Ironically, it may be a secret goal of Mayor Poops and the rich developers and banksters that support him.
Over the past year I have pointed out on this blog and during public input to the commission itself that they are a useless body. They have non-elected planning staff pre-approve agenda items, they have conflicts of interest with agenda items and recusals at almost every meeting with multiple members AND they have a serious attendance issue barely making quorum at the meetings.
Add another one to the list, as I mentioned Sunday in my agenda post, they had NO discussion on the items tonight because they put them ALL in the consent agenda even though several were controversial like Item 2A which dealt with changing a whole neighborhood into a Historic District (so they likely can get property tax breaks and other historic grant goodies to pay for their remodels).
The meeting lasted a whopping 13 minutes and if you blinked your eye or turned away to scratch your butt, you would have missed what was discussed.
There is an effort by some state legislators whose districts are in Sioux Falls and City Councilors to streamline the planning approval process, or should we say, take it out of the public eye. Developers have been saying for awhile that they are being hamstrung by the planning approval process because neighbors of their projects are objecting. Hey, McFly, that is why we have the process.
After watching the meeting tonight, if you didn’t know the developers and banksters are running this city, you do now.
They should just paint City Hall and Carnegie Hall Black on the outside to match the blackness on the inside.
I, too, watched tonite’s meeting from 6:00 – 6:13.
What a joke!
Someone wants to remove from this Commission the little power that they have.
“We are not just a rubber-stamp commission”….really, Commissioner (Sean) Ervin!!
It certainly would appear to the public that is exactly what this commission has become.
I was once told what would happen at a planning commission meeting. They claimed that was just the way it was. I didn’t like their attitude. So, I showed them my nuclear option, then I got my way. It’s amazing how mutually assured destruction works. It’s not just a theory. It’s a practical instrument.
You can plan on it. A local tiger has covid. I heard he was an antivaxxer. It serves him right.
Nothing says, “we are a rubber stamp commission” quite like rolling into a consent agenda all thirteen items which are before the commission … notwithstanding Sean Ervin’s rather comical claim to the contrary.
No use wasting effort and ink to place that rubber stamp more than once.
What is not to like about involuntarily being designated a resident in a historic district? Did not our most capable functionaries at Code Enforcement assert under oath during the big house trial that they did not have jurisdiction in historic districts? Was that lack of jurisdiction not offered as justification for their total inaction and to counter implications of more renumerative reasons?