South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

February 2015

chicken Mitchell

Mitchell, SD to tackle the chicken debate

l3wis 4Comments

chicken_sombrero

Hopefully they can come up with an answer quicker then our brain-trust chicken committee did in Sioux Falls;

Mitchell’s City Council is weighing whether to allow residents to raise chickens in backyards.

Peggy Miiller asked council members this week to consider the idea, and they agreed to discuss it further at their next meeting on Feb. 16.

A current city ordinance bans ducks, geese, chickens and other domestic fowl from within 100 feet of occupied buildings and all residential areas of the city.

And remember, rabbits are pets and food (but not at the same time.)

Elections South Dakotans

SD Retailers Association fiddling with the will of the people

l3wis 11Comments

retail-wage

Click to enlarge article

Some people just don’t get it, the voters passed the minimum wage increase because if they had to wait on industry to do it, it would never happen. Funny how they don’t have money to pay wages but somehow the organization was able to raise and spend $100K to fight it.

I also enjoyed this little tidbit;

And that means when it comes to making basic decisions about how to run your business, you’re going to have to ask the permission of 280,000 South Dakota voters.

Nice ‘red meat’ statement. That is called ‘regulation’. Nobody is telling you who to employ or fire or what to pay at a maximum, it is just revising a minimum that was already on the books, they are setting a regulation when it comes to wages. If you do not want to pay those standards, close your doors and go on your merry way.

State Funding State Legislature Taxes

OPPOSE SB135 – Giving cities the power to raise taxes

l3wis 6Comments

Before 10:00am tomorrow, please contact these Senators urging them NOT to let cities have more sales tax. Ask them to OPPOSE SB135.

This bill allows cities to add another 1% city sales tax, for special projects with a vote of the people. So few people vote in city elections, that it would be easy for people behind special projects to get their supporters out and overwhelm a city election, raising the most regressive tax we have.
• This would be a 50% increase in sales tax revenue for a city! (the current 2%  to 3%)
• Sales tax is the most regressive tax we have, meaning the lower-incomes are burdened more, and upper incomes are affected less.
• Sales tax takes food off tables in South Dakota. In families with limited budgets, food is often the flexible part of the budget, and the tax takes food away. Think about how much 6% tax takes out of a $20 bill. (Many low-income household do NOT get food stamps. Many others receive only partial allotments of food stamps and must buy some food with cash.)
• Already at 6% (4% state + 2% city) the total sales tax you pay on food over a year is equivalent to 3 weeks worth of food. A new 1% would add another half a week to that problem.   (.07×52 weeks = 3.65 weeks)
• At one time SD had a strict limit for city sales tax on groceries. But this limit was taken off, and over the past decade SD cities have raised their tax on food from 1% to 2%. By doing this, they already received an increase in sales tax revenue that they continue to reap every year.
(FYI- Background info: Under the “streamlining rules,” city sales tax may not be lower on some things than other things. Thus, we cannot go back to the previous 1% limit on food for cities. However, states are allowed to have lower rates on food and utilities, even zero, which we hope will be accomplished with HB1193.)
• • Many utilities are taxed. (You can see this on your monthly bills.) Cities receive more revenue every time these utility rates go up, as well as when food prices rise.
================================
Senate State Affairs committee votes on this tomorrow (Wednesday Feb.4)
Here are their email addresses. Write them individually, not all in one email.
Or, call and leave a message tomorrow morning before 10:00 am

605-773-3821 for senators. You can ask that it be delivered to 2 senators.

County Commission Darrin Smith Developers Development Minnehaha County Property Taxes Sioux Falls Taxes

Darrin Smith gets Tifilicious at the County Commission meeting

l3wis 2Comments

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEFiECjQCR4#t=4457[/youtube]

(starts at 20:30)

Funny how the commission gets to see this presentation before the council – or at least I can’t recall the council getting the presentation yet?

Darrin explains TIFs before the new TIF presentation. While he is correct that TIFs don’t cost taxpayers up front (even though we are footing the bill to administer them) we are losing property tax revenue for several years. Basically the developers are paying themselves property taxes and using the money to pay for the development.

Crime SFFD Sioux Falls

Still a mystery why former SF Firefighter was hacking emails?

l3wis 4Comments

So was anyone at this sentencing or have access to a transcript?

A former Sioux Falls city fire official won’t serve jail time for unlawfully accessing the fire chief’s email account.

A judge on Monday sentenced Patrick Warren to three years of supervised probation and 100 hours of community service.

He pleaded guilty in December to unlawful use of a computer and in exchange, prosecutors dropped 14 other counts against the former division chief.

Warren looked at Fire Chief Jim Sideras’ email account and saw confidential messages between Sideras and Sioux Falls Police Chief Doug Barthel.

Still curious why he was doing this and if he acted alone. Seems shady.

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