Yesterday we all got the same Amber Alert; 10 yr/old Native American Male, Joel Takenalive.
At first I didn’t think anything of it, until several news orgs were reporting what the Amber Alert actually said, which was incorrect;
I could only find two news organizations, who probably realized that his name was spelled incorrectly in the Amber Alert, spell his name correctly; Joel Tanken Alive, you know, because he is a Native American. I wonder if Joel would have been found sooner (thank God he is safe!) if they would have spelled his name correct in the Amber Alert? And how long did it take the other news orgs to realize the spelling error?
When I hear all this talk about law enforcement cooperation, I tell people they have to be transparent with us and we will work with them. The Devil is in the Details.
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.
UPDATE: HOLY SH!TTTTT!!!!! So the council votes for the rezone, BUT denies the development plan. Then at the end of the meeting they did a reconsideration then approved the plan. Cowards. I have never seen a council pull such a chickensh!t move ever. I have been watching these since Hanson.
I told the council tonight during public input that if they pass this, that they just don’t care. And they proved me right, 7-0 (Barranco was absent, SMART MAN!) They all got in line and voted on a rezone that they fast tracked this summer under the radar. And I loved that part, because I suckered the dipsh!ts into admitting what they did. During my input I told them that the vote was ILLEGAL because of the fast tracked annexation and that the people who live in that part of the county are NOT represented by them. Well that ruffled their feathers so they started throwing legal questions at Fiddle (I was giggling at home) after public input trying to justify the legality (I knew it was legal, I just wanted to hear the excuses). So during their GOTCHA period they had to admit they fast tracked this. Morons. They can’t even cover their tracks. As for a petition drive, a few people approached me tonight that they plan on doing one. So that is good. I also brought up during my testimony that our TV media in Sioux Falls is WORTHLESS because they waited until the day of the 2nd reading to do a story about this. The crowd was laughing. But I was serious. They suck and they are in the bag with city government, it is disgusting. But after the vote, the real fireworks happened, and I figured it would. As folks were walking out they called the council about every name in the book, and not the good book. Damn, I thot I was watching Chapelle. LOL. I also found it funny that when the council was justifying their votes they only talked about the tax revenue and not one single one of them brought up our rates going up. They also justified it because there are other data centers in Sioux Falls. REALLY?!? Yeah, those are clerical, NOT AI, big diffo. But hey, they almost saved the day by denying the preliminary plan, 4-3, then bringing it back and voting for it. You were almost ready to govern, maybe in a few months;
One last rant about the night, man I could do play by play with Lalley and have a blast about this meeting, this one is going down in the history books and please Cameraman Bruce, throw this one on YouTube. Anyhoo, before public input on the Data Center, Paul told people they had to say the name of the town they are from. No they do not, it is a violation of your 1st Amendment rights. He is clueless. Paul actually got his ass handed to him tonight from the public for once. Thank You. I think I’m going to do a best of clip, especially the part where he gavels clappers. Good stuff. Or when the very nice mom told Paul to check his quote with Kelo. LOL.
It was nice to see so many people show up last night and make relevant points. They got to see our ineffective city council and mayor at work(?). And what is up with Paul’s obsession with knowing who is dissenting him? It’s weird, it’s like he is stalking us. Can an entire city put a restraining order on him? LOL. Remember last year he admitted in a podcast that he looks at people’s FB profile if they make a negative comment on his page. Yeah, he’s that guy. Metro-Yeti Karen. Before last night I told folks I have lost all hope with this current council and mayor, they are living in la la land. I knew the lack of transparency in the city would eventually collapse in on itself and that happened last night, and notice, I didn’t see a single TV camera there, shocker. But at least they covered the other weasels giving themselves a ridiculous raise during this horrific economy. I hope our tone deaf Charter Revision Commission puts a similar raise proposal on the ballot for council and mayor so I can watch it fail by 80% of the vote, but these clowns still won’t get it, they’ll try again next year.
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This is just the re-zone. The company will have to have final plans approved by the planning commission and city council. As I have told advocacy groups and individuals, this is getting approved and the only way to stop this is with a petition drive, but I still question the legal authority of the Sioux Falls city council to pass this. This is NOT within city limits. In other words, the folks that live in this district (likely a township and NOT residents of Brandon or Sioux Falls) will have officials NOT elected by them making decisions about land use. It would be like the township board voting on a gas station re-zone within the northern most city limits of Sioux Falls. Not their jurisdiction, just like this is NOT. It is called the joint-jurisdiction area that still needs to be annexed in Sioux Falls. Until that annexation happens, the county and the township should have the final authority on this re-zone. I think there could be legal challenges to this as well as a petition drive. I know it would be complicated, but I think the petition drive could reflect a special election within the township this rezone resides. Probably only need 100 valid sigs.
WE WILL SEE ON WEDNESDAY MORNING
I’ll be waiting for all of these ‘supposed’ advocacy groups to present their petition Wednesday morning, but I am not holding my breath. I think they continue to beat their heads against the wall for job security reasons.
I think the thing that bothers me the most besides all the shady legal authority surrounding this rezone is our water and energy costs going up and our elected officials don’t seem to care. It is pretty sad.
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.
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?
l3wis 
