This is clearly the job of the city council NOT the mayor’s office;

Paying cash instead of borrowing for Sioux Falls’ next fire station, replacing the ski lift at Great Bear and repairing more roads are priorities for the mayor’s office as it looks to spend some leftover dollars from last year’s budget.

Mayor Paul TenHaken told the Argus Leader on Monday that he’ll ask the City Council to expedite several infrastructure projects using nearly $6.2 million in capital surplus funds while setting aside another $1.7 million in City Hall’s rainy-day fund.

Sure, his department heads should put together a list of needs, but that list should have been handed off to the council to make the decision in a work session. The rumor going around is that 3 of the RS5 met quietly with the mayor to concoct this proposal, and the others were blindsided by this.

When is this city (current mayor and council and past administrations) going to realize the separation of powers? It’s the mayor’s job to manage the city and abide by the rules and expenditures set forth by the council with guidance from department heads. If the mayor is going to do both jobs – why even have a council? Why not just declare him King so we can all do other things on Tuesday nights?

2 Thoughts on “Mayor TenHaken, once again, is violating charter by proposing surplus expenditures

  1. "Very Stable Genius" on February 3, 2020 at 6:32 pm said:

    We need to expand the council and get rid of councilor-at-large positions.

    What we are witnessing here is a strong mayor system. We need a weak mayor system.

    The democratization of our city government has been a painful process. Some of us remember, when this town was run by a mayor and two commissioners and with Metli dubbed the “third commissioner.” Then, we went to a mayor with four commissioners system in ’86, but still with an air of control by a few, because these commissioner ran city-wide. Then, in ’94, we went to our current system; and when we went to this current system, it was pointed out at the time, that Sioux Falls and Miami, Florida were the only cities with a population over 100,000 in the U.S., that had a commission form of government so we needed a city government that was more responsive and representative of our towns population, but now it is well overtime to realize, that if we want to truly democratize our city government, that we need to go to a weak mayor system with a bigger council that represents neighborhoods and not special interests.

    A course, the developers and movers and shakers in town won’t like this, but who cares. Many of us don’t like some things either, like cheap siding, TIFs for potential convention centers which compete against taxpayer owned convention centers, sirens that don’t work, and crime that keeps rising.

  2. Running in surplus but they will sure need to raise property taxes, again, because it is so very needed EVERY SINGLE YEAR. *roll eyes*

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