Can someone check on Councilor Starr and see if he’s lost his voice? He left Stehly twisting in the wind without a word.
Hey, McFly, maybe Starr didn’t 2nd the motion, because Stehly got to make her point without the rest of the council beating her up? And that is what exactly what happened. If anyone looked like a winner after the motion didn’t receive a 2nd, it was Theresa, not Paul.
The last item of the night at the city council meeting was under new business and Stehly’s motion to encourage the city to help with storm cleanup. Stehly was actually attempting to amend the motion to actually THANK the city for helping (even though the messaging didn’t align with that from the administration). She never got there, but the public did.
Several people came up to say the city DID help and were thankful, but confused and disappointed with the communication of this help.
So it came time to 2nd Stehly’s motion and NO one did. This killed it, which killed the discussion.
Mission accomplished anyway.
Mayor was told by the public that he needs to be better at planning for disasters and communication. I agree. No need to fight about political grandstanding. Tell it like it is. Help each other and communicate better. End of discussion.
It was refreshing.
I wonder who from the city council staff had to stay late and shred all the vitriol that didn’t get used? Hopefully the mayor gives them one of his lucky coins.
At first I was confused. Then I had a very good laugh. Well played councilor ‘X’. Well played.
This bond election was in NO way in comparison to the SFSD.
First by the numbers, this was a $17 million dollar bond, heck, the SF City Council passes bonds like that every other week. Our bond issue was $300 million with interest.
But the bigger point was the Brandon School District asked for NO increase in taxes to pass the bond. See, they just paid off a bond, so instead of decreasing taxes they simply are keeping them where they are at currently. It’s called planning ahead, something the SFSD hasn’t been doing.
I argued at the time of the bond we could borrow half and pay the rest as we go. In fact, that suggestion came from school bond task force member, Mark Cotter. It would have roughly saved us $50 million in interest payments (but who’s counting?)
Also, the election vote turnout in Brandon was less then stellar, about 8.2%. While Brandon elections normally don’t draw many people anyway, I think the fact that taxes were NOT increasing didn’t really interest people as being that important. Even if it would not have passed, they would have found a way to keep taxes where they are. I have never known there to be a property tax DECREASE in the region, or at least lately.
I still believe, as I told a SFSD official recently that the SFSD vote was tampered with, but NOT by the counters, but by the people who entered them into the system. I guess we will never know because the district wouldn’t allow us to have an independent audit of the results without paying them to supervise our efforts. How is that independent?
It was quite the performance of the RS5 last night and their little parlor trick to make sure the Mayor’s proposed ‘Cult Officer’ got a tie vote so he could break the tie.
Three councilors argued that the mayor could just slide the position thru on the sly, but he chose to be open about it, then they let him have his way by letting him break the tie anyway.
Don’t be fooled by their performances, and Erickson’s classic standby, “I really struggled with this.” The only thing she struggled with was keeping track of the votes, that I can guarantee were counted in advance to make sure the mayor could break the tie and slide it thru.
I’m no expert on HR, and I couldn’t tell you if they need this position or not. But I do agree with one argument, if they do need it, it should be in the HR department, not under the mayor’s department.
Just look at what our legislature does each year to encourage racism and less tolerance. Anti-choice laws, little access to affordable healthcare, open carry, bathroom bills, resisting other languages for driver’s licenses, etc. This is what happens when you have one-party rule, and that party SUCKS!
It takes more than an attitude or culture change, it takes a LEADERSHIP change, and until that happens in Pierre and in the City Halls and County Commission chambers across this state, we will continue to legislate hate instead of tolerance.
I find it a little ironic that our mayor said he scaled back a compassion program in the city because he wants others to chip in. What he fails to mention is he supposedly fired the person in charge of the program.
Make no mistake, those in power are quite happy with our Lilly-White community, and they want it to stay that way . . . at least in their minds.
During the last city council race, candidate Nick Weiland suggested that the city implement participatory budgeting. It’s not a new concept, but something that has evolved over the years thru technology.
When Councilor Stehly attended the NLC’s conference a few years ago, she also was introduced to the concept.
We don’t have it in Sioux Falls, in fact, we don’t even have anything that comes close.
I have been following city budgets for the past 13 years, all I have ever seen is a massive growth in government and fewer services for that growth. I believe if citizens were engaged from the get go, those budgets would shrink and we would get more bang and more services (that actually help people) for the buck. Instead we allow city employees shape the budget, and hand it over to the mayor, in which he hands off to the council and us citizens get about 20 minutes for input. It’s disgusting.
