Mayor Pants on Fire

Sioux Falls City Councilor Pat Starr did the right thing

Sure, we can discuss the minute details about how Pat handled this (did he walk out at the right time? Was it professional? etc., etc.) but when you look at the BIG PICTURE something I reminded the council to do when looking at the parking ramp project to begin with, I think Pat walking out was the right thing to do, especially since he had no other options. The Mayor and Kiley already said there would be no more input, could Pat really have gotten the rest of the council to overturn it? Probably not.

As Tim Stanga brought up during the meeting (and Belfrage discussed it on his show today) the council’s minds were already made up before the meeting even started.

What was disappointing the most about the input about the ramp itself was the fact that we heard NO testimony from the developers, we also had NO testimony from the city’s legal counsel about the liability of Hultgren and Drake.

It was obvious that the mayor wanted to bury the hatchet as quick as possible, it was obvious when he was acting like a restless child when Stehly brought forward amendments.

But what is more troubling is that Kiley and Huether reaction to Starr’s statement that he is the one being ‘unprofessional’. The entire council and mayor BESIDES Starr acted like complete children throughout the meeting, as I have pointed out earlier. I don’t blame Starr for not wanting to be a part of it. I also applaud him that his name will not appear on any of the documents or votes on the project (that I think will never happen due to lawsuits, lack of investors, bankruptcy OR all of the above – remember, the developers have already said they have no investors yet, or a hotel franchise).

Huether and Kiley were acting like jackasses when it comes to public input, as they normally do, and they finally got called out on it. If anyone should be embarrassed it should be them. Honestly Starr looks like a Star in this manner.

Huether learns nothing from secret siding settlement. Shocker!

As I warned the council weeks ago, if they didn’t censure the mayor or ask him to resign for blatantly lying to the public about the secret siding settlement, no lesson would be learned and precedent would be set.

Well it was set.

Today on the B-N-B show the mayor said this, (paraphrasing) “We (the administration) should hammer out deals behind the scenes to get crap done.” Basically saying proposals should be negotiated in secret with the council before presenting it to the media and public.

Since the council chickensht’d out (all of them) the Chief Liar continues to peddle his secretive government even bragging how he only needs four votes from the council to get things done.

Councilors Stehly and Starr will be on the Belfrage show at 8 AM, Wednesday to debate the B.S. Lying Mike spread this morning in Greg’s studio, and to specifically talk about the Parking Ramp boondoggle (please bring up Mr. Building Collapse, Aaron Hultgren is signing a contract with the city) and they will talk about “Getting Crap Done” behind a veil of secrecy as the mayor says is done in the ‘Corporate World’. He still hasn’t figured out he works for the public and not T. Denny.

UPDATE: Disgraceful

Tonight before the city council meeting councilor Stehly talked to a boy scout troop about city government, neighborhood watch and than asked the troop to pay close attention to public input as it was an important part of city government.

Shortly after a usually long public input that the mayor tried to ignore, he ran after the Boy Scout troop to see them on their way in the outer room.

Joe Sneve from the Argus tweeted this about the encounter;

So while Stehly seems to see the importance of the 1st Amendment and citizens petitioning their government during public input, the Mayor turns around and tells a Boy Scout troop that it is a ‘circus’. You wonder just how confused they must have been. Leave it to the mayor to call a constitutional right a circus. What a putz.

UPDATE: Joe corrected me today, the mayor didn’t use the word ‘circus’ but something along that sentiment when apologizing to the Boy Scouts.

Reducing Rail Traffic was part of Munson’s 2005 RR redevelopment plan

There seems to be some detractors when it comes to what I have been saying about reducing the rail traffic downtown after we took possession of the RR redevelopment land. I will apologize on one level where I was wrong. First off, I was unaware that two tracks would remain under Munson’s plan and secondly that this was mostly about the redevelopment. Those two items did not change under Huether’s plan. But Munson did want the rail traffic to reduce, substantially under his 2005 plan;

Sioux Falls Mayor David Munson says, “For any development we want to do moving those tracks is very important.”

Plus, the mayor says moving the tracks is an issue of safety. Traffic wouldn’t be backed up nearly as much anymore. And if a train were to derail while carrying hazardous material, it wouldn’t happen in the center of a growing city.

Munson says, “We’ve seen recently trains that have leaked, they’ve had to evacuate areas so we’re trying to stay ahead of that here.”

Ironically, these hazardous train cars are still parked several days a week next to Nelson Park only hundreds of feet from the Sioux River on the South and a kid’s skate park and swimming pool to the North.

In fact the RR has stated that rail traffic would NOT be reduced under Huether’s plan. They have stated that the trains will become shorter BUT more frequent. They were not kidding. As I have noted they have become a lot more frequent over Cliff Avenue next to Avera Hospital during noon and rush hour times. One of the factors that I can see is instead of using the old switch yard that is gone now, they are re-hooking and switching train cars in the area just North of Avera’s employee/overflow parking lot. They are also parking a lot more train cars in that area.

Also, under Munson’s 2005 plan, Mark Cotter felt that rail traffic and switching would reduce so much they could eventually tear down the 10th street viaduct;

But getting the switching yard moved could dramatically reduce the size of the 10th Street viaduct in years to come. “Twenty-five years down the road, when the viaduct needs to be reconstructed, we can bring in dirt,” Cotter says, because the viaduct no longer would have to span an entire switching yard. “Roads are cheaper to repair than bridges,” Cotter says.

I wonder if that is still the plan to tear down the viaducts in 2030?

As you can see, the original vision did include the redevelopment of the banana land and leaving two RR tracks, BUT it also envisioned reducing rail traffic significantly throughout downtown which apparently was left out of Huether’s plan.

 

UPDATE: Mayor Grump Toad presides over the city council meeting

After several homeless advocates and homeless people showed up for public input tonight, it seemed MMM was not in the mood for Bruce and I. After cutting off one of the homeless fellars he introduced Bruce (seen above) in a cocky manner and later cut him off before the time was up. When a couple of us in the crowd protested councilor Kiley motioned to the security.

They never did anything, but I have a feeling they have been talked to.

The mayor wants to destroy public input before leaving office.

The battle lines were drawn tonight.

UPDATE: KELO AM even noticed the drama last night;

The vitriol did end there. Scott Ehrisman ended his input by saying, “a lot of us come up here and talk every week, we don’t come up here to entertain you, we come up here to inform you.” That comment was a reference to another comment made by Huether during a previous public input session, when in between speakers the Mayor asked “would anyone else like to entertain the Council?”