As I predicted the policy banning petitioners from certain areas of the courthouse grounds was unconstitutional, and a Federal judge agrees for now;
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a policy recently approved by the Minnehaha County Commission that would have restricted where petition circulators could gather signatures near two county buildings in downtown Sioux Falls.
I also predict the commission will cave on the lawsuit and this will never make the light of day in a courtroom. Unlike the city, the county isn’t real keen on fighting lawsuits, especially ones that have the constitution on their side.
While I do know the name of the former Republican Legislator who pushed a petitioner, I am keeping that under wraps for now just in case it becomes an issue in court.
Maybe our new auditor needs to read Kristi Noem’s book, because she could use some help in her second rodeo.
UPDATE: There has been a rumor circulating that this all came about because a PETITIONER filed a protection order against a former Republican State Legislator. I’m not going to finger him until I know for sure, but it seems like his style since he is MAGA and supports abortion without protections. I guess he pushed a (pro-choice) petitioner and that is why they filed the order. But what is bizarre is that the petitioner was the one being harassed NOT the people walking by the petitioners. Maybe the county needs to have a policy that protects petitioners from MAGgots.
While I have heard from others that they were being ‘harassed’ by petitioners I personally never have. I either say yes or no and walk off. People who have the impression they are being harassed would have never signed your petition anyway.
One will be in the Minnesota Avenue parking lot on the west side of the administration building, about 25 feet from the main entry where residents often enter to take care of automobile registration, voting and other county business.
The other will be adjacent to the county courthouse on the south sidewalk but away from the two stairways that lead to the main entryway.
I find it ironic those who claim to be on the side of Liberty, Freedom and Justice want to TRY to limit our Constitutional Rights. This is an obvious attempt at limiting petition gathering since this is one of the best places to gather signatures, and they know it.
I encourage any petitioner to ignore the rules and petition in front of the main entries and if threatened with arrest I would remind them you have a 1st Amendment Right to petition the government, especially on tax payer owned property. The County Commission and County Auditor do NOT have the constitutional authority to do this (that is why they call this a ‘policy’ and not a law or ordinance, because it is just a suggestion and they know it).
The County Commission ate it up and voted full authoritarian unanimously to limit the areas (FF: 24:00)
The short answer is YES, but it is complicated. I’m all for regulating this industry but we should probably only do some small changes instead of broad sweeping changes that will hurt the industry.
One thing to remember is that most of the people who manage and own short term rentals in Sioux Falls are local owners who use local contractors and local goods and services. In other words any capital made from these rentals is circulated back into the local economy unlike a franchised hotel.
Regulations for these short-term rentals would include:
A maximum occupancy of no more than three people per bedroom,
Requiring a minimum of one off-street parking space per guest bedroom,
The properties must be registered with the state as a vacation home,
And contact info for the owner/manager of the rental must be both submitted to the county planning department and displayed within the home.
I think two off-street parking spots is plenty. But instead of regulating how many people can stay in a room or how many cars can park there there should be regulations when it comes to registration of the property (state, city and county). There should also be quarterly health inspections, a small registration fee and a BID tax.
The city has just been mulling the idea, but there is talk they want to remove short term rentals from residential neighborhoods. First the obvious, if these are NOT in residential neighborhoods, where would they be? This of course would be an attempt to eliminate the short term rental business in Sioux Falls to delight of the hotel industry.
Short term rentals already have to follow the same ordinances as a homeowner or a long term rental so any other regulations would be above and beyond. But since this is a hospitality industry operating in Sioux Falls there should be a BID tax applied. All the other regulations are simply mushy-mash busy work bureaucrats cooked up.
The Minnehaha Planning Commission is looking to propose a clearer definition – and tighter regulations – for Airbnbs and other short-term vacation rentals in the county. Here’s what an early draft would mean for local rentals.
While I support some regulation, and many neighbors do also, I think some of the recommendations are extremely broad, ignorant and unneeded.
It would also create a separate conditional use permit specific to Airbnb-type rentals. That permit would have its own set of requirements.
I agree there needs to be registration, but it should be a simple filing fee of $50 or so, not $500 per year. I also think the city should piggyback on the proposal and impose quarterly health inspections to insure there are no issues with bed bugs, plumbing, HVAC, etc. just like hotel rooms. There should also be a county and city BID tax applied to such entities. But there are some pie in the sky proposals;
Vacation rentals can’t have more than two guests per bedroom.
There is absolutely NO way of enforcing this. Is the county and perhaps the city going to show up in the middle of the night to every single rental when they have a resident and make sure this rule is being abided by? Hell No! Making rules you won’t or can’t enforce reminds me of the tobacco ban in city parks or texting and driving. When you make a law, and ordinance or rule, you must also have a plan for enforcement, what is that plan?
Minimum parking requirements are one space per guest. (So, if you’ve got an Airbnb that sleeps 12, you need 12 parking spots minimum.)
This one made me bust up laughing. So if a family of 6 rents a place, they have to have 6 parking spots for the two adult parents and 4 children? Or the individual business traveler who takes and UBER to their destination? While I do support some kind of parking requirement, it should only be a minimum two spots per unit. I have used VRBO in the past, and their has only been ONE parking spot provided (that I didn’t use).
There is also NO reason to regulate this private property industry past health inspections and registration since the industry does a pretty good job of regulating BAD clients. You can’t just show up an hour before booking and move in, you have to be vetted by the the service providers and can be denied for any reason.
