South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

October 2016

SF City Council Sioux Falls Theresa Stehly

I agree with Vernon Brown about electing a city attorney

l3wis 10Comments

Yeah, I know, you never thought I would agree with Mr. Brown, did you? We will get to that shortly, but first with councilor Theresa Stehly’s idea of having separate legal council for the city council;

The distrust, she said, stems from conversations with City Attorney David Pfeifle in which she was told she was vulnerable to ethics violations if she continued to speak out against city-backed initiatives, policies and projects. She said those comments were made in an attempt to stifle her efforts to generate public opposition to the city administration building and a Terrace Park improvement project that the city’s historical preservation board put a stop to earlier this year.

“The agenda and wishes of the mayor are coming first,” she said.

Many would argue that another attorney would cost us more money, not the case at all. They could easily move one of the 6-8 attorneys that already work for the city over to the city council position. You wouldn’t have to hire anyone new. I think we should have learned our lesson when we fired an incredible city clerk (Debra Owen) and had to hire 3 employees to replace her. Not only did Owen do all 3 of their jobs for a lot less then the unqualified city clerk is doing now, she also had a law degree and advised the council on legal issues (one of the reasons I think the city attorney broke open meeting laws to get her fired).

In 2012, after the council voted to fire former City Clerk Debra Owens during an executive session, the city was brought up on open meetings violations in front of the South Dakota Open Meetings Commission.

I was at the meeting where the city attorney attempted to Fiddle Faddle his way through violating open meetings laws. He looked like a fish out of water and was chastised by almost the entire board of very seasoned government attorneys. As I said above, whether he is qualified or not, the council had excellent legal representation with Owen, who also championed transparent government. I have often been puzzled why it took three positions to replace her, and I still don’t know what these guys do besides making power point presentations and stamping official election documents with a blind fold on.

However, making the office of city attorney an elected position would alleviate perceptions that the city attorney is beholden to the mayor, he said.

“You know who hires and fires if you’re the city attorney,” he (Vernon Brown) said. “But should the city attorney be elected? Because then there’s some accountability besides to the mayor.”

I have suggested this in the past, making the city attorney an elected position would be excellent.

As for how Stehly has been treated, I haven’t been privy to those conversations, but there are some obvious missteps by the city attorney that reveal his vindictive nature towards councilor Stehly, for instance shouting from the crowd to stop her while she is being gaveled by Rex Rolfing. We know where David gets his marching orders from, that is obvious from how Debra Owen was fired and how he handled the siding settlement;

Former council chairman Kenny Anderson Jr. said there were times during his tenure that he felt outside counsel would have benefited the City Council.

When the city attorney’s office was negotiating the Premier Center siding settlement, the council was mostly kept out of that process and had to defer to Pfeifle throughout the process.

“There were times I felt we should have had a second opinion. I don’t disagree with Councilor Stehly on that,” he said. “I would say one good discussion point would have been the contract that the mayor and administration signed with the parties in the event center and where the money was placed as part of settlement.”

If you don’t think David is keeping things from the public and the city council, all you need to do is look at his track record and his loyalty towards the mayor. When he became the mayor’s personal attorney during an ethics hearing because the mayor couldn’t walk a 100 feet to defend himself, is another prime example.

Either way, I believe city charter has changed now so that the next mayor will have to have the consent of the city council before appointing a future city attorney. Spring of 2018 can’t come soon enough.

Railroads SF City Council Sioux Falls

The Future of the Railroad Relocation Project

l3wis 4Comments

environmental_assessment

I watched this presentation at the informational meeting yesterday. But I still have concerns. Accept for the fact that we blew $27 million of Federal tax dollars on land we will never recover our cost from and we never moved all the rail traffic from this area it will be interesting to see how they are going to buffer the rail traffic from this area;

• Will it be quiet enough for residential units in the area?

• With the railroad already saying traffic will become more frequent on the remaining tracks, how will you get to the development from the east safely and efficiently?

I have no problem with redeveloping this land, even though I worry about the pollutants left behind, as we should have learned from Phillips to the Falls. But without removing all of the train traffic from this area I feel the project as a whole fails to produce a setting for prime downtown redevelopment.

I was a big supporter of the project when first proposed by Mayor Munson, but once I found out the rail traffic is still going to be chugging through this area (and getting more frequent at other downtown and central parts of Sioux Falls) I’m not sure what we accomplished. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong 10 years down the road, but like Phillips to the Falls, I have my doubts.

 

 

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Is a board member of REMSA telling the Sioux Falls city council to get in line?

l3wis 4Comments

An interesting letter from a ‘volunteer’ board member;

Like other REMSA members, I serve on a volunteer basis with oversight by the City Council.

First off, while there are volunteer members of the REMSA board, Dr. Luther, SF Health Director Jill Franken and REMSA director Julie Charbonneau are all paid (by taxpayers–county and city), just like the City Council.

EMS systems across the nation take a variety of forms. Some communities operate EMS as a purely governmental function. In those communities, paramedics and EMTs are employees of the city or state.

Other communities employ private companies to perform EMS on a contractual basis. The City of Sioux Falls honors the strong conservative ideology prevalent in the community by engaging with private EMS providers.

I would argue that having a private ambulance provider isn’t always in the best interest of the public. If we are already paying several advisory positions on the board and paying for the fire department to be back up, it may be wise for the city to have a public ambulance service. Not only would it keep costs down for the consumer, it would have more oversight and would actually either make the city money or offset the costs. The city of LA for example has public ambulance service.

In determining the parameters of the contract, it engaged the services of Fitch and Associates, one of the nation’s most respected EMS consulting firms.

If you do some creative googling, you will also see that Fitch and Associates had some conflicts of interest with Paramedics Plus, something that was brought up in the vetting process but was quickly swept under the rug. To say the process was fair is a bit far fetched.

The contract awarded was for exclusive rights to perform EMS within the City of Sioux Falls. The need for an exclusive contract is due to the economic realities of the industry.

I understand the profit margin reality of this, but there is another side. SAFETY OF THE CONSUMER! If a catastrophe happens in Sioux Falls that requires several EMS to assist, where will that come from? A question REMSA and PP have yet to answer. There needs to be a backup plan, not secret experimental agreements and procedures.

As a member of the voting public, I believe the City Council has a responsibility to be a strong contractual partner with Paramedics Plus, to support the system as accredited segments of EMS, and assure the public of their commitment to the provision of emergency services in our community.

As I said above, how can a city council be a strong partner and support a contract when they are left in the dark of how this company operates? Kind of hard to ‘shame’ the council on decisions they make when they are provided NO transparency from REMSA or PP. As I have said, if the operating plans are too complicated for the public to understand, at least provide the details to our elected officials in closed executive session (well within the law) so they can at least make an educated assessment of the situation and the procedures. Otherwise it’s like little Johnny asking the teacher why the Earth orbits the Sun and the teacher responds, “Because”.

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