South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

June 2015

SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

The ‘Lies’ told before the election about pool rates

l3wis 12Comments

As you know, many of the ‘Advocational’ sessions before the municipal elections were recorded by South DaCola. I had a group of soldiers review them recently for times when rates were mentioned. Here are our results;

(FF to 23:00) - Sioux Falls Advocational Education Session #1 3/3/2014

(FF to 14:00) - Sioux Falls Advocational Education Session #3 3 12 2014

 
(FF to 16:30 . . . goes past 17:00) - Sioux Falls Advocational Education Session #5 3/20/2014

(FF to 16:00 then to 22:00) - Sioux Falls Advocational Education Session #8 3/31/2014

As you will see, the Parks Department employees, mostly the Director, Don Kearney repeatedly say in the meetings;

• The City Council will set the indoor pool rates. As we know now, the Parks Department is trying to set the rates and FORCE the council to pass their suggestions.

• Indoor and Outdoor pool rates would be the SAME and a yearly pass would be good for ALL of the facilities (Indoor and Outdoor). They now have suggested splitting them into two separate passes and charging MORE for indoor pass.

• The aquatic consultants recommended the rate structure staying the same for both facility. Today, there is NO mention of this recommendation by the Parks Department in there latest proposal.

• The rates will not change (go up) after the indoor facility is built.

As we have been pointing out since the election, many lies were told to us about the indoor pool. It was not paid for with bonds, there hasn’t been an MOU with the VA, and now we are separating classes of people when it comes to who can use the facilities.

As I understand, from a text message I just got from a foot soldier at the Parks meeting, the Board just voted 7-0 to pull the rate recommendations for the indoor pool and revisit those rates in 2016 and just focus on the outdoor rates.

SF City Council Sioux Falls Transportation

FREE bus passes already available

l3wis 2Comments

I got word this morning from a city official that SAM is already giving out FREE bus passes to youth (so they can avoid refunds after the 26th). The system will work identical to the dog tag youth had to buy in the past, and no city ordinances will have to change in reference to riding with a parent or being disciplined (revoking your pass) for unruly behavior. Seems this has gone smoother then we thought (except for the week delay due to our pouting mayor). I would like to thank the city council for making this service available and DOING THEIR DUE DILIGENCE!

Go get your passes today and explore our great city!

SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Is the elimination of the FREE pool passes a convenient distraction?

l3wis 12Comments

First off I find it a little odd that the 1st reading of the pool rate increases was posted on Friday before the Parks Board actually votes on the rate increases as an entire body, in public at their 4 PM meeting tomorrow at Great Bear. (AgendaParkBoard 06-16-15

A forgone conclusion I guess.

I also find the Argus editorial yesterday against eliminating the FREE passes interesting. I think many people in the city administration are trying to distract the conversation about the poor kids losing passes so they can sneak the gigantic rate increases by.

Sorry, this is all a part of the conversation.

For those of you that can afford to pay for pool passes, God Bless You, I also think you can afford increases, but they should be reasonable. Imagine if your healthcare insurance provider told you there would be a 400% increase in 3 years. You would literally sh*t a brick.

The focus of the conversation should be reasonable rate increases and finding a way to subsidize free passes.

I advise the city council to not get distracted by the FREE pool pass discussion, and consider ALL people affected by this measure, rich and poor.

Mayor Hubris Mayor Subprime Mike Huether Mike Huether Sioux Falls

Who arranges the mayor’s speaking engagements?

l3wis 5Comments
While Mayor Huether has yet to announce if he is running for a higher office (Congress, Senate or Governor) he seems to be jet setting all over the state with ‘speaking engagements’ at business related events telling other towns in South Dakota on how they can also be a boom town.
The reviews have been mixed.
While I could care less if he runs for a higher office, or that he is slobbering his business advice all over the state, I do have my concerns.
Who is arranging these meetings? Is this something he does on his own with his personal phone and personal computer or is he using city staff (secretary) to arrange these semi-campaign town hall meetings and justify them by saying they are city business related? How is speaking to a group of businessmen in Deadwood have to do with what we are doing in Sioux Falls? Entirely different demographic and business structure.
I hope the mayor isn’t subsidizing a future campaign with Sioux Falls tax dollars. It sure seems like it though. But of course, this comes from a guy who’s first action as mayor was to gift all the city councilors his favorite book, then pay for the gift from the mayor’s budget instead of his own pocket.
There is one positive thing about him hitting the road and exploring our vast prairie communities . . . the less he is in Sioux Falls, the better.

 

beer Beer Summit Christine Erickson Dean Karsky SF City Council Sioux Falls

Another Karsky suggestion . . .

l3wis 7Comments

huetherville-lr

While Dean doesn’t care who puts shingles on your roof, he seems to be very concerned about who is drinking malt liquor;

Karsky said Sioux Falls law enforcement is overburdened with alcohol related problems, and the calls that come in tend to cluster in specific areas of the city – downtown and the Whittier and Pettigrew Heights neighborhoods. “Alcohol-impact areas” – places where alcohol-nuisance calls are most frequent – could be established with more restrictive booze rules, Karsky said.

Dean, we tried this thing called ‘Prohibition’ it didn’t work out so well. Did you take American History in High School? Did you go to High School? Alcoholism is a disease, they will find a way to get a drink, you are not going to fix anything.

What I want to know is what yahoo on the chamber made you be the poster boy of this idea? They owe you a drink . . . that is at least 40 ounces.

Erickson says it best;

City Councilor Christine Erickson said she’s open to discussing the alcohol rules on the books in Sioux Falls, but questioned whether banning single sales in select areas of the city would significantly reduce the number of alcohol nuisance complaints. She’s concerned also about the unintended consequences of alcohol impact areas.

“I understand the reasoning behind it. My concern is, too, are they going to get in the car and drive somewhere else to get it? Now we would just be encouraging them to get behind the wheel,” she said.

Erickson said a ban in specific areas of town wouldn’t alleviate the problem, only move it, similar to what happened when the council banned alcohol from Van Eps and Tower parks.

“It’s kicking the can down the road again. That was my concern when we banned the alcohol at Van Eps as well. We weren’t really fixing anything – just telling them to go back into the neighborhoods,” she said.

Besides her great points, I also would like to point out that I think product designations are up to the state and maybe the county. Don’t know, but I think the City of Sioux Falls learned the hard way about trying to limit video lottery. They lost in SD Supreme Court. They seem to be very good at that.

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