Between the 4 PM and 6 PM meetings there is a recognition ceremony for the exiting councilors, Janet Brekke, Christine Erickson, and Rick Kiley at 5 PM.
• Presentation from the Sioux Empire Housing Partnership Introduction by Hugo Barron, Sioux Empire Housing Partnership (not sure if this has anything to do with the plan to move 14 affordable houses to Pettigrew? )
The two neighborhoods will meet Monday, May 9th at 7:30 PM at the downtown Central Church to share their hopes for the future of the space.
Representatives from the City of Sioux Falls and the Sioux Falls School District will be at the meeting.
The unofficial story is that the school district is planning to move homes that they bought by Whittier (for its expansion) to this green space that they own. The neighborhoods (Cathedral and Pettigrew) did a survey with residents of the neighborhood that will be shared Monday Night. As I understand it the over 100 residents that responded said they want to keep it as green space.
I will try to attend the meeting to hear what the city and school district have to say about keeping this on the down low. I was told several months ago by a school district official that they had a plan to move the houses out of Whittier and re-use them within the city limits, they never mentioned this plan. My assumption was that they were just going to move them to various available lots in the core of the city, which I fully support, I see their intentions may be something else.
The worst part about this is the total lack of transparency. They kept this quiet because they knew there would be pushback.
Item #4, While four councilors are getting recognition awards, for some reason the Mayor’s Youth Council is getting an award, and they should! Anyone who could sit through those meetings after the Mayor’s friends kids were forced to go to them not only deserve an award but a college credit.
Item #7, Approval of Contracts, Sub-Item #16, Helpline Center Inc., $30K, To Provide Staffing and Support for the Sioux 52 Mentorship Initiative Agreement.
While I support mentorship, I was always under the assumption that if this gets public funding it should come from the School District coffers. But let’s remember, the Sioux 52 program was setup to be funded by the DT Rotary as a non-profit and not something taxpayers would kick into. This is also an initiative the mayor pushed as HIS pet project, and I commend him for it, so to suddenly shove it in the consent agenda as a spending item that the council has to approve without a presentation is speculative (see the email below). Just because it is coming out of the mayor’s office budget doesn’t mean this is FREE money. A better way to approach it would be for him to use his fundraising skills and clout to get this supplemented by non-profits (you know like church volunteers cleaning up after a tornado). Hopefully this will be pulled for discussion since this is just another backdoor approach for taxpayers to fund something on the mayor’s wish list.
Item #22, A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS TO SET ASIDE TWO ON-SALE LIQUOR LICENSES FROM THE ON-SALE LICENSE LOTTERY FOR USE AT THE CITY’S GOLF COURSES. (So the Pavilion which is ran by a private management company yet owned by the city and taxpayers went out and and bought a license (I think?) on the open market but the city courses that are owned by taxpayers and ran by a private contractor just get licenses for free? Very random. And since these are city owned licenses does that mean the city receives all the profits from liquor sales?
Items 30-35, RESOLUTIONS OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS APPROVING DIAGONAL PARKING (I find it interesting that several of these project areas are not even finished yet and the city is suddenly being proactive about it. I’m all for it as it is a better use of space, but a part of me wonders in 10-20 years if we are going to need it. I have argued that the use of self-driving cars will eliminate the need for parking in our core.)