, we should.

Yes, the councilors don’t respond because they don’t give a rat’s ass what a citizen has to say, just the big wheels in town, you know, like Chamber Members. So instead of Karsky or a city attorney responding in a official public meeting, which would have been the appropriate place to do so, the Chicken Little Chamber does it in an email to their members. You must be so proud of their defense Dean. Did you help them type the email?

The comments seem to show an incredible lack of understanding of the nature and role of citizen-composed legislative bodies that are so vital to our state’s history and current function.  Conflicts of interest are inherent in the way we do business, but a conflict is not synonymous with impropriety. The state constitution deals with the issue in Article 3 Section 12 where it prohibits state legislators from having an interest in any contract with the state authorized by any law passed during their term. That makes sense; you can’t authorize a contract or appropriate money for your own gain.  However, in our legislature, farmers vote on ag issues; teachers vote on educational issues; bankers vote on banking issues; and so on. We expect them to and we have the choice to remove them if they abuse their power.

Oh, so when the city charter doesn’t fit your loophole rule book, you run to state law. This is what the city charter says about the issue; Section 35.053 CONFLICTS OF INTEREST; CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS.

Typically, conflict of interest issues rise to the level of impropriety when a public official uses his or her office for personal gain or benefit. Councilor Karsky has noted that he would be willing to recuse himself from votes that affect the Chamber specifically. While a noble thing to do, that’s probably not even necessary. But, to maintain that an improper conflict of interest exists whenever a Chamber member has an issue before the Council and Councilor Karsky votes on it is not just a stretch, it’s somewhat laughable.

The only thing that is laughable is how Dean’s position on the Chamber Board is defended, in an email from the Chamber, not from the city attorney’s office. Secondly, this is more about ethical behavior not if what Dean is doing is legal or not, it is perfectly legal in South Dakota to be unethical. We expect our public officials to have integrity, by serving on both boards, it shows Karsky lacks integrity and the ethics to serve the public. I would much rather he resigned from the city council, the Chamber can have him. But if you do keep him on the board, you should probably try to spell his name correctly. Heck you figured out how to spell mine.

Farmers Insurance Group/Karksy Agency