March 2023

City Employees getting a raise

l3wis March 3, 2023 2Comments

I was glad to see that most city union employees are getting a raise (Resolutions 41-44).

While the police, fire and regular staff are getting a 6.5% COLA, council employees are getting 3.5%.

This really could have been negotiated last Fall when the administration knew there was high inflation. Instead they screwed around with a bonus before the election and now this first quarter raise.

Like I said, it is good to see this is happening as our city employees are taxpayer assets that need to be taken care of, I just don’t understand the piece meal approach.

Air BNB County Commission Minnehaha County Sioux Falls

Should Air BnB (short term rentals) be regulated in Sioux Falls?

l3wis March 2, 2023 10Comments

The short answer is YES, but it is complicated. I’m all for regulating this industry but we should probably only do some small changes instead of broad sweeping changes that will hurt the industry.

One thing to remember is that most of the people who manage and own short term rentals in Sioux Falls are local owners who use local contractors and local goods and services. In other words any capital made from these rentals is circulated back into the local economy unlike a franchised hotel.

Minnehaha county has dialed back a bit on their recommended regulations;

Regulations for these short-term rentals would include:

A maximum occupancy of no more than three people per bedroom,
Requiring a minimum of one off-street parking space per guest bedroom,
The properties must be registered with the state as a vacation home,
And contact info for the owner/manager of the rental must be both submitted to the county planning department and displayed within the home.

I think two off-street parking spots is plenty. But instead of regulating how many people can stay in a room or how many cars can park there there should be regulations when it comes to registration of the property (state, city and county). There should also be quarterly health inspections, a small registration fee and a BID tax.

The city has just been mulling the idea, but there is talk they want to remove short term rentals from residential neighborhoods. First the obvious, if these are NOT in residential neighborhoods, where would they be? This of course would be an attempt to eliminate the short term rental business in Sioux Falls to delight of the hotel industry.

Short term rentals already have to follow the same ordinances as a homeowner or a long term rental so any other regulations would be above and beyond. But since this is a hospitality industry operating in Sioux Falls there should be a BID tax applied. All the other regulations are simply mushy-mash busy work bureaucrats cooked up.

ADA Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

City of Sioux Falls & Mayor TenHaken being sued for ADA violations

l3wis March 1, 2023 7Comments

I had heard about this lawsuit this past summer, but I couldn’t figure out who was filing it or what it was specifically about. It was first filed in June of 2022 and amended in September;

Mayor Paul TenHaken and the city of Sioux Falls are being sued for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The suit is filed on behalf of Sioux Falls resident Robert Elliot. It claims that the city has failed “to design, construct, maintain public facilities and enforce city ordinances related to sidewalks for ADA compliance, access ways, sidewalks and roads that are fully accessible to, and independently usable by persons with disabilities.”
The lawsuit also claims that barriers also violate city ordinance.

Besides the residential sidewalks (the adjacent property owner’s responsibility) the ‘barriers’ have been an issue for years. As a person who has rode the sidewalks in this town on a bike for years I have often been astonished with how bad the sidewalks are mainly on Minnesota Avenue and 41st street. They look like sidewalks in a war torn country like Ukraine.

I was curious why the city decided to spray paint to their heart’s content thousands of sidewalks last year and offer a neighborhood grant program to fix them. Looks like they were trying to play catchup. As it was explained to me the city could not use ARPA money to fix adjacent sidewalks due to liability. In other words if the city just used ARPA money to fix the sidewalks they would take on the liability of the sidewalk if someone got injured falling on a crack, BUT the city could have used the money to fix barriers and put in ADA accessible ramps to the sidewalks.

Which brings us to this claim in the suit;

The lawsuit also claims the city has the ability to pay for repairs and construction. As an example of ability to pay, it cites the several million dollars the city received in federal COVID funds in 2021 and that the city spent zero of that infrastructure aid money on ADA compliance.

This lone sentence in the lawsuit is the kicker. While the city literally threw money at butterflies, tennis courts and ‘other stuff’ at the DSU (private) research facility they spent NO money fixing ADA problems.

Let’s not kid ourselves, a Federal lawsuit like this will be in the courts for years and the city will likely fight tooth and nail with our tax dollars instead of doing the right thing and just complying.

The city should really just work on a compromise and a plan to do the right thing but with a lead city attorney with one foot out the door I have a feeling this is going to end badly.

Audit Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE*II: City of Sioux Falls considering eliminating internal audit

l3wis March 1, 2023 6Comments

UPDATE II: At their discussion today, Council Vice-Chair Alex Jensen said the reason audits have been down is because of staff turnover. They currently have only one full-time auditor. So why not hire more people! What a concept. As the city’s human resources department has been handing out hiring bonuses like candy maybe it is time to take that approach to finding more auditors. The city isn’t looking to hire a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist, if you hire a employment consultant to do a national search I can almost guarantee you would have qualified applicants within 30 days.

The committee voted to explore a hybrid model for the internal audit in which they would have internal staff and external auditors. I am adamantly opposed. It would make more sense to just hire a couple more auditors instead of fiddling around with private CPA companies auditing our departments. The name of the department is ‘internal audit’ and it should remain that way, internal.

If you look at the agenda for Wednesday’s Audit Committee meeting you will see this;

• Internal Audit Outsourcing

I was told today by a city hall mole that the council was unaware of this recommendation and that is likely coming from *COUNCIL LEADERSHIP.

While we do use some outside auditing for the city it is important to maintain an internal department that is a check on the administration and it’s financial systems. The council needs to be in control of this department. If we outsource internal audit there would no longer be an internal city government check on the mayor’s/department’s spending power.

Sioux Falls

Neel Kashkari at CEO Summit

l3wis March 1, 2023 4Comments

Siouxfalls.business held their first CEO summit today. The guest speaker was Kashkari from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Some highlights of his appearance;

• Immigration is important to our economy and we must work to make it better and more common

• Innovation comes from looking at what others are doing that works (don’t reinvent the wheel)

• Crypto currency is useless

• Childcare will ultimately have to be subsidized by taxpayers to become more affordable

Neel talked about a host of several things and it is worth the listen.

City Employees getting a raise

Should Air BnB (short term rentals) be regulated in Sioux Falls?

City of Sioux Falls & Mayor TenHaken being sued for ADA violations

UPDATE*II: City of Sioux Falls considering eliminating internal audit

Neel Kashkari at CEO Summit

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