As you can see, I tested the waters last night to see if Rex Rolfing would have a cow about me wearing a bandana during public input, he didn’t pout and walk out and didn’t say a word. I did give him a show later in the meeting by showing him how I can balance a water bottle on my head while he was staring at me sitting in the back row 🙂
“I’m all for opening the books of the city, and I will make sure that happens, in May of 2018. Think of it as my parting gift.”
Well he has told us he is the ‘most transparent’ mayor ever, he just never mentioned it would happen as he was leaving;
As part of the What Works Cities initiative, Sioux Falls will improve open data practices to make public information more accessible and to engage residents around government priorities and services. The project will include creating an inventory of the City’s data resources; developing a plan for data governance; making data available to the public and City staff in a more useful and responsive way; and helping City staff to maximize the use of data in their daily work. The first area of municipal government to undergo the work will be neighborhood services, including code enforcement, with the goal of making the process replicable for other departments and divisions.
“Over the past seven years, we have worked hard to make Sioux Falls City government more productive and efficient, and this partnership will take us to even greater heights. We are proud to be selected as part of this initiative,” says Mayor Huether.
For the past 7 years the only thing Huether has been dedicated to is keeping government as closed as possible, so this 180 turn by him is laughable, especially since he only has 10 months left in his tenure.
Trust me, I support this 100% and think it is a fantastic program, we should have implemented it 20 years ago, but better late than never.
Big T will be talking about her parks board districting legislation.
(FF: 26:30)
Sometimes Mr. Kolbe tries to be sly about things he says, sometimes he is a little to sly. I think this is about ambulances, but I’m not sure.
If you have been watching the Annexation meetings, as I have, you will notice a change in direction. In the last meeting the Anti-Annexation peeps (most of the crowd) conducted their own in depth survey and study. Their conclusion? It would be way to expensive for individual homeowners to annex AND almost 90% of them are opposed.
As I pointed out in the past using Flopdation Park as an example, why doesn’t the city help pay for the majority of the cost for the annexation? If we are willing to handout welfare to corporations in annexation costs, why not to homeowners?
I agree with them, the only way I would support such an annexation is if the city paid for most of the upgrades. Otherwise it makes ZERO economic sense to the homeowners to annex. Which brings us to the next question. If the city wants the homeowners to pay most of the cost of the annexation, it must mean it is not economical for the city either to annex the property.
Watching the backlash play out over the past meetings, it’s pretty clear to me the annexation probably won’t happen unless it is forced by the city, and they could have one Hell of a fight on their hands . . . is it really worth it? Not really.
l3wis