UPDATE: I did some digging around on what we learned from the 2019 series (which was smaller than what this year will be). During a presentation at Dem Forum after the 2019 season was done, Nancy Halverson, Director of Levitt said it costs $650K a year to function the Levitt and total alcohol sales in 2019 was $41K. According to the contract in 2019 the alcohol provider had to give a percentage of those sales to the Levitt (I can’t find that amount). It is also important to remember that the taxpayers of Sioux Falls pay for a majority of the grounds keeping on the facility. My point is a majority of the local foundation’s funding comes from private donations and the taxpayers.
Basically it comes down to the applicant thinking there would be another regular meeting in June. As I have mentioned, the city council has skipped 3 weeks of regular meetings. I still think that it is the responsibility of city employees, any city employee to be informing applicants when the council decides to skip 3 weeks of regular meetings. While the applicant did take full blame, he did say it was probably the fault of both him and the licensing agent.
While some may think I am making mountains out of mole hills, as I have mentioned before, these things have happened in the past on several occassions.
But I also don’t fully blame the applicant and Palmer. The city clerk, the city attorney, the city council and the mayor’s office should have never let a span of 3 weeks go by without having a meeting. The city council did meet for a informational on Tuesday June 22. They could easily have had a regular/special meeting right after that one to approve this license (the applicant turned in his application on June 17).
I just struggle with pointing all the fingers at the applicant who I guess is expected to know the city council’s meeting calendar by memory. As I said before, this is what you get with Cruise Control government and poor customer service from city employees. I knew councilors in attendance today would find a way to point the finger at anyone but themselves, our city government is really good at, just look at TenHaken when he talks about he Bunker Ramp, he could have stopped it, but instead he blames Bowlcut and Bucktooth.
Now we have Pass the Buck government. Enjoy your $7 white Zin at the concert.
“But why would ThuneHaken pass the buck on the Bunker Ramp?”…. “He claimed Beck had expertise in that area”….”He even held a press conference about it”…. “And I keep telling you that you can’t have cruise control government without a governor, and we have no governor”….
“But this is what cruise control government looks like”…..:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dUYR2apxdA
I always hate it when Hollywood ruins a classic like that. They’re known for classics too, but that ’65 T-Bird still had potential. They don’t make cars like that anymore. Now days you have a choice between a crossover (a pregnant egg) or a SUV (black or white). Personally, I want a car I can cruise in on Saturday nights as I drive down Phillips Avenue and not be bothered by the drunk zombies who think that every nice SUV cruising Phillips is there own on demand Uber.
Had to back out of your first link in this story. The sight of a bought and paid for puppet chairing a meeting, any meeting, is not the kind of info I’m interested in. Found out what I need to know from the Argus.
Very odd layout of the calendar which leaves 3 City Council meetings in the early days of certain calendar months, while leaving a 3 week interval between City Council meetings.
To change the interval and cadence of City Council meetings would introduce confusion to the scheduling, IMO. Leaves the people trying to guess, “are there 3 meetings this month, or 4?” “Are the meetings at weekly interval? Or is there a 1 week stagger included this month in order to be certain that thare are no more than 2 weeks between Council meetings?”
While it would be over-the-top customer service, I don’t believe that it is the responsibility of City employees (license agents, clerks, attorneys) to anticipate the needs of applicants.
Bottomline: the applicant knew the schedule of the Levitt Shell well in advance. It remains the obligation of the applicant to submit an application on a timely basis. The applicant admitted as much and took responsibility for the oversight.
Glad this was resolved. Who would want to be the person to announce to the throngs gathered at the Levitt this weekend, “due to circumstances of licensing by the City of Sioux Falls, you will not be able to have a $7 zin tonight.”
Let’s see the new police chief and Vaney try to mediate that community uprising!
I did learn one lesson from this fiasco, when the city gets caught, they pull a Trump and double down on getting out their failures. While I appreciate the applicant coming forward and taking the hit on this, I still think all parties involved shared responsibility in this matter. This is all just the tip of the iceberg, there is more coming from what the city is doing with licensing, and it ain’t pretty.
As busy as it is to run and operate a business these days, and the amount of planning and time that a business owner goes thru to keep their doors open, and customers served, let alone, many of these businesses in the city today are incorporated outside the “State”, I can see this prolonging the planning state, having to get clearance, from the upper management of the corporation, Things happen, and your upper management offices that may be far removed from the “city” have other items to address. Perhaps they were not to worried about it, knowing they will get approved, they thought they had enough time, enough so they could worry about it a week or so prior the “event”. No Big deal.
The city charter allows for a Special City Council Meeting to be held at anytime needed, so long as it is marketed no less than 24 hours prior the date.
I think everyone in Sioux Falls knows we hold City Council Sessions the first 3 weeks of each month.
Mike, here’s an experiment for you, go downtown around noon, ask people if they are Sioux Falls registered voters and if they say yes, ask them how many times a month the city council meets for regular meetings. The number of people who get it right would probably be around 30% and half of them would be guessing.