2025

Should have resurfaced the bike trail

As I pointed out this summer when all the contractors who were fixing the trail and yelling at bicyclists there was this section going to family park that they decided to use crack and seal on and then spray a thin coat of oil over the fixes. As I mentioned at the time, all his does is create 4 bumps instead the existing 2, and they really should fill the cracks with asphalt then resurface. I new this job wasn’t going to last and is like putting a finger in a dam. So imagine my surprise today when I rode this section.

As you can see the crack and seal seeped into the cracks creating 4 bumps now and not fixing the problem, actually making it worse.

I was going to do a video because almost every crack they filled this summer looks like this. This was done about 6 months ago!

Incompetence. No surprise.

I would get a refund from the contractor and use the money to resurface the trail.

Sioux Falls public inputer passes

I nicknamed him Dennis the Menace. He was a conservative who would come to the podium and admonish the other public inputers who said unflattering things about our mayor and council. It was horrible trolling and most of us in the crowd would just laugh at his rants toward the public as just another ignorant right winger, and he was. He often blamed Muslims for the problems in our country. Yeah, he was one of those guys 🙂 But when I really knew he was full of it was during his rants about Seattle.

For weeks Dennis went on and on about how bad Seattle was (drugs and homeless). I have several relatives that live in suburbs of Seattle and work in Seattle. One of them told me that downtown is a s-hole and you don’t leave your locked vehicle when in Downtown. But other then that like most major cities the only drawback is traffic.

I decided to see if Dennis actually lived in Seattle. He did not. His obit said he lived mostly in Tacoma and when I looked up his past residence before leaving Washington state he lived in a small suburb about 40 miles South of Seattle. Seems like quite the distance between DT Seattle and where he lived. He did work in Seattle, which I also found ironic. Because he said he moved to SD to get away from all the Libs in Seattle. No he didn’t. He moved here so he wouldn’t have to pay income taxes in his retirement. Almost a 100% of his professional life was in the Seattle area. His last job was working a forklift at the Seattle Port Authority – My grandpa worked for them for 40 years as a delivery driver! I find it funny that a place that gave this man his welfare and wellbeing would trash such a place. When my grandpa retired, I think in the 1980’s, he never dreamed of leaving Seattle and retiring in Wagner (where he was born). But that’s typical of conservative boomers, use up what you can and move on and avoid taxes at all costs.

The other part I found funny was all the local newspaper articles I found online from the town that Dennis lived in. He was a frequenter at public input at his city commission meetings. And he said some nasty things to the council. I also found that odd since when he spoke at SF City Council meetings he was sticking up for our mayor and council.

I guess the entire city commission was Libs and that is the REAL reason he would admonish them. Libs according to Dennis (anyone who was NOT a registered Republican was a Lib in Dennis’ book). So I guess three-quarters of our country is Lib, who knew?

I will applaud anyone who is willing to speak publicly about their beliefs on government, what I don’t applaud is when they use that platform to spread hate and misinformation.

Editorial Blogging

When I first started this blog about 18 years ago I had guest bloggers. Many of them regulars. I kind of want to bring that back but open it up to anyone who has an opinion about city government. We will start it on January 1st. I will have just a few basic rules;

• You will email me in advance with your article; fb.art@sio.midco.net

• It will post within 24 hours of me receiving it.

• You must use your full name OR first initial and last name.

• You can write about anything concerning Sioux Falls in general (maybe you want to promote an event) or you can talk about city government, doesn’t matter to me.

• I likely will NOT edit the piece if it deems appropriate. But if I like the article and there are some things in it that are not factual, I will edit and send you a copy of the edits before posting.

• You will receive NO compensation (this is like an editorial page).

• You may include links to your email and social media and post docs like jpgs and pdf’s.

• I will post the article so you don’t have to worry about logins or security.

This should be fun, hopefully I can post a few articles a week.

Awwww Tiger

I took my mom to the zoo today, it was nice. The animals were pretty active because of the nice weather, but we did laugh about the penguins being indoors. There was supposed to be like a half-price thing thru the holidays but when I asked the clerk she said, ‘Tomorrow’. It reminded me of the sign you see above bars that says ‘FREE BEER, tomorrow.’ Our zoo may be a heavily funded municipal zoo, but they certainly don’t pass those funds on to us. The ZOO should have a FREE day once a month during the summer. I would open every vending stand they have and open more and make your money on vending sales. It makes you wonder who got the payout on the Notre Dame dusty monkey transfer? You damn well know money was exchanged. Probably one of the worst managed issues I have ever seen in this city. Corrupt, not transparent and I think ILLEGAL.