It doesn’t fail, every year after the 4th I am dodging empty fireworks containers on the bike trail, it has been this way since I can remember. The irony is the penalty for shooting off fireworks is less then littering, oh, and you are doing it all on taxpayer owned property. Skanky, trashy, lazy, pathetic clems. They do it in the same spot every year (right off of Burnside). Not one cop has driven by and witnessed this in 30 years? It’s one thing to use public land to shoot off fireworks illegally, but did you ever think about bringing a garbage bag and cleaning it up? Skanky, trashy, lazy, pathetic clems. This part bothers me the most. I’m okay with some trailer trash kids blowing things up once in awhile, but for Godsakes, why aren’t the parents making them clean this up? Because you know they are present, probably their idea. Skanky, trashy, lazy, pathetic clems. So next year, I want an undercover officer stationed under the Burnside bridge on the bike trail, and start handing out those tickets, mostly for littering. I know it would require an officer to leave their vehicle, and that can be a struggle, but just pretend you are getting a FREE 64 oz Fountain Mt. Dew at the C-Store (probably pissed they don’t have a drive thru.)
UPDATE: If you watch the meeting from the other night you will see that a representative from the city of Brandon showed up in opposition of this item. Not sure what his role is, but I think he works in planning. He basically said the opposition comes from two directions, 1) They are not sure what kind of data center they plan to build and how large it will be, they said the company (foreign) has been very secretive about sharing any plans with the city of Brandon 2) Which was the most important part of the opposition, was that area is already zoned for FUTURE residential growth which is in Brandon’s long term growth plan and has been for years. Of course our boot licking planning commission approved the re-zone because they said this is just preliminary (they say this crap all the time) but it is NOT. It changes it now from a future growth of residential to industrial which means to change it back you would have to go thru the process all over again with a new land owner. Stupidity. Until this foreign company reveals EXACTLY what they plan to build, we should leave it AS is, Ag land with future use for residential. It was also revealed at the meeting that 300 people would be working at the site. Hogwash. These places pull this crap all the time. This is the amount of construction workers that would be on site while being built, that would most likely be shipped in from other parts of the country, but once finished it may have 20 full-time peeps who will work mostly in security and maintenance.
Unfortunately the way our planning approvals are setup, they must first ask for a re-zone of the property BEFORE they can announce what they plan to build there (Item #5A-Regular Agenda);
FLUA-021026-2025: Future Land Use Amendment to reclassify a Development Area identified in the Shape Sioux Falls 2040 Comprehensive Plan from Tier 3 to Tier 1 and amend the Future Land Use Map for the area from Residential to Future Light Industrial located east of Veterans Pkwy. and south of E. Rice St.
First off, I am NOT a fan of changing residential zoned property into light industrial especially with our housing needs in Sioux Falls. Secondly, it is pretty obvious they are changing the zoning to put in a data center but there is NO mention of a Data Center in the attached documentation on the agenda item. I wonder if the commission is smart enough to ask the question, and if the client have plans to power it? These data centers take massive amounts of electricity, how will this affect the grid in Sioux Falls? Also, the company I linked above is a registered FOREIGN LLC, and has only been registered for 6 months. I hope the commission sees thru this ruse, but if not, hopefully the city council will see this for what it is, an AI data center that will suck us dry on energy and probably drive up our energy costs. WE DO NOT WANT THIS IN SIOUX FALLS. Besides the property taxes, there is very little economic advantages of having a large data center like this in Sioux Falls. It won’t generate any sales tax revenue and it will mostly be full of servers and very few employees. We will see how this plays out, I see the planning department recommends approval (which is a way of making sure the commission rubber stamps this).
The butterfly effect is the idea that a small action can lead to a large and unpredictable change in the future. As a talent acquisition coordinator for the city of Sioux Falls, Ethan Beck finds pride in knowing he plays a small part in the onset of that ripple effect.
Notice the piece is sponsored by USD, and NOT the city, and comes after I have exposed the blatant nepotism at city hall and after Mr. Beck’s Mom decided to resign as COS to either run for mayor or run some one else’s campaign. Sure, the kid has a great resume, but I’m sure there are a hundred candidates just like him in the region that could have done the job, and didn’t need mommy to help them.
