Open Government

1st Amendment Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

Mayor’s ‘staff’ gets busted last night

l3wis November 5, 2025 1Comments

Besides all the lying going on about the Sioux Falls Parks Master Plan, to which councilor Sigette said that the administration was NOT being transparent, there was another item that stirred the pot. Item #34 was a resolution to surplus the city parking lot at 13th and 1st. At first glance, this seems like a good idea, since that space could accommodate a whole host of things. If I had a couple million to blow I would do a 4-story structure with a partial courtyard, retail on 1st floor and 3 stories of studio apartments. I would even encourage it to be ‘carfree housing‘ so you wouldn’t need to have parking. Most of these developments have a couple of grocery runner e-cars they can use for errands as rentals;

But I knew when this popped up on the agenda, the jig was up. It was pretty obvious to me and many constituents who showed up to testify that the city already had a buyer (it was confusing as to who this developer may be, but it has some involvement with the Shriners next door). It really doesn’t matter who is buying the lot, as Sigette said, the administration is NOT being transparent, not just about the parks but parking downtown.

Normally how these supposed hearings go is the city staff put it on the agenda under the radar, they bully the council into voting for it and keeping their mouths shut and the public is the only one that appears at the meetings knowing this is wrong and basically corrupt. Not so fast. The council reamed the parking and planning staff about this, to which the planning director had to admit there is an interested party and why they are doing it.

SO WHY DON’T YOU JUST SAY THAT!? WHAT THE F’CK IS SOOOOO TOP SECRET ABOUT SELLING A PARKING LOT?!

Because, corruption can’t help itself. The mayor’s ‘staff’ has been getting away with these insider deals so long ($100 million in no-bid contracts for example) that it is just second nature for them. They were caught red handed last night, and it was fun to watch the constituents and the council double team the ‘staff’ over this corruption and lies. It was about time, and I hope ALL council meetings moving forward are like this, calling out the obvious corruption and lies of the staff.

And while the discussion last night was contentious, I think the council was extremely professional on how they approached it (they looked like an entirely different council last night) this is how government is supposed to work. Staff is supposed to give the council and the public ALL pertinent information, if they do not, it must be demanded of them before any votes take place, this finally happened last night. Erica’s ‘staff’ uh, I mean, Paul’s ‘staff’ is officially on notice and I’m lovin’ it!

I think with the government shutdown, this is prime time to evaluate ALL public employees and not only their job performance but their integrity and ethics. I can handle a little laziness, what I can’t tolerate is lies.

1st Amendment Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

The City of Sioux Falls needs a Public Information Officer

l3wis November 4, 2025 3Comments

After having several individual discussions with councilors over the past few months about public input, libel and the city’s inability to live stream a video in YouTube it all came to a head at tonight’s meeting.

Mayoral Candidate David Z. came to the podium tonight and asked for some public information. He got nowhere and the council seemed confused also. I know I mentioned this awhile back, but the solution to these problems with transparency is for the city to hire a full-time public information officer who works for 3 entities; Law Office, City Council and Mayor’s Office. It would be preferable that this person had a law degree or is a paralegal. They would also have to have some marketing bonafides. Either way, this person would be the liaison to the media and the public when it comes to information. They would manage all pressers, media inquiries, constituent concerns, etc. They would also manage all of the city’s meetings making sure they are noticed correctly and the right materials are posted with the agenda. I would also like them to take on a side project of creating an information tab on the city’s website that makes it easy to find information, preferably on the front page (the current search engine is a gigantic POS*).

I used to think that many city employees just don’t care about following open meeting laws so they don’t.

But it is NOT that.

As I understand it, each department manager is responsible for their meeting’s agenda and with their other duties, they really shouldn’t be asked to be open government experts. I just think they don’t have anyone guiding them to do the right thing. If you had one or even two people in the city who were in charge of this, it would take a lot of stress off of these directors and managers that have other important work to do besides looking up open meeting laws.

*I don’t use the city’s website search engine, I learned another trick that works better; When you open Google type in; siouxfalls.gov: topic. In other words type the topic you are searching for like ‘building permits’. It isn’t perfect but it works much better then the city’s website. Good thing we paid almost $1 million for the upgraded website. We got taken to the cleaners.

