August 2022

My names Mayor, hear me roar!

Last night at the city council meeting the mayor looked directly at me after I left the podium and laughed when no one answered my question. I was asking why the attached documents for two separate items were identical online. He thought it was funny and when I questioned him about it on the other agenda item I said, “Was it funny Paul?” He responded, “My names Mayor.” (FF: 27:00)

Also notice how he tried to cut me off, because he has NO FREAKING CLUE WHAT PRIOR RESTRAINT IS.

If this was a one off, I would understand, but lately I have noticed that not only are directors, attorneys and clerks making mistakes on the agenda (dates incorrect, grammar errors, financial errors, fee errors, attached documents, etc) but they are being resubmitted to the council for corrective action. Last night there were several items from the planning office that had to be corrected for incorrect fees being charged.

Apparently this is a laughing matter to the one running the administration.

“The buck stops here” is a phrase that was popularized by U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who kept a sign with that phrase on his desk in the Oval Office. The phrase refers to the notion that the President has to make the decisions and accept the ultimate responsibility for those decisions.

I have said many times that the city is on cruise control because we have an ineffective leader at city hall. I get it, people make mistakes, we are all human, but isn’t it ironic that an administration who wants to shorten the meetings by starting them early and limiting general public input to the end of the meetings is actually making the meetings longer because they are consistently correcting mistakes.

While they certainly know how to run winning campaigns, they have NO clue what to do when they win.

Sioux Falls Homeless Task Force takes public input

Here are some takeaways from last night’s meeting (it only took 12 hours this time to get the video up, still don’t know why they don’t live stream);

• Several complaints about the mismanagement of Dudley House, the way they are treating clients, not taking care of situations, working with clients, interviewing them, etc.

• The public (city, county) is not properly funding the management of homelessness and there needs to be more police foot patrols.

• Panhandlers have taken over the neighborhood (Before the signs went up about not giving to panhandlers, my SIGN idea was to make it clear that GIVING to panhandlers out of the window of your vehicle while in traffic is ILLEGAL. There is NO purpose in giving violations or shaming panhandlers, it won’t stop them from asking, not to mention they have a 1st Amendment right to ask for money. The solution is making it clear to motorists that you can be fined for obstructing traffic. The only way we can get panhandling under control is shutting off the tap, that means cracking down on the contributors).

• The Dudley house is in a bad location. I suggested when they picked this location that there is plenty of space just north of the jail. Not only would it be close to law enforcement it would be within a few blocks of Falls Community Health and The Link. The Dudley house needs to close its current location and move.

• The 9th Street Alley that runs along the south side of the Dudley needs to be closed and fenced off.

• The clients need to participate in their recovery.

While nobody brought this up during the meeting, I know that there is a lack of transitional housing in Sioux Falls. The legislative/policy body of the city, the council, could write ordinances that require developers to provide so many efficiency, felon friendly, transitional units for every regular unit they build. They could also require rent control in these units that only have their rent increased with inflation.

Sioux Falls City Councilor Neitzert says transit is like a free toaster

I never tried to drive a toaster to work;

“There’s been this argument that — and I don’t know if it’s provable — that if you give the rides away for free that kids will use it and they’ll become lifelong riders,” Neitzert said. “I guess I would say if you give me a free toaster and it’s awful, I’ll use it once and then I’m going to throw it away. I’m not going to keep using it. And so we have to improve the toaster. And that’s going to take a lot more work, and it’s a lot harder than just giving away free rides.”

Of course Greg voted against the FREE youth rides with a convenient argument;

Councilor Greg Neitzert was the sole vote against the proposal, saying the thing preventing people from riding the bus was not cost, but the fact that it doesn’t meet their needs.

I would ask Greg ‘As the legislative and policy body of the city, what have YOU done to improve it?’ Not a DAMN thing!

The first step is improving the marketing of the transit system. While it was good this passed, there should have been an amendment or resolution supporting a new marketing strategy encouraging youth ridership. If minors don’t know it is free, they will not ride. The school district, along with the city and even Lincoln and Minnehaha counties need to promote this.

We also have the money to do this. When we are spending tax dollars on ice ribbons, tennis courts, butterflies, zoo exhibits, cornice on the Pavilion roof, bunker ramp parks, etc. We have a couple of grand to market youth ridership.

Transit ridership is down because the city has virtually ignored improving it, expanding it or even marketing it. I have felt this has been done on purpose, and like the EC task force, the city blames Covid for the stalemate. I call BS on that!

I sent a letter to the Secretary of Transportation last month asking the DOT to reach out to the city with assistance in helping us make it better. That could be anything from promotional ideas, to better planning and MONEY! I am not sure if they have reached out, but I am hoping they do since our councilors are only good at making silly comparisons to kitchen appliances instead of actually digging in and doing the work.

If I was given a FREE toaster and it didn’t work right, I would either try to fix it or give it back for a different one. There are certain councilors that I would certainly like to ‘throw’ off the council for their awfulness and inability to work.