Update: the meeting was cancelled because it was not properly posted.
I was forwarded the agenda by an official, but when you go to the city website, the agenda is NOT posted.
As of 3:40 PM, July 25, 2021
I’m not sure if they legally can have the meeting since the agenda is NOT posted on the city website (24 hours in advance). I’m sure they will argue like they did in the past that the agenda is available upon request, but I still think it should be on the city website. We will see if the meeting happens.
After an incident over the weekend where SFPOs were caught cussing out suspects, the Chief of Police claims there is nothing to see, move along. As I have been saying for years, further proof we need body cams, but as he said last week, no policy changes. Shocker. They also need some diversity training and paid physical fitness time.
Sales taxes are in the crapper, but no surprise. As about 15% of the workforce in Sioux Falls lost their jobs and nobody was spending any money – we saw this coming. I just hope the budget hearings that start tomorrow prepare for this.
Speaking of money, the city could get up to $41 million in Covid money but Mayor Multi-task doesn’t think we need it. The covid crisis is far from over, and as you noticed, the cases in SD remain on an even keel and are NOT going down. If this continues into the fall and winter, we may need some of that money to combat the crisis further. Nothing wrong with planning ahead, wait, this administration doesn’t know what that means. Let’s just keep the libraries and pools closed, that’s the ticket!The Public Transit board met today but no one really knows what is on the agenda because it wasn’t posted on the agenda page. Of course this is a violation of open meetings laws not having the agenda posted (except in this mysterious zoomdocument). But they have been violating those rules for a couple of years now, why do anything differently?
UPDATE: I have been hearing from several sources and city officials that the on-demand service may never happen. The first problem is that the guy who cooked it up left. The second problem is that many in the innovation office are dropping the ball, and skipping important meetings. Thirdly there isn’t any real funding for the program in the transit fund for it, so they will have to subsidize it somehow. And lastly the union representing SAM says there is no deal on running a pilot on Sundays unless their contract is revised. They basically are saying if anyone would be willing to work, it would be like holiday pay. But the biggest problem is they really don’t have enough staff to administer it. So if all of these issues are solved, they will pretty much have to contract with another private transportation provider to accomplish the pilot program. My guess is this thing will die quietly in the night. Oh, and the below meeting has yet to publish their agenda online, which will be a violation of State Law. That seems to be a habit lately with the city, and the Sioux Falls School District, who didn’t have ANY public input at any of their public boundary task force meetings. I think it is time to start filing some complaints with the Open Meetings Commission. They could probably have hearings for about a week with all the violations.
The Advocacy Collective will be doing a presentation at the PTAB (Public Transit Advisory Board) meeting, Monday, February 24th, at 3:45 at the new City bldg. Â
The presentation will be in support of enhancing our current fixed-route system vs. implementing an on-demand system which is scheduled for a pilot project this summer..
I know, I know….. ‘the train has already left the station’, esp. with PTH wanting to promote the on-demand system as ‘his plum project’ for the Harvard Bloomberg Initiative. In spite of this, we will be continuing to speak out against this ill-conceived revamping of our public transit.
Many in our community are not even aware this major redesign of Sioux Area Metro is taking place. We have been speaking out (PTAB meetings, Stehly Report, etc.) for the past several months. Those who will be part of the presentation Monday are individuals who have amassed decades of advocacy for SF vulnerable populations. These are the people who have had ‘boots on the ground’ for many years working with segments of our city’s population who are reliant on SF public transit for both their work and personal lives.
The meeting will take place at 231 N. Dakota Avenue across the street from the Downtown Public Library.
After the summit, TenHaken created a Department of Innovation and Technology, hiring as its leader Jason Reisdorfer, who had previously worked in sales. Reisdorfer got to work on redeveloping the city’s transit system. Among the city workers he and TenHaken picked for the Core Team, only one had previous transit expertise. The diverse team included a firefighter, a police officer, a librarian and a health care worker.
“We didn’t want to have a bunch of people in the same room who said, ‘This is how we’ve always done it,’ “ Reisdorfer says.
So he headed this team up with a former tool salesman (who BTW just quit) that came up with a plan that has failed in other communities across the continent. Seems like a good thing for the AARP to write about.
TenHaken allowed the team freedom to work on its own. “When a mayor gets involved in any sort of meeting, his or her voice trumps any other discussion in the room,†he says. But his presence was felt. The team communicated using a messaging app, and TenHaken frequently chimed in with uplifting emojis.
That’s because one of the first things PTH did as a Mayor was give his COS executive authority so he could jet set all over the country and world. As of right now I guess he is in Haiti trying to set up more missionaries over there with a team of local bankers and businessmen. While I am all for charitable work, all the mayor has to do is drive about a mile east from his city hall office to Whittier neighborhood and see people right here in our community that need charity and help.
If the pilot works, part of the bus fleet would be replaced with vans and cars.
TenHaken embraced the idea, but also the possibility that it might not work. “We’re experimenting and we’re innovating on a very public stage,†he says. “The alternative is to do nothing at all.”
And it won’t work, or it will work but help very few people. There is an alternative, fix paratransit and the fixed route system first, get ridership up and make it more affordable, than screw around with taxi apps.
The MPO is holding this meeting on Tues. January 14th from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at the Downtown Library.
I also received this email about some of the plans for public transit in Sioux Falls, and concerns (I edited the content to be more specific);
The Planning Department suggested to have bus rapid transit from downtown to the Events Center and than to the Pentagon FARE-free, for conventioneers, sports fans, tourists, but NOT our most fragile residents.
As I have mentioned before, we must first fix paratransit and make it easier to use, faster, city-wide, and yes, more affordable before we start tackling who can get to the dead zone called the Events Center campus or a Skyforce game. It seems this town has plenty of money for those who already have the means to pay for their own transportation but not for the less fortunate. