PRESS RELEASE
Thank you to the people of Sioux Falls in braving the wind, snow and blinding cold to help 5,012 citizens to together to send a message to our city government. We may not have been able to get the needed signatures to prevail on this immediate issue, we are sending a message.
The Let Sioux Falls Vote petition brought much of our great city together like it hasn’t in many years. We just couldn’t fight the Dakota winter to collect what was necessary.
We, as voters and citizens in Sioux Falls, have much to do in the next few months to preserve out personal and property rights. We must stay active and involved to protect our futures from being damaged by higher utility rates and increased tax burdens due to this and maybe other monster data centers.
It’s not likely an out of state-owned data center will care about our needs. They are moving here for their profits; this is not for solid financial community growth. As the media is reporting the lack of enough petition signers to take it to a public vote, I feel it is important to take time to say thank you. The voter’s overwhelming response is heartwarming. The drive showed we can work together on a common
issue. Our volunteers are from so many different backgrounds, with so many views on other issues, feeling or being told they are too divided to work together. The volunteers proved the naysayers wrong.
Dozens of fellow citizens fought brutal winter weather to be a part of something bigger than anyone one person. This was amazing. We weren’t fighting amongst each-other; we were fighting together for the same thing. The out-pouring of unity was not only in Sioux Falls, but brought our Brandon, Valley Springs, Lennox, Harrisburg, and more neighbors to see there is much more to fight for, together.
On behalf of Let Sioux Falls Vote, thank you, seriously. It does not go unnoticed. We will keep the fires burning. We are proud of the volunteer’s valiant efforts to be part of the process reforming Sioux Falls for the better.
Thank you again for everything everybody put into this effort. We are not alone. We
are not done.
Samantha Scarlata
NOTE: Sam is running for the AT-Large City council seat against Rich Merkouris. Please support her! He is the only incumbent running in the next city election and he needs to be eliminated. His homeless task force was a complete disaster. Numbers actually went up! They did spend money, mostly on marketing. Not sure how a billboard houses anyone?
Speaking of Rich, he said this genius thing recently;
as Merkouris notes, the timing is right before a change in administration with a mayoral and council election coming in June
“Now is a natural time to establish some new policies or patterns that we want to put in place,” he said.
Rich, if you were paying any attention 4 years ago when you were installed, you would notice a lot of the changes you are promoting were in place back then, not all, but a good portion. So I ask the question, If you knew these things were broken, why not fix them 4 years ago? Or better yet, not spend $1 million to make our city website worse. As I said, all of this nickel and diming is pointless on transparency. The next mayor and council need to put a open government commission together that recommends REAL LASTING changes in ordinance that another mayor and council can’t just ignore without legal consequences.