January 2018

A Fog of Stupidity was cast over the entire Sioux Falls City Council meeting last night

Trust me, the Parking Ramp repeal was only ONE part of the fiasco last night’s council meeting turned out to be.

Due to a typo in a dollar amount the city council had to defer a subsidy payment to the SF Art Council in the consent agenda. During public input I suggested they take a percentage of the 3rd Penny (not a dollar amount) towards public art instead of throwing it all at the Pavilion on brick and mortar. I suggested we hire local artists to do projects that help beautify our whole city. I did see Erpenbach nod in agreement.

I also brought up the fact that we have had the Events Center siding report since Friday, December 29th (5 days) and we still haven’t seen it, even though the council approved the report and paid for it, it seems to be sitting in Mark Cotter’s office. I suggested they release it immediately, at least to the council, but also to the public. I said it should be posted online, the entire report, without it being condensed or edited. I said the public is smart enough to understand the full report.

The mayor broke the tie again on the council plurality/majority vote ordinance. Councilors Starr and Stehly wanted citizens to vote on it as a charter amendment instead of an ordinance. It failed due to the mayor again. There was the same stupid arguments from Walter Rolfing who claimed the legislative and governor races were not a true plurality because of the primaries, which is NOT true, since primaries deal with party candidates and the city council is a non-partisan race that DOES NOT have a primary, and for good reason. They also argued that they thought they needed to get a majority of the vote to be more fair, even though a run-off really is a false majority because fewer people show up to vote. And if the ignorant arguments couldn’t get any worse, they did, when Rolfing and Selberg tried to make it sound like people who only get a plurality are not as good as those who get a majority vote.

But the last thriller of the night was when councilor Selberg’s pointless SIOUXPERHERO award program resolution (a name they stole from SIOUXPERCON) came up for debate. While nobody has a problem with a little citizen recognition for good deeds (apparently the city council needs to spend even more of it’s budget on shiny plastic statuettes) I pointed out that the disclaimer about political activity should be taken out, to which councilor Stehly tried to amend, but failed.

I closed my testimony by giving them their first nomination, Aaron Hultgren “For pulling the biggest scam the city has ever seen pulled on them.” Not sure if they heard me.

UPDATE: Removing Hultgren’s Name from Parking Ramp guarantors changes nothing

UPDATE: Pat Starr does a good job on Belfrage this morning explaining the games being played by council leadership, especially Erickson and Kiley.

Norm Drake is still involved with a LLC that was created Thursday (Dec 28). One of the ‘Bad Players’ that was involved with the Copper Lounge collapse and asbestos removal, and recently got a state loan denied with a project Drake is involved with at Flopdation Park;

Councilor Christine Erickson asked about a previously unknown limited liability company formed last week called Village River Group, which, according to the Community Development Office, will take the reins from Legacy Developments from this point on.

Village River Group manager Jeffrey Lamont will also replace Hultgren as a contract guarantor for the project. Norm Drake and the names of two other Legacy Developments officials will remain on the contract.

“If something were to not go as planned and there’s an issue at the limited liability company level, we have the ability to go to them as individuals to force the completion of the project,” said Daren Ketcham, Sioux Falls Community Development Director.

Hultgren continues serve as director of operations and development for Legacy Developments.

While Erickson and a few others in the room were aware of Village River Group’s formation, dated Dec. 28, 2017, on the South Dakota Secretary of State’s website, Councilor Starr said following the meaning it was a complete surprise to him. He’d never heard of Village River Group before, or that Legacy Developments and the city ever had aspirations to hand the project off.

“I think the solution to a problem is to face it head on and not form another LLC,” said Starr, who co-sponsored the repeal proposal. “I believe (Village River Group) being formed was in reaction to Councilor Stehly and I gaining support to get the project repealed.”

Should more damning information about Legacy Developments officials surface before the project bonds are sold this spring, Starr said the Council could make another attempt at a repeal.

As Sneve points out, Norm Drake and Legacy are still involved, they just changed the name of the LLC. Hultgren still works for Legacy. Nothing has changed but some paperwork. The move by the developer guarantors was about as slimy as you get, and quite frankly, pretty sloppy. But what makes it even more slimy is that 5 city councilors, SELBERG, ERICKSON, KILEY, ERPENBACH AND WALTER ROLFING VOTED AGAINST THE REPEAL. Like I said, it was obvious what they were trying to do, change the perception to the public by removing Hultgren’s name, but if the same people are involved, it changes NOTHING. A group of us laughed out loud when the 5 councilors thought they were pulling the wool over the public’s eyes. Not only did they look arrogant and out of touch, they looked incredibly stupid to think the public has been hoodwinked. I was truly embarrassed by the fact a majority of our council would still go along with this. I guess nothing surprises me anymore from this group who seemed to have lost their way and quite honestly their souls.

MayorCam & RexCam photos (H/T – Cameraman Bruce)

Last Tuesday night I decided to join the many fellow citizens of Sioux Falls who opposed the golf course RFP / RFQ process. As someone who does not play golf anymore, my input was on process, not because I would have anything to gain. When Detroit Lewis left the podium, I went up with my trusty clipboard.

Recently the city started blocking my exhibits during my input time so I decided to bring my exhibits on the back of a clipboard. This one seems to bother a couple of the members of the dais:

Rex Rolfing seems to get upset by hats and other things, did not like my clipboard and asked the mayor to force me to take it down.  When the mayor shook his head and refused to do it,

but the camera changed to a close-up without the “offending” clipboard.

As I tried to conclude my thoughts about federal crime and city government Rex continued to interrupt mentioning to the dais I was at least not getting a one finger salute while speaking.

See the entire show with MayorCam and RexCam running. This whole process has been delayed by not posting the CityLink / SIRE video immediately as usual and then a strange flaw at the 37% point, approximately where my input was. I was next thinking I would see a frozen video or floating Wizard of Kiley head again.