County Commission

1st Amendment County Commission Dean Karsky Minnehaha County Open Government Open Meetings

Minnehaha County Commission boots elderly couple for asking a question

l3wis November 4, 2025 0Comments

Trust me, I am not fan of this couple who want to take us back to 1952;

In the video the couple wanted an answer to a simple question, “How much is the extra holiday pay costing county taxpayers.” Of course, no answer, because that would mean collaborative and open government. Even a commissioner asked Tom Greco, county administrator, what the amount was and still did not get an answer from Tom. It’s not a hard question. What is your daily receipts on salaries? That is the magic number. I’m sure almost everyone on that dais knows what it costs to pay salaries for a day at the county. And I agree with the couple that the policy of not answering taxpayer questions needs to end. These are public meetings. Do you understand what the word ‘public’ means? Now this couple can be a bit crazy. They want us to go to hand counting which is less reliable and takes longer, they usually cuss and demean the commissioners, and usually something racist comes from their mouths, as today the man decided to make fun of Juneteenth in this testimony saying, “Nobody knows what the Hell that is.” I’m pretty sure some African Americans in our community could fill you in. Either way, asking a question, saying stupid Trump garbage, or going over your time by a couple of seconds doesn’t permit you to eject someone from a meeting, that is violation of their 1st Amendment rights. Sure, you can ask them to sit down and stop swearing, but you can’t kick them out because you don’t like the questions they ask. The irony is, the question still wasn’t answered. I hope that he sues the county for 1st amendment violations, and I can’t believe an officer went along with it. I know that the (previous) security at city council meetings quit because the mayor wanted them to arrest and remove people who were saying things he didn’t like and they refused telling him that is a 1st Amendment violation. I think Karsky is going to be regretting his decision when the county is dowling out millions in a 1st Amendment suit to a nutty Trumper.

I also want to add, this couple who look like they are in their 70s, never physically threatened the commission or used any threatening language, besides it being a ‘sh!t show’ which it is.

1st Amendment County Commission Downtown Sioux Falls Elections Homeless Lincoln County Minnehaha County SF City Council SF School Board Member SF School District Sioux Falls

We lack TRANSPARENCY in local government

l3wis November 3, 2025 4Comments

I agree with Joe that there is a lack of leadership, experience, accountability, common sense and diligence;

That kind of leadership requires listening, relationship-building, and the willingness to work together. It means re-establishing trust among institutions that have drifted apart and reminding everyone that Sioux Falls’ success has always come from collaboration, not isolation.

Many of these leadership issues can be solved with one word; TRANSPARENCY. When you have a government that is open to the public’s ideas by bringing them along with the process you get more involvement and when the public is more involved you have a better planned community. The problem with local government on all levels isn’t a lack of leadership or even laziness it’s a lack of openness and accountability. You could have 9 monkeys sitting on the dais and the city would still run incredibly well because of transparency. I am of the position that it doesn’t matter who is on that dais, as another realtor announces a run for council today, if we have folks that are willing to open the books and bring the public along that is ALL the leadership you need. Because real leaders are honest, open and accountable.

THE SOLUTION TO THE TRANSIENT PROBLEM IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES

After reading this article last night about transients at the downtown library I sent this email to Jodi;

I am putting an invitation to you and a companion to ride on the back of my pedi-cab on a weeknight DTSF after dark, I will take you to all the places transients congregate and you can see just how serious it is.

But what I found fascinating about the article is Police Chief Thum offering a solution to the problem without realizing it;

My point is not to lack compassion for those who probably could benefit from a quiet, safe place to spend their day. Ideally, we’d find something more productive for people to do in such a place — maybe we offer classes or even the chance to create art — but if safe shelter with a way to charge a phone is really all people are looking for, maybe we need to create that somewhere other than the library.

We need the library to function as it was intended to promote literacy and access to information and related resources, not as a social services agency.

At the top of the post I talked about common sense in government. Are you listening to what you are saying? Maybe we need a temporary shelter? It is pretty obvious to me that we need a temporary shelter this winter for these folks where they can stay 24/7 if they wish. Will it cost money? Sure, but the alternative is paying for ER visits when we are scraping them from the cold concrete in a parking ramp which costs way more then just funding a facility for the winter months. I would also hand every single one of them a bus ticket when they arrive at the shelter if they desire to go home.

This is what I mean when it comes to leadership. You obviously see the issue, you also obviously see the solution, so why not fix it?

1st Amendment County Commission Downtown Sioux Falls Libertarian Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Update: This is how Sux spends your tax dollars

l3wis August 28, 2025 3Comments

Update: I guess there was a HS cross country event at Paisley park today, so why can’t they run on unmulched grass? The Romans used to run races barefoot. So now I guess we fund HS sports thru parks tax dollars.