The Sioux Falls School Board just voted to approve ANOTHER opt out – this time to the tune of $2.1M for 10 years. The opt-out will allow the school district to raise additional funds beyond what they get in their existing tax levy and state aid, by collecting taxes from property owners in the district. SD Law allows citizens to bring this to a vote of the people (rather than a board of five unilaterally making the decision for all of Sioux Falls residents.) Deadline is July 17th. We will be circulating petitions to bring the opt-out to a public vote. This group will be for sharing information and locations to sign a petition (if you are a registered voter in the Sioux Falls School District) or if you would like to circulate a petition (have to be a registered voter in the State of South Dakota) you can find out more information for events/opportunities to volunteer at.
You know my feelings on this, stop handing out TIFs like candy and our opt outs would go away.
The rumor from city hall moles is that former councilor Tex Golfing (Rex Rolfing) will be returning to Carnegie to defend his stupid runoff rule. I wonder if he will bring his T-Bone gavel and hammer the gavel puck until it flys thru the air again? What a guy. I encourage anyone testifying to change the rule back to 34% plurality to wear an outrageous, loud, large hats, Rolfing loves hats at public input!
You know where I stand, simple plurality should be enough, and 34% is fine with me. There are some other points;
• While in a general election where no candidate in a particular race gets 50+1 normally the candidate who gets the most votes in the general gets fewer votes in the runoff because the turnout is lower. So how is getting a lower percentage of votes but a higher number of votes in the general any different then getting fewer votes in the runoff but a higher percentage? It’s an exercise in insanity, and it costs us (even though I never have liked the argument of cost savings when it comes to elections, doesn’t matter).
• Councilors Spellerberg and Sigette got ZERO votes (0%) and they are sitting on the dais. Why? Because they filled out the paperwork and followed the rules and protocol. So are they unqualified since NO ONE voted for them? Not at all. They did the work, doesn’t matter how many people voted for them.
• Also, if the runoff rule applied to the presidential election, Harris and Trump would have been in a runoff (Trump got 49.8% of the popular vote). So is Trump illegitimate (sure for other reasons) but he followed the election rules and he won, and just because he didn’t get 50+1 doesn’t persuade me he didn’t win fairly.
• It also edges out the grassroots candidates because of fund raising, or as Tim Stanga said last night during public input, “It gives us well funded deer in headlight candidates.” I think I know who he was referring to, but I won’t beat that dead horse, I mean deer.
The rule has only been used once since it was implemented 8 years ago and it was in the recent election. I disagree with Jordan Deffenbaugh’s testimony that runoffs help grassroots candidates, they do NOT. As a grassroots candidate you have to hit it hard and early, that is the secret, the longer the campaign the more you will be outspent.
They need to ditch this asinine rule it get us back to sanity with our elections.
I think only 3 councilors support changing it back, but it will take 6 votes to protect it from a mayoral veto, don’t see that happening.
UPDATE ON $100 MILLION IN PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTS WITHOUT RFP’S
My city hall moles have been telling me it is much worse then just leaving out the RFPs, one of the main reasons these contractors are being picked without RFPs because over 50% of them are out of state companies that have direct competition in Sioux Falls (in other words we have the local contractors to do the work). So why is hiring a local professional contractor better then out of state? First off, if something goes haywire, easier to sue. Secondly, local contractors hire local people and that profit is recirculated in the community. In other words when your taxdollars pay for a service, that money paid to the provider gets recirculated in the town. When you use an out of state contractor, that goes straight out the door. That’s why the Denty is a money vaccum. Another reason to use non-RFP out-of-state contractors is to cover up work the city may be doing that they don’t want the constituents to know about. When you put out an RFP for a repair job, people start asking questions, you know like damaged roofs on city owned buildings. The audit committee needs to do a full audit of all out-of-state, non-RFP, professional contracts that have been granted over the past 7 years.
l3wis 
