South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Minnehaha County

County Commission Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

Minnehaha County Commission and Sioux Falls City Council Joint meeting over a Barn on a dirt road

l3wis 3Comments

You gotta love it when Councilor Kiley’s strategy of telling half the story gets shot down. He often tells only partially what is going on to support his argument. Last night he tried to compare a wedding barn facility in rural Minnehaha County on a dirt township road to wedding barns annexed into the city limits. The problem is he left out the part they were annexed in the city limits. He also did this a few weeks ago when he tried to accuse councilor Starr of saying firefighters stand around too much. Starr did say that, but he wasn’t referring to fighting fires he was talking about mutual aid with calls of service for ambulance. In the past they had to wait for our rinky dink ambulance service to show up before administering care, now they are allowed to assist before they arrive eliminating them ‘standing around’ on ambulance calls. Kiley has been pulling his ‘half the truth’ arguments so long, he just can’t resist, unfortunately for him he failed last night and the rezone was approved. He probably told friends and colleagues after the meeting that he still prevailed because some of the votes were the same as his 🙂

Also the FAA told the private airport folks no dice. I knew they would, it’s just too close to other residential areas and as Greg Jamison pointed out the FAA says it would cause flight pattern issues with the main Sioux Falls airport. I guess those poor rich folks will still have to drive the whole 3 miles in their Range Rovers to Tea Town. I feel so bad for them . . . maybe we should start a Go Fund me for a valet service?

I also made some comments on agenda item #5 and some other ones about panhandling and TIFs during public input. I have been throwing around the idea of taking panhandlers to the neighborhoods our elected officials live in and let them ask for money there. That would be fun to watch.

Corona Virus County Commission Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

Shell email circulating to local politicians

l3wis 10Comments

This same content email has been sent multiple times to different local officials over the past week, the only thing that changes is the greeting and the signature;

Dear M——,

As your constituent and your boss, I demand that you do everything in your power to ban Vaccine Mandates and Passports. This is an unconstitutional deprivation of liberty without due process and is a critical issue to me. It is unconscionable that Americans freedom of movement would be threatened in an attempt to coerce people to get vaccinated, even as Anthony Fauci is urging masks be worn by the vaccinated and unvaccinated. I’ll be watching how you vote.

Sincerely,

I can tell you from talking to one of the elected officials who got this, there was some frustration, but if you want to make a point, you should probably write your own email instead of copy and pasting from InfoWars.

As for vaccination mandates, by private employers, I don’t agree unless you work in a critical field like healthcare, education, public service, transportation and food processing. I also think it goes against worker rights, especially in a right to work state like South Dakota, ironically where an employer can fire you for any reason, vaccination requirement or not. Employers in SD have the right to have ANY requirement, uniforms, shoes, or shots. While I think anyone eligible should get the vaccination, and if you don’t you are freaking moron (you really are) I don’t think your employer should be telling you what to do when it comes to your health. Besides, if your employer has to tell you this, they really should consider what kind of people are working for them 🙁 Trust me, I understand some people can’t get get the vaccination. I have several friends who have been told by their doctors not to get it. Most of those cases have to do with Cancer and blood clots. But a vast majority of Americans are eligible. As of today 96% of American doctors are fully vaccinated. If you don’t like your employer telling you what to do, be smart and go get a shot and you can avoid all this crap, oh and you might live.

Minnehaha County Sioux Falls

Is the Minnehaha County Jail still flooding?

l3wis 3Comments

This is an UPDATE from a story I did in March. I thought by now the wrangling between the County and the City was solved. I guess not. According to one of my moles they still haven’t figured out a solution and who should pay for it. I guess the jail continues to flood and it is getting worse. Now some of the windows are also supposedly damaged from the flooding and it is getting worse.

While it certainly doesn’t surprise me that local governments want to squabble over who is at fault and who should pay for this, I am wondering if they both understand that the money comes from the same pot, but like I said back in March, the engineer and contractor of this project are certainly the ones that should pony up.

This update also surprises me because for months our local media has been silent about it, though when you talk to people who work at the jail or even former inmates ‘everybody knows’ it is a problem.

Minnehaha County Planning Commission Sioux Falls

Joint Minnehaha County / Sioux Falls Planning Commission votes against small addition to wedding barn due to city greed

l3wis 8Comments

An official called me Monday night after the joint meeting in which the commissions were voting on an additional building to be added to the property of the wedding barn by the Veterans Cemetery. The applicant wanted to add a smaller building to the property for smaller receptions for funerals at the cemetery.

The MCC voted unanimously to approve, the SF Planning voted 3-2 to not approve because they felt the applicant needed to pay multiple platting fees for the building on one piece of property.

Commissioner Johnson made the same motion for the city planning commission to approve the
Rezoning #21-01 request. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Kittams. Commissioner
Luetke commented that he would be voting against the request because he believes everyone
should go through the same process. A roll call vote was taken and the motion was rejected with
3 votes against the motion and 2 votes in favor of the motion. Commissioners Norman, Luetke,
and Paulson voted against the motion and Commissioners Johnson and Kittams voted in favor of
the motion.

You must also remember this is in the joint jurisdiction area and many city services are NOT provided out there. The multiple platting fees would make sense if this was a well developed area, but it is not.

It is time for Minnehaha County to revoke their joint jurisdiction agreement with the city and let county residents who don’t live under the dictatorship of the City of Sioux Falls to be FREE.

The item will move onto the full council and commission.

County Commission Medical Mary Jane Minnehaha County SF City Council Sioux Falls

1,000 foot setback for Med Cannabis dispensaries is ludicrous

l3wis 4Comments

Most setbacks for facilities like this are 300 feet. But the IM 26 task force is suggesting 1,000 feet from parks, schools, churches AND residential. One cannabis advocate said to me, ‘That means NO dispensaries basically anywhere in Sioux Falls. Not on Minnesota Avenue or 41st street.’ They also pointed out to me that when they looked at a map and did a GIS approach to the setback they could only find a couple of spots in Sioux Falls.

The rumor going around is that Mayor TenHaken is the one who instructed the task force to make the setback so strict. I still don’t understand how we continue to allow Sioux Falls Mayors to stick their noses in policy issues. He is violating city charter.

As I have told the mayor and council publicly, your views on the morality of using legal cannabis is NOT your problem. You must uphold the laws on the books and not make it so difficult to distribute a product that the voters of South Dakota deemed legal.

I expect several lawsuits challenging the setback if passed. I also expect it to be passed, because that is what authoritarians do. I also think there could be a petition drive in Sioux Falls to change the setbacks in city ordinance.

And with the delay in the verdict on Amendment A, I don’t expect the SD Supreme Court ruled in favor of it. I think they will agree with the lower court. You also have to remember that the high court takes the summer off, so don’t expect a verdict until this Fall.

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