First off, according to Charter, the city council should be forming the budget from input from city directors AND citizens. This should be a 12 month, all-year process. Instead they take very little input from citizens, pack it full of non-profit and corporate welfare giveaways, and leave us with a half-mile bike trail expansion and a cement Ping-Pong table.
One reason I didn’t show up last night is because by that time it was too late, the budget was most likely formed MONTHS ago behind closed doors in the mayor’s office. My five minutes don’t mean squat.
But let’s look at the explosive nature of our budget. In 2016 our budget was $471 Million, this year it is $545 Million, a 15% increase in 4 years. Has your wages increased that much? What about your cost of living? In an essence, if you were making $40K in 2016, your wages would be $46K in 2020, a $1,500 raise each year for 4 years. Has that happened in your life? Highly unlikely.
Until the city council (our true representatives of citizens) and the citizens actually have year-long input into the budget, all it represents is growing government for the mayor’s corporate trough friends.
Just look at the people defending the mayor’s mis-communication about citywide cleanup, saying things like, “It’s our personal responsibility” to clean up the city. In some respects I agree with the good pastor who said that, but we all pay taxes collectively so that we have services that we collectively receive and can’t manage to take care of on our own, you know, like educating the masses, building roads and infrastructure, or taking 100 FT tall trees off of our house with a giant tractor/loader.
Not only do we no longer have a say in how our taxes are being spent, we are no longer getting much in return for those high taxes.
Well, he didn’t quite say that, but in response to Belfrage about the great volunteerism he basically does say that;
“If the city would have launched an effort right away, that the city is going to take care of this, people would have sat on their porches and waited for us.”
Give me a Freaking Break! People were immediately cleaning up the next morning, with or without your blessing. Just like the ice storm, people were cleaning up their own yards. I don’t think ANYONE wanted or expected the city to clean up their private property, that was NOT what people wanted, they just wanted a truck to come by and pick up the rubbish, and the city SHOULD do that for people who don’t have the resources like what was done during the ice storm.
And guess what, the city did ultimately end up doing that (notice that was left out of the interview).
To say the people of Sioux Falls would have just put their feet up and waited for city employees to clean up the mess is ridiculous and insulting.
Then Paul flat out lies saying that councilors Stehly and Starr did NOT reach out to him and he tried to reach out to them. I’ve seen the correspondence folks, that is NOT how it happened. I can’t speak for Starr, but I do know that Stehly was constantly trying to get information from the mayor on what citizens were supposed to do with their tree waste and he ignored her.
It is amazing to watch how this is being spun into the ‘great’ volunteer effort of the century. I have lived in the Midwest 95% of my lifetime. I have lived in city’s, towns, and on farms. I have also lived in Sioux Falls since 1991. I have never known neighbors not to help each other! Ever! Whether it was an ice storm, wind storm, or even a major snow storm. It is in our blood to help each other. The State of South Dakota actually ranks 15th in the nation in volunteerism. The mayor should be ashamed of himself to even think that Sioux Falls residents would simply just wait on the porch for help.
In every single one of the interviews or talks that I’ve given with Todd, he has always made it clear that the sirens are for outdoor use only.
This is absolutely TRUE, but Greg decides to spin it, like him and his Trumpster ilk like to do;
In my opinion, Councilor Stehly jeopardizes lives when she spreads such blatant misinformation.
As you will see in a FB comment below, the only one jeopardizing lives was the people who failed to turn on the sirens to begin with. While it is true they are for outdoor use only, it doesn’t change the fact that someone really screwed the pooch, and just blowing it off as ‘human error’ and it really doesn’t matter (because apparently people are not outside during storms) is hogwash. Stehly should be concerned the sirens didn’t alarm, whether they are for outside, inside or for the moon.
There has been a rumor circulating that Stehly is considering a run for District 14 Senate. Deb Soholt will be term limited so Stehly could run for that seat in 2020.
As we both know, Stehly hasn’t decided to run for re-election on the city council, so maybe a run for the state legislature is more appealing to her. Even though Theresa would most likely run as a Republican, you can be sure she would work across the aisle to do the people’s work.
One of the chief concerns of the mayor is that several hundred employees will be retiring within the next 4-5 years. As Holsen points out below, I look at this as an amazing opportunity for the city to bring in fresh talent while saving taxpayers money. Maybe some of these people don’t need to be replaced at all? Holsen also points out that city jobs are coveted, something I have know for a long time;
I will have been retired from The City of Sioux Falls for 11 years. Prior to my retirement, I was the Director of Human Resources for 23 years, working for 5 different Mayors, under 3 different forms of government.
