Fiscal Meeting NOT RECORDED again

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There will be no camera’s, no audio and no Fancy Feast at this meeting.

Sioux Falls city council’s fiscal meeting, chaired by Councilor Erpenbach will not be recorded for a second time.

**This working session of the Fiscal Committee will be held in the Carnegie Town Hall Multipurpose Room adjacent to the Council Chambers. The working session will not be audio or video recorded.**

It really makes no sense, because they have the meeting right next to the main hall where it could be recorded. As you know from OUR recording of the last meeting, nothing ‘special’ took place in the meeting for it not be recorded and live streamed on CityLink.

I’m not sure what point Councilor Erpenbach is trying to make by not recording these meetings, but this anti-transparency movement by her, the mayor, Kiley and Rolfing is just starting to look like childish games.

Sioux Falls 2018 Mayoral Race

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Anybody but this guy is fine with me

To be quite honest with you, I may stay out of endorsing or helping a candidate this time around. I had a discussion this weekend about the candidates possibly running;

Kenny Anderson, Greg Jamison, Jim Entenman, Darrin Smith, Rob Oliver and Michelle Erpenbach. I have also heard of about 2-3 ‘ghost’ candidates. Even disgraced former Deputy Secretary of State is getting into the speculation game;

But what I do keep hearing – and did so again tonight – is that former Republican Legislator Christine Erickson who had said “no” before might be softening her no into a “maybe.”  And it might be a strong maybe at that.

I’m glad Pitty Pudge could put down is double whopper for a moment and get with the times. I asked Christine about a mayoral run several months ago, and her response was that she was going to ‘keep her options open’.

It’s not that I don’t think any of these people are qualified for the job, I just don’t think any of them really stand out. And councilors have a horrible track record of winning the mayor’s seat.

I think the next mayor is going to have to be a true populist with economic savvy and an appetite for transparency and someone who is willing to invest in rebuilding our core while putting urban sprawl on hold. While the race is technically non-partisan, I don’t think a Republican or a Democrat can manage a city that way, it will take an open minded independent who is willing to listen to all sides of the table. They are going to have to also deal with the financial mess credit card Mike has left behind.

But to anybody who is willing to run, I wish them luck.

Some say simply ‘questioning’ Wiley’s business practices was out of line. Really?

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What short memories people have. Only four years ago, the city council threatened to pull a license for the Vault and put them on warning with a deferral when similar things were going on (city council meeting) and (My post on it) at their establishment that have been going on at Wileys. In fact, after watching the meeting (the discussion went on for 35 minutes), besides the diddling on the cars, the things going on at the Vault pales in comparison to Wileys. It came down to basically not supplying adequate parking. How many private parking spots does Wileys have? I count ZERO. It is also important to note that the Vault had 154 police calls in a 12 month period. In 10 months of this year, Wileys is up to 182 calls. The deferral meeting is here (FF: 11:00). If you watch the meeting, you will see councilors had several meetings with the Vault and the Police department before the vote. Councilor Jamison went on to say that these kind of ‘reviews’ of the establishments was important to establish a public record of the concerns. The council voted 7-1 to renew the license, Rolfing was the dissenting vote. I believe the Vault went out of business in 2013.

Also during the meeting, they try to beat down an immigrant c-store owner in Pettigrew Heights for letting people drink 40’s beside his store. The mayor even said this to the c-store owner’s attorney during the meeting;

“. . . it is the duty of the city council to review all liquor licenses that are up for renewal. If they want to complete some additional due diligence on any of these, whether it be the Vault, whether it be the Mercato or any of the other establishments that serve alcohol in this town, they have the ability to do that. In this case they wanted to ask some questions or do some additional due diligence on the Mercato before they make a decision on that, so before you start to accuse a councilor, or someone else for doing something that is appropriate or not, I would encourage you to use caution. .  .  . I would encourage you to tone it down a bit, the council has a right to ask questions.”

What a short memory our mayor has.

They also beat down a tattoo shop owner for simply wanting a beer license so he can sell during art opening events. And how many complaints has the shop had in the past four years? Not sure. But I would assume if it was major, we would have heard about it by now. I have displayed art at the shop and have attended many other events there. It was no different then an art opening at the Pavilion (which sells alcohol at their art openings). The council voted 4-3 to approve the license with Karsky, Rolfing and Aguliar dissenting.

Seems a bit hypocritical of Michelle and Mike to say they were embarrassed about the very short discussion last night, in which in the end 7 councilors voted to let them keep their license. Let’s talk about embarrassment. It’s embarrassing our city officials have such short memories when regulating liquor licenses.

I also find it ironic that Wiley’s attorney, Drew Duncan is a well known Municipal and State government lobbyist. Seems this story is a lot deeper then we may ever know.

If it saves us money in law enforcement, it makes sense

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Councilor Erpenbach must have had a cup of coffee and calculator at last week’s working session;

“The Bishop Dudley is open as an emergency shelter year round and the numbers of people that are using the facility are far and away what we thought they would be,” said Councilor Michelle Erpenbach, who along with Greg Neitzert wants to amend Mayor Mike Huether’s proposed budget to bolster the shelter’s funding to $120,000 next year.

Neitzert said increasing Bishop Dudley’s funding will allow the non-profit to serve even more than the 1,500 guests that used the facility last year, which he thinks will create organic costs savings in future years.

“They save us money by helping people who otherwise would be on the streets and left to all of our social services and police to deal with,” Neitzert said. “I believe they run a very wonderful and efficient service and they require accountability by making them work. … It’s not just a permanent hotel. They’re giving them a hand up, not a handout.”

I would agree with Greg, like the Safehome the county runs, taxpayers save money by housing the chronically homeless alcoholics because they no longer are draining emergency resources and filling up the jail. Of course, Mr. 500K to his private tennis club disagrees;

Huether, who did not attend the work session*, said he’s apprehensive about dedicating resources beyond traditional functions of municipal government.

“We really have to be cautious in spending dollars on programs that are outside of regular government operations or facilities, even though they may be doing good things,” he wrote. “It is so incredibly hard to have to say ‘no’ or ‘not yet’ to good folks and organizations, but it is also absolutely necessary if you are going to have good city government on solid financial ground.”

Trust me, I would much rather see my money spent on something else, but this facility is helping to keep people off the streets, so it is money well spent. Unlike $500K to Huether’s private tennis machine shed that has done ZERO to reduce crime and homelessness in Sioux Falls. What is going on out there anyway? We have never gotten a report.

*I wonder why the mayor didn’t go to the work session? According to B-n-B he is a council member, shouldn’t he be at these meetings?

Snowed by Council on Gates, Dec 18, 2012

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Remember when Michelle Erpenbach was Council Chair? This is a snowgate blast from the past. December 18, 2012 the Sioux Falls City Council was required by state law to set an election date because petitions had been filed with and verified by the City Clerk.

The City Council Chair pulled an interesting set of rules out of a body orifice to limit discussion. Kermit Staggers challenged the unknown and never before experienced or even voted on rule the Chair presented. To no big surprise to attendees, the 20 minute public silencing “rule” was used. The vote also was pushed to 2014 to no big surprise.

After this show of arrogance, the voters of Sioux Falls in 2014, slammed the Council and administration lies down by voting 76% to force the city to attach snowgates to plows for clearing snow.

We learned through these displays of misplaced priorities what to expect from the City Council and why we have worked so hard to reset Council processes to be more citizen first in 2016.