I think it is. When you have over $10 million in reserves it is time to pull the plug. As I have mentioned recently the Pavilion not only gets a subsidy for operating from the city, we also pay for ALL the repairs to the building. The Pavilion has no public benefit because they provide NO FREE public programming. Heck, even the part-time employees have to pay for parking. NO LIE. They used to do a FREE First Friday, but not sure if they even do that any more. They also charge to visit the visual arts museum, and their new outdoor music festival, funded by the Pavilion and taxpayers of Sioux Falls wasn’t FREE like JazzFest or even cheap tickets. The Pavilion has simply been taking money from us for years and providing nothing back unless you can afford a ticket to a show. I would not only cut the subsidy, any repairs to the building that involve upgrading performance equipment need to be paid for by the Pavilion. They should also cover all utilities (they may do that now) and they should pay an annual lease to the city. Next, I would eliminate the Zoo subsidy. It amazes me how the city will nickel dime the pools and libraries but throw millions at organizations that have millions in the bank, it’s stupid. If you want to make cuts, use your brain.
UPDATE: I just recommend you view the meeting. It got really complicated really fast. Basically the CRC approved a ballot measure that, if passed by the voters, it would give ‘permission’ to the Council to create a committee and wage study for mayor and councilors. Hey, CRC, you know, the council can pass a resolution ANY Tuesday to approve this study, and they should, so we can put this stupid raise BS to bed. Councilor Merkouris testified that he was against this, I can’t remember all he said, but he did recognize that the perception and trust right now between the council and the public is pretty low and that the council needed to work on that before asking for a raise. Yah Think?!
I also found it ironic, once again, that the only items approved for the ballot were presented by city staff and CRC members. Why are CRC members presenting anything? That is NOT your job. These folks are obviously tone deaf, but I’m starting to think more and more they are also brain dead. You should listen to their CEO corporate argument BS, classic Rush 1997.
I hope when the video is posted the ending isn’t edited. So at the end they adjourned, and someone in the crowd wanted to say something further, and the chair told them it was already adjourned. Which, was the correct answer. But this person kept bugging folks that he wanted to speak, so the clerk, I think Denise, whispers to the chair, ‘Quick, do a voice vote, do a voice vote.’ and then the video cuts. It was funny because watching how these meetings have been run lately is like watching amateur hour.
MAYOR TENFOLD HAS AN EXIT STRATEGY
It’s just to bad it doesn’t include him moving out of the state. Probably does.
Poops is going to be a C-Suite CEO Leadership Mentor, says we can solve homelessness by having churches adopt transients and his greatest achievement as mayor was the leadership team he compiled. Yeah, that one made me keel over in laughter. Is this the same leadership team you pretty much fired? Or at least half of them? Do I need to provide the list? It is FREAKY long . . . he even once went to the public works garage and fired a pothole crew worker. He did something naughty, but NOT fire worthy. It really was a misunderstanding and I think an apology would have sufficed to the VIP who complained to Poops. Did you know Paul got booted out of a major fitness center before he was mayor. I asked this person why and he said Paul was doing ‘proselytizing’ workouts and taking over rooms and the establishment said, good bye.
It all makes sense NOW! This is why he likes to do jumping jacks with kids at the private Christian schools, he can only get a good workout if the good lord is watching over it. The other day I cramped up after a long bike ride, and I did quite a bit of ‘proselytizing’ 🙂
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We saw the tone deafness of the city council on full display Tuesday night, but proposing a ballot question that gives themselves raises in this economy and their piss poor performance is the epitome of TONE DEAF. Hey, it may not pass the muster of the Charter Revision Commission. They have two proposals on the table;
A one time bump or course correction and changing the percentage of mayoral pay that is afforded to the city council. Currently the council gets 15% of mayor’s salary, they want to bump it to 25%. I actually think it should be 10% and we should have at least 4-5 more councilors instead of paying more for less representation, it’s idiotic. But they are so tone deaf the CRC will pass this, the Council will review the ballot question and approve it for the June election. This will fail soooooo hard it is not even funny. They already tried this 2 years ago and we voted it down. They don’t get it. Seriously!!!
The city is set to start the next phase of the Minnesota Avenue rebuild between 2nd Street and 7th Street this Spring. The project will be $15 Million+. In the process they wanted to put pavers along Minnesota like in front of the City Center, and they want the stone reset in front of the City Center. So an independent contractor suggested to the city that when they put the pavers down Minnesota and reset the ones at the City Center they should pour a concrete pad underneath so they can’t sink and weeds don’t grow in them. I think they even suggested the faux poured pavers that are on Phillips Avenue. Nope, I guess they are going to go old school and just put it on sand so it will have to be redone in 10 years.
While I was talking to this gentleman he went on another rant about the engineering department at the city. He said they come and go as they please and he said, ‘Good luck getting anyone on the phone down there or responding to voicemails.’ He said a lot of other unflattering things also. I joked with him, ‘I have been saying for years they should fire all the city engineers and just hire a purchasing agent to replace them.’ Right now all city engineers do is read and approve engineering reports from independent contractors. They also write the RFPs.