Mayors are elected officials who come to city government mainly naive in their understanding of governmental accounting, finance and governance issues. That does not diminish any managerial or leadership qualities, it just recognizes their lack of bureaucratic, leadership, management and cultural issues and personnel in city government itself.
Mayor TenHaken’s latest proposal to add a chief culture officer that would work out of his office to address employee turnover in city government by fostering better employee engagement and administering programs that cultivate the next generation of leaders at City Hall makes no sense.
The city has a Director of Human Resources and an extremely competent HR Department whose responsibility is to address and plan for those very issues.
The Mayor is responsible for the overall administration of government operations. That’s why he oversees his appointive officials who are directly responsible for managing their departments and functions.
Employee retention and recruitment is the direct responsibility of the Human Resources Department. Leadership development, culture development, people development and succession planning is the responsibility of the Director of Human Resources and department managers. That’s what they are paid to do.
How do I know that? Because I speak from experience. My department, under my leadership, monitored employee recruitment and retention. With forecasted retirement and turnover data, the directors were constantly informed of retention issues and were tasked, along with our direction and leadership, with putting together comprehensive training and leadership development action plans to deal with the so-called “silver tsunami” which, by the way, is not some new phenomenon just discovered by Mayor TenHaken. We identified it well over a decade ago.
Myself and other selected directors attended a national succession planning conference and came back to Sioux Falls ready to put plans in place to deal with this issue.
As directors, we worked together to identify people within our organization who had either been identified as having the potential and skills necessary to move into leadership and managerial positions, irrespective of their home department. We totally revamped the recruitment, testing and hiring practices for police and fire where the “silver Tsunami “ was a clear and present danger.
The city of Sioux Falls is a coveted employer by people looking for a job. It offers an excellent wage and benefit package including a pension system the private sector no longer offers its employees. The turnover rate has always been historically low, ranging anywhere from a low of 2% to a high of 5%. That is what, we in the field, call a healthy turnover rate. Why? Because change is good and with change comes new talent. The fact is, the city of Sioux Falls didn’t have a recruitment and retention problem that other employers were faced with back then and they don’t have one now. That did not mean we ignored the “silver tsunami” or that we ignored targeted areas where we knew we needed to identify specific recruitment actions for certain technical or highly skilled positions that were outside our normal recruitment area.
The point I’m trying to make here, its totally inappropriate and and actually rather arrogant of the Mayor to propose a Chief Cultural Officer in his office. If the position is actually needed in the organization, it belongs under the direct supervision and oversight of the Director of Human Resources. That department has all the tools and information to administer programs that cultivate the next generation of leaders at City Hall.
Mayor TenHaken needs to go back and read the City Charter so he has a better understanding of his role as Mayor. If this position is actually needed, based on the feedback and direction of the Director of Human Resources, then the City Council should fund it and put it where it belongs. It does not belong in the Mayor’s office.
I’m still puzzled why the Mayor’s office said the city and hired contractors would NOT pickup private property rubbish, but have been doing it all week. Which is good.
These pictures were sent to me by city councilor Stehly today (her and Brekke were volunteering). Stehly told me that Team Rubicon came this person’s house and assisted with some chainsaw work. The branches were drug out to the curb and the city picked them up and hauled them away.
It’ going to be interesting to watch how the administration explains the change in policy.
If I were PTH, I would just come out and say that the situation was reassessed and they decided to just pick up everything. I would also apologize for the confusion.
ABERDEEN, S.D. – A Warner male has been identified as the person who died early Sunday morning in a two-vehicle crash four miles west of Aberdeen. A 2012 Chevrolet Impala had been northbound on 382nd Avenue when it entered U.S. Highway 12, pulling in front of an eastbound Chevrolet Silverado 2500 pickup truck. The collision […]
KDLT-TV (NBC Affiliate in Sioux Falls, SD) seeks a FT Photographer responsible for shooting and editing video for KDLT newscasts. A Photographer shoots and edits stories for newscasts, assists in training reporters on how to edit and shoot, contributes story ideas at daily editorial meetings, assists in maintaining KDLT vehicles and KDLT editing and camera […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Relief pitcher Adam Ottavino sailed a 30-foot throw home on Albert Pujols' tiebreaking chopper, and the sloppy New York Yankees lost to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 Wednesday night with a chance to clinch the AL…
Los Angeles Angels' Kevan Smith watches his RBI single during the third inning of the team's baseball game against the New York Yankees on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019, in New York.
