UPDATE: What should Mayor TenHaken work on that was neglected by his predecessor?

UPDATE: The original post was from May 23, 2018. It was my ‘wish list’ for the new mayor. I responded to my original post with CONCLUSIONS.

ORIGINAL POST;

Obviously, Paul has a pretty big agenda of his own that he needs to work on. But besides what he wants to accomplish (which we will include in the following list) what else should he focus on?

Transparency. This is a given that Paul promises to work on. It WAS the #1 issue in the last campaign. As I have mentioned besides more communication with the council and public, he must also focus on opening more contracts up to the public for review. This includes anyone applying for TIFs or other government grants and partnerships.

CONCLUSION: Not only did Paul do none of the above, he actually made open government worse. A lot worse. It is almost North Korea level.

Crime/Meth epidemic. Paul will get a little help in this department from the counties with the triage center. But he will also have to look at how our police department is handling arrests. With an overcrowded jail and a new one a couple of years away, the SFPD needs to focus on handling situations in the field, like I said, the triage center will help with this. Paul also MUST have a better relationship with the police union.

CONCLUSION: Drug crimes have gone down, but homicides were up and some of them involved drugs. The LINK was opened but it seems to be losing private funding and the next mayor is going to have to deal with that mess (if I were a candidate I would try to get that info before the election). He also started the Sioux 52 Mentorship program, which I applauded, then after a year, Paul bails on it and hands it over to the HelpLine center and takes our taxdollars to pay them. I would love to see a report from the HelpLine center and see where they are at with recruitment. I heard it hasn’t been good lately. I also don’t think this should be a city program, it should be administered by the school district. But that would make sense.

Reducing Homelessness/Hunger. I was impressed with what TenHaken said in a Million Cups debate, he said in 8 years he wants to put the Banquet and Bishop Dudley house out of business. While he may not attain that goal, he should really focus on getting more people off of assistance and on their own feet, this starts with . . .

CONCLUSION: Utter failure. Problem has gotten much worse.

Workforce development. This is a sticky issue for city government. They can’t really force local businesses to pay living wages, BUT moving forward when attracting new business to Sioux Falls they can ask, very forcefully to provide good wages. The council can even go as far as to shape policy around it.

CONCLUSION: I don’t think Paul’s work on this is a positive or a negative. Some good businesses did come here that provide hundreds of jobs, like Amazon, but Amazon was coming whether Paul wanted it or not. While I think it is important for a mayor to put on the charm offensive when trying to attract business, his main duty is running the city. Like I said earlier this week, we give millions to the Development Foundation to do this work. While the mayor should be in the loop, he shouldn’t be the lead salesperson.

Public Ambulance Service. While Paul hasn’t really taken a stand on it, that may be a good thing. I think the council could move forward with exploring the possibility and the costs involved. I think it would pay off in the end and would make our community much safer.

CONCLUSION: It never happened, but it is moving in that direction. I think when our current contract runs out the council will move to city owned with a local backup provider. Citizens right now are paying for ambulance pickups with SFFD mutual aid and receiving NO compensation from the ambulance provider. Taxpayers are assisting a for profit business and it is ridiculous. I knew this wasn’t going to be sustainable and the council finally sees it, at least some of them do.

Improving Public Transit. This was virtually ignored by the last administration. Not only do we need to make regular service better and more frequent, we need to get costs under control and look at privatizing Paratransit while keeping it affordable.

CONCLUSION: I have actually been impressed with the new transit provider, they seem willing to make significant changes, and ridership is up. But this contract should have changed in Paul’s first year, or at least an RFP and search put out there. It only took Paul 6 years to basically sign a new contract. So yes, mission accomplished, but took too long.

Revitalizing core neighborhoods. This can be done through revamping community development. One of those hurdles took care of itself yesterday when the director quit. Not only will this help to clean up our core neighborhoods it will help with the affordable housing issues we have.

CONCLUSION: COMPLETE AND UTTER FAILURE! Our more affordable neighborhoods are in shambles and the city hasn’t lifted a finger in 16 years (Mike and Paul). Paul just pretended the problem didn’t exist. This is why it took me 20 years to get MX torn down, and they didn’t even do it ALL!! This administration wouldn’t know rehabilitation if it hit them like a fart from our president.

Updating the city website. This could include a whole host of changes including being able to download city documents, improving transparency and having all the city board meetings available for review with at least audio recordings.

CONCLUSION: This task was completed and cost over $1 MILLION. Nothing has really changed and it is even harder to navigate, which I think was done intentionally because of the militant closed government attitudes. The next mayor needs to sue the last contractor and get our money back, then we need to hire a local firm to gut it and change it into an actual functioning transparent government website. I think the SD SOS’s website works better, and that’s saying A LOT!

Public Art Funding. I really think the city is missing out on a huge opportunity by not tapping into the entertainment tax fund to use towards public art. Public art promotes tourism and really defines a city’s quality of life. It also promotes local business by using local artists, artisans and contractors to work on the projects. And if nothing else, it makes our city more beautiful and cultural.

CONCLUSION: Yes and NO. When suggested these items 8 years ago, I would have never guessed that our mayor would have turned out to be an ART CENSOR. And that is NOT a badge of honor. If anything, that move actually damaged our local art scene and broke a lot of trust between the local artists and the city. They also consolidated a bunch of crap at the Pavilion and hired a Full-Time arts coordinator (still waiting to see her cultural plan that she contracted out). Paul knows about as much about public art as I know about rhinoplasty. He needs to stop.

Build a Skatepark with a public/private partnership!

CONCLUSION: This happened but not after the skate park association had to beg for private donations for 7 years! Paul could have funded this on day one and not make the volunteers beat down people for a city owned park but since none of his buddies were on that committee it wasn’t a priority for him. I still think the council and mayor looked like complete jerk offs for dragging their feet for so long on public funding. We piss away in operations at the Midco in 2 years what that skate park cost us, there is also $80 million in reserves. I think the only reason the association eventually got city money was because of a pass thru with ARPA Covid funding. So I guess if Covid never happened, the association would still be beating the streets for donations.

On a separate note, recently, Joe and Jennifer Kirby donated $1 Million to Frank Olson pool, which I assume would bear their names (thank you). But this donation took an interesting twist. When Don Kearney, Parks director was asked if this would reduce the $47 Million dollar bond to $46 Million (which would seem logical) he said NO. And when asked what the money will be spent on he said ‘Construction’. So instead of using this donation to offset the cost of the bond, they are just going to spend it as additional money. Oh, and it gets even better. This is NOT a yearly donation for sponsorship, this is a ONE-TIME gift. Which is usually NOT how it works. The sponsor would make a donation each year over a period of time. So the Kirby’s basically paid $1 Million for a permanent sign on the pool. That’s how the city handles transparency in this town. Jokesters. 

Some have asked why the Kirby’s are doing it this way instead of yearly payments. Because it is the end of the year and accountants have ‘suggestions’.