I asked him what he thought of my theory that the Feds threatened the city over funding if they didn’t approve the data center. He said that it was a possibility since every department in the city gets money from the Feds. He agreed with my theory, ‘What if the city does everything the Feds want them to do and they still cut our funding? Then what?’ The city should just prepare for the budget shortfall until 2028 and lay off any city employees who receives department funding thru the Feds. Also, it is Congress that controls the purse strings and last I checked we have 3 Republicans representing us in DC, are they going to allow this kind of bullying? Trump just stopped a water project in Colorado for 50K residents because he is mad about that stupid bitch who broke so many state election laws that she got 9 years in state prison and Trump has threatened to bust her out using the Military. Something about a tank ramming the jail. Crazy crap. So his threats of budget cuts? Who cares and let’s just hope he gets a new pharmacist soon.
As for the Data Center I have two friends that work in the industry in Sioux Falls, and they have been sending me different information on how they work etc. They said that most of the Data Centers in Sioux Falls are no more then 30 MW (that is the largest) this proposed Data Center is 500 MW. Look at the power generation capacity we have;
So where will this power come from? Good question.
Most Data Centers have Server Racks in them and even some of the bigger ones in Sioux Falls only have a handful of employees with half of them handling security and janitorial. This is a power cord for just ONE rack of servers. It is about 4x the diameter of of a 210 power cord.
I’m hoping the petition drive is successful in stopping this, but I still think it could be stopped with a court order.
I encourage ANYONE who has had to deal with the crooks in code enforcement with the city to go to this page and submit your story. I think they are planning a class action, but don’t quote me on that. Read the story, it is astonishing what these city weasels do, and the sad part, I have heard this story multiple times in every kind of income level neighborhoods. They break the law by trespassing on your property and taking photos, etc. If there is a complaint, they have to go to a judge and get a warrant to go on your property and inspect, or better yet, they need to knock on your door and ask, and you can refuse them.
It’s so hypocritical of a city employee to break laws so they can cite you. UFCKBEL . . . .
I have been talking to friends of ALL political stripes about the shooting in the cities and what is law enforcement’s roll in it. I have been saying it for years, because it is true, cops are trained to LIE. They lie on reports, they lie in the witness box and they lie to your face. All cops are, are professional liars and little else.
I also find it ironic that it took me 20 years to get the city to tear down MX, and they only did half of it and told me the rest was in compliance. BULLSH!T! There needs to be a thorough housecleaning in that department come June. Some councilors believe they just need to change some ordinances and it will all work itself out. Are you F’ing kidding me? You gotta cut out the rot.
UPDATE: So DN decided to do another story about the Data Center, and they got it right this time;
The issue is what could happen to this land. Two items were decided for a data center. The vote to approve rezoning for the land paves the way for the data center. In another item, the preliminary plan for the gemini addition was originally voted down, then reconsidered, and passed with another vote.
See, when you actually WATCH the meeting, you see what happened, but the headline was misleading;
Out of order: attendees react to city council vote on data center
The only people out of order at that meeting was the city council for approving this and the TV media who didn’t even bother covering this. I also noticed the city has been telling the media this;
A spokesperson for the city says proper and legal protocol was followed.
Who is this ‘spokesperson’? The janitor at Carnegie Hall? I think it is funny that the city attorney can’t even be honest about being a source. Loser. Sure the law was followed, but it was fast tracked. This land should NOT have been annexed for another 16 years! And it gets done in a matter of months. Was it legal? Sure. But it sure is shaky as HELL and someone with deep pockets and lawyer friends could challenge this. And before the 1st reading I also questioned the legality of the compatibility study;
Notice it says N/A. That means there is no legal grounds to pass this. NONE! ZILCH! ZERO!
Reminds me of a fight at Carnegie in 2015 when they had an opportunity to approve a solar farm in this same area and at that time it was in the joint jurisdiction area and NOT annexed into the city. There was a huge pissing match about it between council and commissioners. It would have failed by ONE vote anyway, even if the city wasn’t involved because tie votes with the commission results in a failure. I think about this, because right now we could be enjoying electricity from this plot of land instead of sucking juice. Such a huge missed opportunity. At the time there were all these promises about building houses in that area and that is why they opposed it. Never happened, now we are facing a data farm.
I often tell folks that local politicians are HORRIBLE at predicting the future.
There is also a rumor swirling that more land adjacent to this site is being bought up to build an even bigger data farm. Folks are checking into this. If true it means the developer of this project hasn’t been honest with the public about expansion. I know shocker. Ironically he probably wanted to tell the public but maybe his bodyguard talked him out of it. Yes, the developer of the project had a bodyguard following him around at the meeting. That should tell you what kind of person this is. If you have to hire a bodyguard to go to a public meeting, it is pretty obvious what you do for a living 🙂 Chew on that one!
