Image: siouxfalls.org
First let’s talk about the mysterious announcement of this top secret committee, the first press release put out about the group was on Monday, September 30, 2013 12:16 PM by Q-Tip Smith. The next press release was put out Tuesday, October 1, 2013 11:32 AM, about 2 hours before the press conference. I guess they felt a need to spring this on the citizens of SF like it is some grand surprise.
In all fairness, the city did say they want our input (just not on the sooper-secret committee);
Over the next 12 to 15 months, numerous opportunities will be available for the citizens of Sioux Falls to provide their input on the future vision of downtown. A wide variety of public meetings, community-wide events, and a number of committees will be established to seek input for the vision of downtown.
Let’s look at the committee the MAYOR has appointed;
Brendan Reilly, Attorney
Daniel Doyle, Attorney
Eric McDonald, co-founder of a medical document company
Gene McGowan, venture capital
Glen Koch, Owner of DT restaurant
Jennifer Schmidtbauer, Director of Development for major DT SF manufacturer
Jerry Nachtigal Public affairs for major SF CC company/bank
Jessie Schmidt, Co-Chair of SF Planning Commission
Joe Kirby, He’s a Kirby (He’s the guy who lives here part-time and tried to sneak a provision in through the Charter Revision Commission to give the mayor more power)
Larry Toll, Co-President of Washington Pavilion
Terri Schuver, Owner of DT gallery
Michelle Erpenbach, City Councilor (I heard she never informed the rest of the council she was going to be on the committee, or at least some of them were unaware of her appointment)
Paul Ten Haken, owns a media company (his company is the one that came up with the new DT parking concept and the motto, “Look for the Gold P.” He also has a problem with his employees talking about political affiliations on their personal FB pages.
Don’t get me wrong, the committee needs to be comprised of SOME community leaders, but it is lacking actual ‘Downtowners’ – people who live, work and own businesses DT (tri-fecta). When a community wants to develop a ‘vision’ about a sector of it’s town, they really need people who have the best interest of all citizens and a deep knowledge of history and the past, moving forward you always want to avoid the mistakes of the past. I would think one of the owners of Minerva’s or the owners of Zandbroz and Vishnu Bunny would have made fantastic members of this committee. Remember a developmental ‘vision’ needs to include ‘the little things’ not just major projects like hotels, condos and insurance buildings. The secret of making our DT even more successful will be by connecting the whole community to this ‘vision’. I am just not sure how many of these members have a connection with downtown as a whole and the kind of people it attracts. IMO this is about making a small amount of people lots of money developing the DT vision, which is fine if the whole community will share in this richness.
The findings will be very interesting, but I have a feeling the rest of us will be left out – maybe they will tell us about it in a press conference.