I have to say the reason I think short-term vacation rentals are so popular is because they are more affordable then hotel stays and my experience has been stellar. It’s like having your own condo on vacation without room service but the comforts of home. Here is a picture of my building patio view at my last VRBO which cost about 75% less then a hotel room miles from the beach.
I wonder if the MCC even did a nationwide study of what other cities and counties do, or if they just listened to some whiny neighbors on Wall Lake?
Short term rentals DO need regulation, but it should be applied in baby steps, and it should have a plan for enforcement.
I first saw this in the past city election and now with the failure of IM 27 that for some reason, Minnehaha County residents, mostly Sioux Falls, are not showing up to vote;
What the data does show, though, is a trend.
For whatever reason – likely, a complex variety of factors – the number of ballots cast in local midterm elections is increasing at a much slower rate than both the number of people registered to vote and the number of people coming to Sioux Falls in general.
Looking at turnout percentages, it also shows Lincoln County voters turnout at a higher rate than Minnehaha County voters and overall voters statewide.
Minnehaha County voters saw the steepest decline in turnout, dropping below the overall statewide turnout in the last decade.
I am not sure why more people are choosing to not vote in Sioux Falls, MC. I think the rhetoric over the past few years about your vote not counting is discouraging voters, we saw this with IM 27. I have no doubt in my mind that if it would have passed, the legislature would have gutted it to nothing, I think voters assumed that.
I have told people that if the county promoted more ways to absentee vote, the numbers would rise.
A heads up to a journalist who called me yesterday asking if I knew about THIS & THIS (he also wanted to know if I was at the meeting yelling in the background 🙂 I was not, only LOSERS do that).
I did know that there has been planning for it over the past 3 years but it was kind of a sticker shock considering they will have to bond for it (higher property taxes). While the City of Sioux Falls is throwing $10 million at a college for ‘landscaping and other stuff’ the county is borrowing money for kid jails. Maybe we could spend $60 million on an advanced tech mentorship program from DSU to public school students in Sioux Falls. Now that’s crime prevention. I’m sure Matt Paulson is all over it!
During regular public input at the beginning of the meeting several citizens spoke out about moving public input, including myself.
It was the last agenda item on the meeting and during that discussion they voted to move it to the end but did take Barth’s amendment to leave it at 5 minutes instead of 3. He was the dissenting vote.
I reminded the MCC that this was the public’s time and the word DISSENT is in the 1st Amendment.
I saw this coming when people concerned about election integrity and opposition to the CO2 pipeline started showing up to MCC meetings;
But having those comment sessions at the beginning of meetings delays other work. And members of the public who are at a meeting for a specific item have to sit through lengthier public comment sessions.
The new policy, which hasn’t been adopted yet, would also reduce comment from five minutes to three.
(See Former Mayor Mike Huether’s 9 minute public input at the MCC meeting as a private property owner)
They of course are using the tired old argument that the ONE person asking for a rezone has to wait through public input, as if the public’s sentiments are not important.
“When I started, we didn’t have a time constraint,” Commission Chairwoman Cindy Heiberger said. “People rarely came to talk to us.”
That has changed, particularly in recent months with people who doubt the county’s election integrity.
Besides lowering the time limit to three minutes, the new policy would forbid speakers from using electronic recordings in their presentations, and paper handouts would have to be handed out in advance.
The reason people rarely show up to the meetings is because you have them at 9 AM on a Tuesday morning when common folk are working, it has very little to do with people being HAPPY with county government, they simply don’t know what you do because you conduct your business in non-opportune time slots and take days to post the replay of the meeting.
Commissioner Jeff Barth, who is soon to be retired from the commission, said the status quo has worked “pretty well” in his two decades as an observer and member of the commission.
“The fact that there has been some abuse in recent times isn’t a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said.
But that is what authoritarians do. When a couple of supposed bad apples show up and actually DISSENT the government their first reaction is to squash that dissent. The Sioux Falls City Council literally changed their public input policy because ONE person called the mayor an SOB, guess what, that person still comes and speaks at the meetings. You accomplished nothing except disenfranchising the rest of the public who have legitimate dissent.
As I have told the council in the past, general public input isn’t for birthday announcements and back patting it is to make our representative government aware of issues in the community. Sometimes those issues don’t have cute names like ONE, 52 or 437.
The more you limit the public to express themselves the more out of touch our government becomes.
I have heard from a couple of reliable sources that the aggregate company that wants to buy the fairgrounds has been circulating a presentation on different concepts of what to do with the old quarry once they leave it and start using the fairgrounds quarry (if the sale is successful). One concept is a quarry lake hotel like they recently opened in China. It is probably highly unlikely since it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct and somewhat funny that they are even throwing the idea around. As I told someone about the concept, “It’s kinda of like what we were promised with the Denty and instead we got a polished (dented) turd.”
The below information was sent to me by Mike Zitterich (he notated where he got it)
Depending on what county and school district you live (within city limits) your debt could be anywhere between $2,000 and $3,000. My debt is $2,100 (Minnehaha, SFSD, City)
The day to day stress of being a police officer can be difficult to manage. Which is why the Sioux Falls Police Department is developing a new program to help officers with their mental health.
It's an exciting time at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls. Not only is it celebrating its 60th anniversary, the zoo is also celebrating the births of six new red wolf puppies.
