E-Bike Advocacy in Sioux Falls
l3wis This is my first attempt at a video, so tell me how much I suck so I can improve 
2023
Is it time to convert Great Bear into a natural rec space?
Great Bear is already being used as a natural recreation in the summer and winter. There are tons of trails for bikes and hikers, snow shoes or cross country.
Maybe we should make it this way all year long?
Great Bear Ski Valley is tentatively slated to open later than any season in its history.
Originally, the hope was to be open this week. But Mother Nature had other plans.
“It’s out of our control,” said Dan Grider, general manager.
Actually it is NOT. While we can’t control the weather we can certainly control the city’s assets. Every year we dump tons of money into Great Bear for the snow season and each year it is either closed because it is too cold or too warm. Enough with the climate change games. I think we should turn the lodge into a warming house and just open the park up as a natural recreational park with no chair lifts or snow makers. Instead of playing these games each year, let’s use the park when nature allows us to use it and stop throwing millions of dollars at a facility that is used about 30-40 days out of the year.
Yet we have NO money for childcare. Maybe we could convert Great Bear into a child care facility?
Model City Charter Recommends a Chief Administrative Officer as part of a council/mayor form of government
After the Charter Revision Commission shot down the idea of letting councilors giving themselves raises, a foot soldier sent me a copy of the Model City Charter (DOC – Pages 26 and 70).
The lead city attorney used this document to argue for commissioner Zylstra’s intent telling members that it was recommended in this model document.
Well guess what else the model legislation supports? They support a council and mayor have either a city manager or CAO (Chief Administrative Officer).
Basically this position runs the administrative side of the government, the council handles policy and all administrative appointments with the advice and consent of the mostly ceremonial mayor.
Most people don’t know it, but I would argue that the mayor’s COS (Chief of Staff) is currently managing the city without the knowledge or consent of the public.
If you actually implement this form of government, that person would be supervised by the council.
I found it ironic that the CRC would argue against a city manager or CAO during that proposal portion of the CRC process yet use this same document to argue for pay raises. Of course it got shot down just like the rest of the proposals, but after I started reading this document I wondered why the CRC wasn’t just referring to this document more often?
Unfortunately, I could not find any recommendations on what kind of accelerant to use when burning our current city charter.
Mayor TenHaken’s word games get shot down by council
Guest Post – Mike Zitterich
Sioux Falls City Council Votes 5 to 3 to Not Rename the 6th Street Bridge to be Unity Bridge, December 19, 2023, Item #20 – led by City Councilor Curt Seohl, who believed that the process to which was utilized to discuss the renaming of the bridge was broken, he was further supported by Greg Neitzert, Pat Starr, Sarah Cole, and David Barranco. For now, the name of the bridge will continue to remain as the 6th Street Bridge, until further notice. Voting no today, does not keep us from renaming the bridge, but the discussions will proceed further into the future on whether or not we choose to wish to rename the bridge or not.
For now, it is nice to see the City Council fighting for the People of Sioux Falls in it’s Fight for Control of Public Policy.
Editor’s Note
I agree with Councilor Soehl and Pat Starr who commented on the naming that the word ‘Unity’ is very odd, but not surprising from a mayor who likes to play constant f’ing word games with everything he touches. As I said to someone, if you are giving peeps direction, you wouldn’t say ‘take the Unity bridge’ you would call it what it is, the 6th street bridge. Unbelievably moronic idea. I was surprised that NOT all 8 voted NO, but that would have required ‘Unity’
I heard he also wants to change the name of Highway 11 to Harmony Highway
I also had to laugh when the staffer presenting the item said ‘We don’t normally take donations for infrastructure.’ Huh?
• Denny Sanford Premier Center
• Jacobsen Plaza
• Midco Aquatic Center
And many, many, more. Parks and entertainment facilities are owned by the taxpayers and maintained by the taxpayers, that would make them ‘infrastructure’.
Ironically the bridge is currently in the same position as our city government; CLOSED.
Did the City of Sioux Falls (Mayor’s office) violate open meetings laws with dead animal meeting yesterday?
The short answer is NO. As it was explained to me, the city followed the ‘letter of the law’ just not it’s intent;
1-25-1.1. Notice of meeting of political subdivision–Agenda–Violation as misdemeanor.Each political subdivision shall provide public notice, with proposed agenda, that is visible, readable, and accessible for at least an entire, continuous twenty-four hours immediately preceding any official meeting, by posting a copy of the notice, visible to the public, at the principal office of the political subdivision holding the meeting. The proposed agenda shall include the date, time, and location of the meeting. The notice shall also be posted on the political subdivision’s website upon dissemination of the notice, if a website exists. For any special or rescheduled meeting, the information in the notice shall be delivered in person, by mail, by email, or by telephone, to members of the local news media who have requested notice. For any special or rescheduled meeting, each political subdivision shall also comply with the public notice provisions of this section for a regular meeting to the extent that circumstances permit. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.
The agenda was posted on Friday before the meeting (or so that is what is being said) so they did follow law with the 24 hour notice, and yes it is on the city website . . . buried on a page that is NOT the agenda page.
If you didn’t know the meeting was happening, you have NO intent on looking for the agenda, and even if you were looking for such an agenda, you wouldn’t find it on the agenda page, or board agenda page.
Even the calendar on the new website is inaccurate and doesn’t show ALL city public meetings (before the site changed, the calendar displayed ALL daily meetings.)
At the last meeting, they did schedule a meeting for December, so I guess if you were paying attention, you would have marked the date on the calendar, the problem, the meeting was scheduled for 8 AM, NOT 2 PM, and for TODAY, NOT yesterday;
Next meeting: October 19, 8:00 a.m., City Hall Media Room
So even if you wrote this date down, it would have been incorrect.
I have argued the city needs a Public Information Officer (the SFPD has had one for years) whose only duty is to disseminate public information, but most importantly, public notices and agendas. Those notices should be on ONE calendar, and on ONE agenda page. I don’t take issue with posting it on other pages, like the buried Mayor’s page, but that should NOT be the official spot.
I had a wonderful convo with a city council staffer yesterday about this, and have asked them to do a little digging and to find out WHY the administration is just willy nilly about their agenda posting. I was also not surprised to hear that each department is in charge of posting their agendas, which I told this person is wrong, and that the city clerk’s office should be the ones controlling and posting on the agendas.
We spent almost $500K on the new city website, for something that is worse than before. Let’s just assume that the web developer and the city agreed to have a public notice page that is easily accessible, it’s not a hard lift, other cities do it.
I always like to use Omaha’s website as a decent functioning city website, as you can see you are ONE click away from any public notices or agendas you may need;
As a city official said to me yesterday about this topic ‘I don’t think the mayor’s office is prioritizing transparency.’
Yah think?!
And that’s the other kicker, none of the city councilors knew about the meeting until a couple of hours before the meeting (the media was also unaware), except the two who sit on the board, Merkouris and Jensen. When were they going to tell the public, the media, or at least the other 6 councilors?
While the mayor’s staff followed the letter of the law, they certainly don’t understand the spirit.
I’m not sure I get the Mayor’s war on public information which wreaks of hypocrisy. Open government is NOT a partisan issue, it benefits everyone, the elected officials and the public, and it saves taxpayers money, even when it comes to Lenin’s Tomb and a bunch of dusty monkeys and goats.