In other news, I may be bringing back the DaCola podcast. I may be recording a PILOT with some other podcasters in the coming weeks about the upcoming city election. Wish me luck. They built a studio so the podcast will also have video and posted on YouTube. If I told you who built the studio, you wouldn’t believe me 🙂
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I think it is time to recall them.
There is a discussion going on in the background (I am NOT involved) about doing a petition drive to overturn this, which is good. But getting 8K sigs in 20 days is a heavy lift that will take hundreds of volunteers, BUT, if they decided to do this, they should circulate multiple petitions, you are out there collecting anyway so here they are;
• Revoke the annexation of the Data Center land
• Revoke the rezone
• Revoke the site plan
• A recall petition on every city councilor and mayor
I think on the last one we have 90 days to collect.
It is time to send a message to the city’s elected officials, you are not doing your job and actually hurting citizens personal finances. It is one thing that they are getting bad advice from the city attorney but the corruption is overwhelming. Transparency could fix this crap overnight but they are so deep in the chamber honey wagon that will never happen. And when a city government can’t function and is corrupt it needs to be booted from office. I think it would be hilarious to see two of the councilors get voted out of office that never received one single vote to get in that office. Poetic justice.
And let’s talk about the corruption, like annexing land just so a data center could be built, this was in the works for months and the council knew it. Or when councilor Spellerberg recused himself on Tre after voting on all the other items related to it. HUGE ETHICAL violation, but the rest of the council just turned the other way. Or when Marshall Selberg perjured campaign finance forms and was ILLEGALLY living out of his district for a year!!!! They didn’t do a damn thing and now he is running for Mayor (we know how this will end for the Harford resident). I even was working with them on some code enforcement solutions and getting all public meetings on YouTube. And they just ignored me after I offered suggestions. This council and mayor have no interest in representing us, so it is time for them to go and they can go serve on the Chamber board where they belong.
WHY IS TRANSPARENCY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IMPORTANT?
This is the thing that bothers me the most about the council. Sure they do a ton of corrupt deals that grease their own wheels, but that is typical small town politics, it is the lack of transparency that fuels this corruption. The council knows they can’t be honest with the public because they would see all the backroom deals they are doing, and that scares them to death!!! I will give you a couple of recent examples of the council and city employees purposely covering up data in surveys so the citizenry doesn’t see how bad it is.
I filled out a copy of the Citizen Community Survey. I had one mailed to me, so I was a part of the scientific portion of the survey. They did another one online that anyone can take. I think they sent out around 4k surveys and had about 300+ respondents which is a pretty good percentage. I have been reading the final results of the surveys for the past 20 years. The city usually posts the reports online. This year was different. The comment section was missing. In the past they usually print some of the comments, positive and negative. This tells me most if not all were negative so they pulled them from the survey. I contacted the massive polling company that did the survey and requested the comment section. They have been giving me the runaround because they think I’m going to use the data nefariously. Nope, just gonna post it on my site. I told them 3 times in an email that I am a citizen of SF who took the survey and paid for the survey and I would like to have a copy of the comments. Still no response. In my last email I told them I was just going to contact management. I will get those comments 🙂
Another example is the missing survey files for the future of Frank Olson Park. I guess most surveyed said while they would like a new pool at Frank Olson, nobody wanted a bond (they said just pull from reserves) but instead the council bonded it even though the neighborhood was opposed, you know, like buying an old rec center that no one wanted. As I have said in the past, the bonding companies and contractors in town throw a bonding number at the city each year and makes them find a project to fit the dollar amount they want. They don’t care what it is. So the city conveniently hides surveys that paint a different picture. Don’t believe me, look at the budgets for the past 16 years, there is always a bond in there or a couple of projects we don’t need. Nobody wanted a rec center at Frank Olson except the bonding companies. And the survey says . . . .
Also, remember the GIFT of $1 Million from the Kirbys? At the presser the parks director said they could not spend the money to offset the bond. Guess why that is? Because the way the bond ordinance is written is that they cannot spend less then what the bond is only more, usually thru change orders. So basically the Kirby’s will be covering the cost of a nice sign and change orders. Thank you. But would they ever tell the public that bonds are not flexible? Why do you think we were forced to build the bunker ramp? We were bound by contract in the bond. We could have lawyered up and paid some fines and got out of it, but that would have required our mayor having something between his legs besides a fanny pack.
OUR LOCAL TV MEDIA IS IN THE BAG WITH THE CITY
After my rant last night at the city council meeting about our mentally challenged TV media I expected a story about the Data Centers, except they didn’t have anyone at the meeting, that was obvious when you read this sentence in the DN story this morning;
When the meeting resumed, a few votes had changed, but it was not enough to keep the measure from being approved.
LOL. Um, that is NOT what happened, but OK poli-sci major!
l3wis 