FIRST, THE POSITIVE: The Sioux Falls city council and Minnehaha County Commission restored 2026 funding for the Siouxland Librairies at their joint meeting today. Guess how much the mayor was cutting? A whopping $250K!!!! Yeah, a lot of coin for us mouth breathers but NOTHING to the city when you consider they have $80 Million in reserves (they are only required by ordinance to have about $50 Million cash on hand), but Poops has been stowing away money for his wet dream convention center). I was glad to see funding restored since all Poops cut was temp help wages.

I find it ironic that the mayor insists on nickel and diming citizen services while blowing MILLIONS on projects no one asked for (Sanford Wellness purchase and Jacobsen Plaza for example).

NOW FOR THE NEGATIVE: As I was commuting to work I decided to take the bike trail today and as I was riding thru Paisley Park I noticed the lawn had been freshly mowed. There were windrows (these are the piles of un-mulched grass that accumulate in ROWS) in the lawn. It was visible but NOT thick and would easily just disintegrate into the un-mowed grass with the next rain. So what did the Parks Department decide to do about these windrows? So there is this guy who drives down the bike trail with a tractor and a small blower he tows behind and he blows debris off of the trail. It’s a nice amenity and I appreciate it, just like the plowing of the trail in the winter. So this guy wasn’t blowing off the trail he was driving back and forth, North to South in the lawn blowing the windrows towards the East fence. My guess this would have taken at least 3-4 hours. So when the mayor talks about cutting essential services, maybe we need to cut the Parks budget, because apparently they have too much money to spend if they have a parks employee blowing grass around our parks (well, at least he was actually working unlike the parks worker who waters trees while reading a novel).

Also at the joint meeting tonight if you FF to the end where there is public input, it is worth the watch. A woman came up, and very politely and professionally addressed them about property taxes, and she read them the riot act. It was amazing. She needs to come back to the city council meeting and do the same speech since the city’s TIFilicious desires are raising our taxes. She also recommended that TIFs and OPT-OUTS should only be approved by voters. DAMN TOOTIN! She was cut off by Dean Karsky (him and Beninga need to retire) because she called out Commissioner Joe Kipley personally* (you know, Mr. Conflict of Interest double dipping from taxpayers) and a comment he had made, and it was a doozy.

To be honest with you, public input really doesn’t matter anymore you might as well be talking to a floating turd in your toilet, you would get more of a response. The County, the Council and the School Board all have their votes in line and mind made up before they walk into that meeting, no amount of pleading or shaming will get them to change their votes. There have been on occasion a councilor will change on the fly, but not because of testimony. I felt sorry for the folks over the last few weeks who have shown up to speak for the first time about important issues like deportation and the homelessness only to get patronized by the mayor. Deaf ears folks.

*The council and commission have a rule(?) at their meetings that no one at the podium can call out elected officials or public employees by name or individually. Let’s just say it is a contrived rule probably in Roberts, but as far as the 1st Amendment is concerned, you can call out anyone you want to at the podium and all they can do is cry.

County Commission David Barranco Downtown Sioux Falls Minnehaha County Property Taxes SF City Council Sioux Falls Taxes

Bikes, Bonds and Belittling

l3wis September 11, 2024 8Comments

Not sure if you caught the above meeting, but it was a scorcher. While I would agree with Minnehaha County Commissioner Joe Kippley that Leah shouldn’t be fooling around with past elections, I don’t agree with him asking her to resign in public. He should have wrote her a letter, got a couple of his other commissioners on board and CC’d the media. It was extremely unprofessional, and the kicker is he is the health director for the city. Getting ‘political’, which was what his stunt was, is not the ethical standard I want my health director to be holding. If anything Joe should resign because of his conflicts, and I have a feeling he will AFTER the November election so they can appoint someone. More trickery. Oh, and the commission has allegedly been playing games with bond levies. More to come on that 🙁

COUNCIL KICKS THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD ON THE RIVERLINE DISTRICT

At the council meeting last night the council took the line item out of the 2025 budget and concocted a steering committee to study the purchase. While I’m happy they killed the line item, I am not happy they are continuing down the path which will ultimately have us buying the land. From talking to councilors I got the feeling they were just going to kill it and let the River Rats figure it out, but this must be the compromise. Folks, all this is, is smoke and mirrors by the council. They plan to implement a 3rd penny tax to have us paid for the Convention Center. This is short-sighted. They should implement a entertainment corporate tax on all business with 500 or more employees. If you think this place will have an economic impact on your businesses, prove it, pony up.

