August 2014

Transit Fares going up to raise $100K while the city spends $220K for alley cobblestone pavers

Oh, the fun stuff you find in the city council consent agenda (DOC: CONSENT.pdf). This week didn’t disappoint as usual.

While the city struggles to find ways to raise money for transit while limiting service, they decided that spending $220K on historic pavers in an alley was a wise use of tax dollars. I guess you could say it is a ‘form’ of transportation upgrades. Ironically the way they are downgrading paratransit these days, it might as well be compared to the horse and buggy days. I heard Huether’s Press Conference hug buddy, Mary Glenski was gunning for the project.

Moving right along, we have to make sure the demolition of the outdoor pool at Spellerberg looks pretty after we are done, so instead of just having the city parks workers do their job, we are hiring a private contractor for $10k to git-r-done.

Not sure what a ‘Master Plan’ is, but it is going to cost us about $70K. Apparently there isn’t enough managers and directors working in the Parks Department to come up with a plan themselves so we return to our old standby, consultants. I suppose you have to actually have a ‘master’ to come up with a ‘master’ plan.

And lastly we are handing over $160K to DTSF so they can hang up posters and stuff.

Low unemployment and even lower wages

Forget about the low unemployment in Sioux Falls, this column hits the nail on the head with what is wrong with the Sioux Falls job market;

Indeed, the Conference of Mayors report laments that jobs gained during the economic recovery pay an average 23 percent less than jobs lost during the so-called Great Recession.

The annual wage was $61,637 in sectors where jobs were lost in the economic downturn, which began in December 2007, while the average wage of new jobs gained through the second quarter of this year was only $47,171. “This wage gap,” said the report, “represents $93 billion in lost wages.”

So while America is getting back to work after the recession, they are doing it with less in their paychecks. It amazes me when we brag about our low unemployment in Sioux Falls and all the business development going on, but no one dares to talk about wages, which are getting worse. So while the rich are getting even richer after the recession, they are not sharing that good fortune with their employees. As I long suspected during the recession, the business community would use the recession as an excuse to not give raises and even cut pay. Enough of the excuses, it’s time to pony up.

The Mayor’s “Super Secret Committee” for the indoor pool

As I mentioned before, during the indoor pool groundbreaking press conference (demolition) Mayor Huether mentions a secret group that assisted him on getting the outdoor pool vote to fail at Spellerberg. He also peddles the lie that 70% of the voters wanted an indoor pool at Spellerberg. Not sure how he can claim that, because that wasn’t even on the ballot. Many people who voted NO told me that they were either confused by the ballot language, or they simply wanted Spellerberg to be a greenspace park without any pools. But back to the secret group he announced;

Rolly Samp (Sioux Falls Attorney)

Dale Froelich

Dave Volk (Former State Treasurer and Janklow minion)

Brett Bradfield (USF)

Jon Sommervold (The Great Hall at the Pavilion is named after his mother)

Mike Crane (Sioux Falls Developer who has development investments with Cindy Huether)

Kathy Clark (Regional VP of Commercial Banking at Wells Fargo)

I scratch my head as to ‘what’ this secret group did. As you know before the election there were many complaints about the misleading videos and ballot language. Were these people behind the campaign of falsehoods? Speaking of white lies, Councilor Karsky peddles the ‘debt free’ mantra in the press conference also.