November 2010

The Ugly Table (#1)

I debated how I wanted to do this. I wanted to talk about my experiences as a full-time waiter in Sioux Falls. I have worked in restaurants on and off for almost 22 years. Seen a lot of things. But when you deal with the public on a daily basis, you get a true lesson in sociology. I don’t want to piss and moan, so I decided to do this in the form of poetry. I am going to call the series ‘The Ugly Table’ which I may explain someday. But not today.

A DOLLAR OVER

A dollar over 10% is not 15%

It is a dollar over 10%

You may have thought you tricked me, or hoodwinked me, but you just insulted me.

If your bill is $60. Your tip is not $7.

Let’s get out the calculator.

It is $9.

When you wash your clothes, do you use the correct amount of detergent? Or just a $1 over?

You have dirty clothes.

S. L. Ehrisman (c) 11/8/10

The debate is over

Watch out, don’t disappoint the Godfather (Image: KELO-TV screenshot)

Enough already! After viewing last night’s city council meeting, I have decided that the debate is over concerning the Events Center. It is time to move forward. I don’t care about the diversity of the selection committee (which consists of ten white men, five of which are city employees). All creeds are bias on one level or another. Not important, especially when the voters should be deciding location, funding, etc.

VIDEO OF COUNCIL MEETING

The extended version.

Stormland TV‘s condensed version.

So what should be done?

1) Skip the design analysis and do an economic impact study of both locations instead, first, present those numbers to the public ASAP.

2) Put it on the ballot, ask three questions; Approval, Location, Funding. Done deal.

These debates between a bull-headed mayor and and his former contractor, who is just as bull-headed, is getting tiresome. Heck, councilor Erpenbach even had to interject and remind the mayor that public input is for ‘listening’ not ‘debating.’ (should have told that to gavel happy Munson 🙂

We have not only beaten this dead horse enough, we have beaten it clear to China. Present the impact numbers and let the public vote already!

On a side note, I was rather irritated by Councilor (short-timer) Litz’s comments in reference to public input;

“(paraphrasing) I appreciate people’s passion on this issue and I appreciate your (mayor) passion to get this information out, but I think somewhere though, and I think I am pretty liberal when it comes to applications of the process, but somehow this is turning into berate the mayor” Litz.

“Yeah.” Huether.

“And normally we allow people to come up and do their five minutes, and do their statement and maybe we refer it, and somehow we are going to wind up eating up a lot of the council meeting’s time of business we are supposed to be taking care of, so somehow I hope we can find a solution to this.”

First off, Huether agreeing just shows how big his freaking head is. If I were the mayor, I would have told Bob that it is part of the job as a public officials to take heat. If you can’t stand it, get out of the kitchen (which ironically Mr. Litz is doing).

As for Bob’s comment about eating up time I was unaware that the council meetings were timed. If you think your time is being wasted, why don’t you resign TODAY so we can appoint or elect a councilor that actually gives a shit what the public has to say.

As for doing our five minutes. Screw You! I watched you last Monday night (one day before the election, which had your name on the ballot) blab and blab and blab on every freaking topic you possibly could. Not only wasting the other councilor’s time for your campaign info-commercial but wasting taxpayer’s time.

Litz, meet kettle.

Instead of building an Events Center Downtown, we should just put a circus tent over Carnegie Hall

It seems tonight will be another exciting meeting at Carnegie, between the haves that are elected and the haves that are not elected;

Now, the downtown group has drawn up a resolution for the City Council. The downtown group seeks an economic analysis completed no later than Jan. 15. The group hopes to present the idea to councilors at tonight’s meeting, said Steve Hildebrand, an executive member of Build It Downtown.

While I think it is great that a volunteer group is petitioning our local government to consider a resolution, make no mistake, it will be all about grandstanding. Huether would veto it, even if the council had enough votes to get it rolling, which they do not. Even so, it seems Mike’s chief puppet has an excuse for everything;

“It’s important to get the comparative analysis done first, so that when an economic study is performed, there is good concrete information to use in the study as opposed to a series of assumptions without the comparative analysis,” said Mark Cotter, public works director.

Sure, an infrastructure analysis is important, but I think most citizens agree, either location will work on an engineering level. That’s like trying to decide between a red car or a brick red car. There already have been plans drawn up for both locations in the past. We know it will work. An economic impact study has to do with where people will spend the most money.

Build It Downtown members say that’s backward.

Yah think? When I decided to buy a house the first two things I did was budget and pick a location. I had no idea what my place was going to look like, and I really didn’t care at that point. And it seems another city councilor agrees with my analysis that I have used in the past;

“When you build a house, what’s the first thing you do? You look for the location. This is the biggest house the city will ever build, and we are missing that first step,” Brown said.

Don’t you know, Velvet Hammer, Mike has already picked the location . . .