Besides the potential Open Meetings violations at last Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, it seems Kiley was participating in some very strange behavior.
If a City Councilor has a conflict of interest with an item, they must recuse themselves and go in the back room. They must do this AT THE ANNOUNCEMENT of the item and not return until after the final vote. They can’t sit there and listen and then leave before the vote. They must ALSO tell us why they are leaving. Kiley didn’t do that.
My assumption was it was done to save the mayor from having to have a tie vote on Neitzert’s Amendment that Kiley saw in advance*.
Watch how this plays out on Item #40, resolution on development.
(FF 21:20) Kiley doesn’t leave at the beginning, and Erickson whispers something into his ear.
(FF 1:06) Kiley is still sitting on the dais and leans into Erickson and says something as Neitzert discusses his amendment. Between 1:06 and 1:10 he leaves the dais and goes into backroom before the Amendment vote of 4-3 saving the Mayor from breaking a tie. Kiley doesn’t return until after final motion vote and the announcement of the next item.
So Ricky Lee, seems like an interesting time to take a potty break? Talk about blatant corruption and scammery.
But that wasn’t the only time Ricky was up to his little bag of tricks with the help of his magician assistant Heels. *(FF: 2:38) While Neitzert gave an advance notice (several days) of his Garbage Hauler amendment, Ricky did not. It has been ruled in the past by the city attorney that councilors should give a 24 hour advance notice, they have called councilor Starr out on it. So Pat asked Ricky Lee about it and said he could do it because Pat did it in the past to which Pat responded sarcastically, “Yeah, I’d be happy to take credit for it.”
FF this Newshour from yesterday to 12:00, it is fascinating the kinds of hoops they make people jump through across the country to sell a harmless plant. The story is about discrimination against minorities who want to own dispensaries, but there are similarities with what we are going through because the fanatics we have in government want to continue the pointless war on marijuana.
While the replay is working just fine, when it streamed on the city’s FB page it didn’t start until about 11 minutes in. Even when they are streaming on social media they can’t get the video to work properly.
While Paul did introduce the council, he didn’t take a roll call vote, I wonder if you can even do an official meeting like this;
Section 3.03Â Mayor’s duties and responsibility.
The mayor shall, at the beginning of each calendar year, and may at other times give the council information as to the affairs of the city and recommend measures considered necessary and desirable. The mayor shall preside at meetings of the council, represent the city in intergovernmental relationships, appoint with the advice and consent of the council the members of the citizen advisory boards and commissions, present an annual state of the city message, and perform other duties specified by the council and by article III. The mayor shall be recognized as head of the city government for all ceremonial purposes and by the governor for purposes of military law.
I was pleasantly surprised when he raised an initiative about cleaning up the core, something I have suggested for over a decade. While he was short on details, I welcome it. I asked a couple of councilors if they knew anything about it and they said notta. I would still like to see tax rebates in the initiative, but I will wait for details. While it is good he is working on it, it really should be the job of the city council to push this policy (kind of their job). I know that councilor Brekke has been working on this for several months and it is good to know the mayor has been listening. I don’t care who takes credit for good ideas, as long as they help the city.
He also proposed a Mayor’s Youth Council, while a worthwhile endeavor, telling us he wants input from the youth of the city, I’m wondering when he is going to get input from the adult taxpaying voting citizens? This same mayor has done ZERO coffees, cracker barrels or listening and learning sessions with citizens in his first term. He also moved public input to the back of the council meetings. He may want to hear from the kids in town, but not the adults.
TIFILICIOUS IS GETTING MORE TIFFY
I Also heard today that more TIFs for Downtown developers is coming down the pike in the area around Cherapa Place and the Railroad Redevelopment area. Brace yourselves. I’m still baffled why we are giving out TIFs when this city has a 2% unemployment rate and an affordable housing crisis with building permits going thru the roof. Developer welfare in the shape of growth for growth sake.
COUNCILOR NEITZERT ADMITS TO TRYING TO STALL MEDICAL MARIJUANA IMPLEMENTATION
Not sure how a city councilor can inject themselves on county initiatives or state initiatives, but Greg has;
Sioux Falls City Councilor Greg Neitzert has been researching licensing, locations, and even the number of dispensaries in the city.
