Budget Hearings – 2 PM

They will discuss the department budgets of Finance, HR, Central Services, Police Fire and Public Parking

Regular City Council Meeting – 7 PM

Item #1, Approval of Contracts. Here we go again, another expensive consultant ($200K) to give us a Master Strategic Plan on our Parks. 1) We just did one a few years ago, why can’t we just update that plan and make some small tweaks 2) We pay our parks director a lot of dough, shouldn’t it be a job requirement for him to do the research with his staff and put together a report himself?

We also are spending $177K to put a fence around the RR redevelopment area. Why didn’t we set aside some of that $37 million for the fence, or make BN pay for it or better yet the developers of the land?

#42, 1st Reading, City council wants to be aware of change orders over $25K from CMAR’s. While this is a good idea, we really shouldn’t be using CMARs, there is way to much secrecy with them. We found out the hard way with the Denty and how we never really got a $1 million dollar settlement, just our money back.

#43, 1st Reading, Creating an overlay district for the RR redevelopment area. I really don’t know much about this and I wish we would have gotten an informational about this ordinance.

#44, 1st Reading, Surplus property within the RR redevelopment area. Again, I wish we would have had an informational explaining this.

#46, Resolution, they are discussing whether to allow the property behind the Huey to be surplus. Not only has the Equity Square people to the North fight this because of access but I guess now the Phillips Hotel to the South now is also objecting due to access. This may get deferred, again.

Planning Commission – 6 PM – Aug 8

Item #11, Lifescape parking lot rezone. I expect a lot of public testimony against this move.

Items #13 & 14, More Telephone Booth Casinos.

Item #16, Presentation on Buffer Yard Effectiveness

5 Thoughts on “Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Aug 7, 2018

  1. D@ily Spin on August 3, 2018 at 10:24 pm said:

    Starting to sound like more Huether.
    The Parks Department needs a complete makeover. A narcissist director and 70 dysfunctional (no minorities) employees. Fire everybody. Let the entire department be contract services with priority for local bidders.
    How is any part of the RR Development surplus property bought last year. This is a buy at premium and sell to low bidder (or insider developer) scheme.
    One sure thing about the council is they lack enough business acumen to recognize these street corner cons.

  2. Blasphemo on August 4, 2018 at 10:36 am said:

    Another $200k study to do the homework of an already overpaid Parks Director? ENOUGH! 80 parks already in SF. There’s some sort of directive there be a park added within .5, 1, 1.5/whatever-mile walking distance of every residence. NEWSFLASH: The transportation-challenged residents don’t live where the spendy outlying new urban sprawl is. Even if citizens ARE limited to living in new outlying apartment communities, they’re built with included amenities like indoor/outdoor pools, playgrounds, BBQs and workout rooms, The established lower-to-middle class neighborhoods w/in the heart of the city – single or multi-family housing – have plenty of established nearby parks. Besides, who takes the chance on letting their kids walk to a park alone in this day of child abductions? FAMILIES DRIVE EVERYWHERE.

    We have young adults & middle agers crowding membership gyms to run nowhere on treadmills, and walking (if they chose not to agonize over which of their multiple cars to drive) a couple of miles to a park is a lifestyle disadvantage??!!! Getting to a park by car a few miles from home is no more burdensome than those “essential” trips to Chuck E. Cheese’s, the malls, Thunder Road, Century Theaters, football practice and ballet lessons. Parks are no longer important in such close proximity to new residential developments.

    “But – we have to perpetuate open green space among our urban sprawl…”? Well, it was no problem to nuke a huge chunk of existing open green picnicking/Frisbee/kite flying vistas in Spellerberg Park by crash landing a supermarket-sized indoor aquatic center there. What makes new parks any more important?

    The Parks Department can’t afford to keep the grass cut in some of the most established parks in SF as it is, and other than at an athletic facility, when is the last time you saw a city park overcrowded with more people than there was space for??!!! Kids out of school in the summer & weekends have unused school playgrounds & community centers available to them in addition to existing parks. For all the parents who gotta have sprawling soccer fields and huge ballparks to relive their youth and live vicariously through their budding athletic superstars, LET THOSE PARENTS WHOSE FAMILIES USE THE ATHLETIC PARKS PITCH IN TO GROOM & MAINTAIN THEM.

    Tax revenues are falling. This continual addition of new parks in the growth areas is financially unsustainable. We live in a 4-season climate. Most of the parks are used for about ¼ of the year. Access to many parks is chained off after the growing season. There needs to be some serious reality checking going on here. The working adults whose sales/property taxes pay for the parks need adequate, properly maintained roads and reliable public utilities in order to even get out the door and get to their jobs. PRIORITIES PEOPLE!

  3. Blas, I wrote this post almost 10 years ago,

    http://www.southdacola.com/blog/2009/01/is-the-sioux-falls-department-of-parks-recreation-a-monstrosity/

    I have often suggested that the parks department, using their own employees, does a usage study of all the parks, actually counting how many people use them. Once that is done we eliminate the parks that are not used and put them on the market for affordable housing with the requirement they maintain a central courtyard/green space.

  4. l3wis on August 4, 2018 at 5:53 pm said:

    Today I drove by Frank Olson park at about 1 PM. While there were some people swimming at the pool there wasn’t ONE single adult or child at the park.

  5. Blasphemo on August 4, 2018 at 7:18 pm said:

    Grassy parks have no built-in allure for 21st century short attention span kids or adults: no convenient power outlets, no game consoles, no large screen TVs, no movie screens, no skate board ramps, no quad runners, no jet skiis, no motorsports track, no fast food restaurants, no microwave ovens, no built-in speakers, no gas fire pits, no LED lighting, no video doorbell, no Sunsetter retractable sun shade awning, no swim up bar, no crushed ice dispenser, no air conditioning. B O R I N G. “Oh but we have to have lots of pretty new parks. But…I’ll never actually GO to one.”

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