1st Amendment County Commission Dean Karsky Minnehaha County Open Government Open Meetings

Minnehaha County Commission boots elderly couple for asking a question

l3wis November 4, 2025 0Comments

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.

1st Amendment Mayor TenHaken Open Government Open Meetings Sioux Falls

Will the next mayor of Sux will be handed a gigantic stinkin’ turd?

l3wis August 6, 2025 1Comments

As Poops’ term is coming to end, many directors and managers are announcing their retirement or resignation. Directors are leaving from most of the major departments and several assistant directors and deputies are also leaving.

First, the obvious question? Why are so many leaving throughout the organization? It is not uncommon for directors to resign after a mayor ends their term, some are just brought in for the administration and don’t expect to stay afterwards, but this many directors and management leaving after a mayor leaves is a bit suspicious.

There has been a lot of gossip and rumors from various sources that the city got investigated for financial reasons. I have heard a whole host of reasons why, but nothing solid, so I’m VERY SKEPTICAL this occurred (besides an ARPA audit), but it makes you scratch your head a bit when pretty much Poops entire administrative team is leaving with him. Are they gonna leave the next mayor holding the bag? What will the books look like? Good question.

There is a positive in all these resignations, the next Mayor will be able to pick their team, but this will take several months and hundreds of interviews. I would encourage the next mayor to hire a national recruiter to find qualified employees instead of depending on our internal HR department. But this will still make the first year of the mayorship difficult for the next mayor because they won’t have a permanent team in place when they are sworn in.

So what do these directors know that we don’t? Not sure. This has been the most secretive administration in the history of our city. Huether tried to cover up stuff, but he was really bad at it, Poops turned it into an art form, and if there is one thing he has accomplished it has been a militant closed government.

I hope the next mayor is transparent with the public and tell us what kind of damage the current mayor incurred upon us, but with being ‘SD NICE’ they will likely just sweep it under the rug and not look back. While I agree we shouldn’t dwell on past indiscretions, we should be told what they were, so the public can make sure we never elect or hire folks like this again. History is important, and if we don’t learn from it, well, you know what happens.

1st Amendment Curt Soehl Downtown Sioux Falls Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Chair doesn’t like being yelled at

l3wis April 9, 2025 4Comments

Curtist the Blurtist had a plan last night. He pulled an item from the consent agenda. The city was allocating $150K for two new ambassadors for DTSF. While I think it is awesome DTSF is creating jobs, I doubt the employees are making $75K each for the summer, but as DTSF says they need money for ‘training’. LOL. Why did Curt pull the item? Because he thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about the great thing these ambassadors are doing. Well, he was wrong. While our country is going into a tailspin because of a very stupid person, constituents are NOT happy, and they certainly won’t be happy about the city spending more money on the transient issue by spending more money NOT ON THEM!

So some constituents weighed in, and it wasn’t pretty. While they were certainly not friendly in their testimonies, they weren’t wrong. After the trip to the woodshed, Curt was unhappy so he said something like, “I didn’t know we were going to get yelled at . . .” First off, Curt, that is really your main job, listening to constituent complaints, and secondly if you want to POP off at constituents during a meeting you are VIOLATING a rule MMM put in place, NO CONSTITUENT INTERACTION WHILE THEY ARE AT THE PODIUM. So Curt, if you want to change the rules, which I am ALL for, to allow councilors to interact with constituents during public input, DO IT! But until that rule change is made I suggest you such your pie hole and take it like a big kid, or better yet RESIGN. Your disdain for public engagement is getting old, like you (as you pointed out in the meeting.)

Mayor’s ‘staff’ gets busted last night

The City of Sioux Falls needs a Public Information Officer

Minnehaha County Commission boots elderly couple for asking a question

Will the next mayor of Sux will be handed a gigantic stinkin’ turd?

Sioux Falls City Council Chair doesn’t like being yelled at

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UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Councilor could be facing ethics violations after tonight’s vote on Tre Ministries project

UPDATE: City Council Agenda (Dec 2-3)

Seems we are a we bit behind on snow plowing

Libertyland TIF should go to a vote of the entire state!