Oh, and Councilor Barranco was the ONLY councilor to vote against a property tax increase. Thank You David! That vote proved to me that at least 7 councilors don’t give a rat’s ass what economic position you are in, they need their play palaces!

E-BIKES HAVE INVADED DOWNTOWN

Not really, but some people seem to be butt hurt they are sitting around downtown. They are not junkers, so I am not sure what people are concerned about. Other cities do it this way. I think the only tweak I would make is having the bikes in a mobile unit so they are not scattered everywhere downtown, but like I said, there is a million other things we need to worry about downtown, and a random bike parked on a corner ain’t one of them.

WAS HARRIS DEBATING BIDEN LAST NIGHT?

After the first 10 minutes of the debate last night I thought Harris was debating Biden.

1st Amendment County Commission Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

Daily Affirmation

l3wis June 8, 2023 3Comments

What a week of craziness in Sioux Falls. Most of what I am going to talk about deserves a full blog post, but I decided more of a snark;

• Classified documents at Carnegie Town Hall. Last night a constituent told me they showed up to the city council meeting and went to the entry podium to collect the agenda. To their surprise there was a stack of legal documents sitting on the podium. They suspected they were left there accidentally and turned them over to the council.

At least they didn’t find them crumpled up in the toilet.

• The Sioux Falls City Council hires a new city clerk. Mr. Washington was hired Tuesday night by the council. Mr. Washington was NOT in attendance (he lives in Rapid City) but I was at least expecting a phone in to answer a few benign questions. Nope. Council Chair Selberg said he was a great guy and they voted for him. The council did have a private interview with Mr. Washington but it would have been nice to get an intro to the public.

• 1st Amendment Minnehaha County case taking to long to decide. Call me old school, but when I read the 1st Amendment it is not to hard to figure out, especially this line;

to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I’m puzzled why it would take so long for a Federal Judge to make such an easy decision? It will be interesting to see what is carved out for the county, because it doesn’t take over 20 days to figure out our civil rights.

• Minnehaha County Commissioners bail on carbon setbacks. Not surprising the new bought and paid for MCC has decided that property owners only get 300 feet to save themselves from an exploding pipeline. How thoughtful of them. I still concede that in 10 years most hazardous pipelines are moth balled as we realize the benefits and cost saving measures of wind, solar and nuclear. This is a money making scheme and always has been.

• Pride Festival this weekend! The good news is we get to celebrate LOVE this weekend, the sad part is there are still elected officials in our community who refuse to acknowledge that love. F’k em! They would ruin the party anyway!

• YIELD FOR BICYCLISTS! I was in three close calls this week, one was my fault, but I encourage drivers to always be aware of your surroundings and look for pedestrians, motorcycles and bicyclists. I also encourage bicyclists to be sharp when riding and yield twice.

• Rapid City gets a new mayor! So this former Veteran, Banker, Alderman and current Pastor wants to be the next mayor of Rapid City. Awesome! I still liked the O’SHT face on him when he had his first presser. He’s going to figure it out. Well if you are so inclined to share your secret recipes, can you pass them on to our mayor? You can usually catch him doing calisthenics with kids at one of our private Sioux Falls Christian schools. I know, super weird.

• Show me the money! Once again city officials had no problem taking money from our old father time and faux namesake of our city. Gifts are Gifts but one has to wonder about funding a spray park for kids with a selfie photo booth? Not to mention a project that has ballooned from around $4 million to four times that. Not sure why we need Disneyland at Falls Park?

The ‘donations’ always crack me up. They are paying for ADDITIONAL infrastructure that we have to maintain for decades as taxpayers. Not sure what the benefit is? It’s kind of like being handed your dream car for free (mine is the Ferrari Dino) but you have to maintain it, pay the taxes and fees on it, store it and insure it. I will stick with my Civic.

• More rail traffic in Sioux Falls. I have virtually given up moving the trains out of Sioux Falls, but what troubles me is that citizens have no avenue of addressing this locally, statewide or Federally. Ironically, roadblocks have been systematically setup over decades by the vicious control by our railroads.

Minnehaha County Commission boots elderly couple for asking a question

We lack TRANSPARENCY in local government

Update: This is how Sux spends your tax dollars

Bikes, Bonds and Belittling

Daily Affirmation

You Missed

UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor could be facing ethics violations after tonight’s vote on Tre Ministries project

UPDATE: City Council Agenda (Dec 2-3)

Seems we are a we bit behind on snow plowing

Libertyland TIF should go to a vote of the entire state!