“We need to do something in the interim, it wouldn’t be a moratorium, but something is so that we could wait until we have regulations because we don’t even know what the regulatory framework is going to be the counties have to wrestle with this as well are they going to allow people to grow marijuana in the county, that’s their decision, they’re gonna have to decide on that. But cities are also gonna have to make that same determination as well. So we both have our own jurisdictions and then we have our joint jurisdiction. So that’s where we need to work together,†said Neitzert.
Neitzert says he has briefed Mayor Ten Haken on his findings. Whether the city or the county will be ready for the legalization of Medical Marijuana, is yet to be seen.
State law dictates that city’s have to follow those laws. As Commissioner Barth points out;
Barth is frustrated in what he believes to be the stalling of working out the details.
“So, the powers that be, want Minnehaha County to put a moratorium on medical marijuana operations. Now they’ve had since last November, to try to get their ducks in order. They didn’t in fact they did everything they could to prevent it from moving forward. And now we’re getting to the tenth hour, and they’re asking us to take the hit because they have refused to do their job,†said Barth.
Of the fifteen years, he’s been a commissioner, this is the first time he’s seen a template to assist the county to write an ordinance.
“If it just goes into effect. Coming up on July 1 That’s the way it goes,†said Barth.
He is exactly correct, get your poop in a group and figure it out.
Minnehaha County Commissioner Jeff Barth informed me yesterday that Sioux Falls City Councilor Neitzert, Mayor TenHaken, Minnehaha County States attorney Dan Haggar and Sioux Falls City Attorney Stacy Kooistra have been cooking up a proposal with the help of the Municipal League to ask the Minnehaha County Commission to put a Moratorium on Medical Marijuana Dispensaries until after January 1, 2022.
They do have some fair arguments. First off the July 1st implementation of the law is quickly approaching and the city and county has yet to set up licensing fees and licenses for these establishments. So instead of having secret meetings, how about trying public meetings to get the job done?!
While it is fair to say that they can ask for a small delay, those delays are usually only good for 30 days.
Barth told me he would NOT vote for it if it did get on the agenda and also told me he trying to make sure it is not done in the dark of the night in an executive session.
The biggest issue with this is that we have known since November that this is legal and the Governor’s office and legislature farted around way too long.
They need to get it in high gear and figure out how it will be regulated by the state, ASAP, and the county and city need to move fast and determine the licensing instead of having secret meetings about how they want to delay this.
What baffles me is that Medical and even Recreational is inevitable, and instead of dragging our feet we must act as elected officials to make sure this is implemented July 1st because of the will of the voters.
Hopefully we will hear more about this idiotic move in the coming week. I do know that Barth has been talking with both TV stations about the issue.
UPDATE: A South DaCola foot soldier told me today that they heard an interview where Paul said he intends to run for a 2nd term as long as his COS, Erica Beck, is on board and she said she would stay on. I had to chuckle a bit, because Paul has to keep her on board if he serves a 2nd term, because she is the one running the city.
With about a year away from the 2022 municipal elections I’m sure most people have other things on their mind. For instance, Curt Soehl is also up for re-election as the Central District councilor, but he doesn’t have to announce for awhile, and I think that race will be quite crowded.
It seems strange to me that Paul hasn’t said one way or another if he is running again. He wouldn’t need some big news conference, just a simple press release saying he will or will not run again. At the very least, just to raise money.
If I was a betting man, my guess is that he will seek a 2nd term AND will beat his closest competitor in a landslide. I also think Paul knows the job is gravy train, that is why he pays his COS $177K a year to run the city for him while he makes supposed side developer deals with inside information. It’s win-win for everyone.
If he decides to NOT run again, my guess is there would be a long list of people that would think about running like Huether, Erickson, Neitzert, Jamison and Stehly.
If Paul does announce he is running I’m not sure if he will have any serious contenders, and it will sure be fun watching him debate David Z.
l3wis 