So amazing when you hear a councilor spout off about something NO ONE in the public was aware of. So Curtis the Blurtist decided to go off about how the council was left out of negotiations on the ambulance service, and to be quite honest, this is a bad path, and I 100% agree with him. We need to implement a municipal ambulance service. We are already doing it (SFFD) and we are getting F’ing zero ROI of assisted calls. This isn’t rocket science. You equip all the fire stations with ambulances and EMT’s. You give them union benefits and pay, and you hire a 3rd party insurance collector for revenue. It baffles me we have a contract with a company that literally relies on taxpayer funded EMT services to assist them and we get ZERO in return. Even councilor Soehl brought up that we should explore this, because the current setup with the fire department is f’d (because they are the first responders to calls, and basically hand off the patient to a taxi service. Oh, and I have witnessed it. Rode past emergency situations and the only EMT’s on scene are SFFD. And they literally prepare the patient for transfer and the ambulance shows up, and the SFFD puts the patient in the ambulance. It is a f’ing joke.)
But back to the RFP’s. Tonight while Soehl was ranting about RFP’s and other contracts he said this;
“Mayor TenHaken has approved $100 Million in NON RFP contracts since he has been mayor.”
WOW! And you waited seven years to tell us this!!!!!!???
First, some clarity. RFP’s are proposals sent out to potential professional contractors, they submit their bids and low (but qualified) usually wins. But in a weird rule in the charter (Munson was guilty of this a lot) the mayor can override any RFP and pick the contractor of their choice. I’m ok with this rule, BUT, you must first put out a bid for qualified contractors.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about city government is NOT corrupt. But when our mayor hands out millions to his buddies without constituent knowledge, there is only one word for it; CORRUPTION! and maybe a couple more like integrity and ethics?
Poops, I have always known you were corrupt, but this puts the nail in the coffin. WOW!
And Curt, thanks for the Rex Rolfing dented siding moment. And if you knew the mayor was this corrupt, what did you do about it? Chirp. Chirp.
Also, there was a city council joint meeting with the Laughing Waters County Commission. Doesn’t matter what happened, but this hot mic from a commissioner made me laugh after the commission approved the denial and awaiting the council to do the same. Well apparently the discussion irked a county commissioner as you could here her say into a hot mic, “If the council votes against this I am going to lose it.” (or something like that, it was fuzzy, but understandable.)
And folks, these are the Clems ruling us. They make Trump look like Ghandi.
Speaking of poor folks getting screwed, my favorite Steve Earle Song (it’s my life story);
Maybe Curt sandbagged this because he’s running for mayor, I don’t know, but $100 million comes out to over $39,000 a day during this current Mayor’s tenure. WOW! A guy could probably buy a decent old food truck with that kind of daily money, or a lot of inventory for a new boutique shop, just saying…. 🙂
( and Woodstock adds: “‘$ 39,000 a day’?”…. “My goodness… A guy could buy a lot of ‘Cake and Hookers’ with that kind of money” …. ;-( )
https://www.southdacola.com/blog/2023/11/sioux-falls-annual-high-tea-meeting-happened-last-week/
How about a ‘No Kings’ demonstration outside city hall? TenHakens actions should be more public so as to prevent him from holding higher office. It’s not mayor it’s godfather of a criminal enterprise.
I like the fact the city employee who is a county commissioner is begging the council to just ignore the corrupt phantom ambulance service that had to create a fake ambulance (remember good old #980?) in order to make their 100% on time record. The ambulance company is a lying corrupt piece of crap that had to pay a multi-million dollar fine for doing the same in other towns but in Sioux Falls its just a-ok to cheat the public and still get a contract renewal as long as the company can polish up its image with a new name. Nothing to hide here, its just a cost of having business done to us.
There’s a reason homes in neighboring cities are in demand. There’s no political corruption and no crime. There’s friendly sheriff deputies instead of bully cops hiding behind donut shops. Firemen are volunteers without a golden benefits package who immediately respond. What you pay in county taxes gets spent on infrastructure and not caviar for developers. Order everything from Amazon to prevent taxes from servicing Sioux Falls debt. Ambulance service is cheaper and better. There’s democracy and due process outside Sioux Falls city limits. If you prefer autocracy and fascism, stay. There’s still good old fashioned Americana but leave. All you need is the airport. When there’s a ‘No Kings’ demonstration come to the city but don’t drink the water or buy anything because it’s a high sales tax.
Isn’t this how the city operates with everything, whether a service contract for the library or a public works engineering design contract, they go to whom they pick instead of open bids? I don’t know how they do it; that is the only city I know of that gets to pick favorites and ignore the open market.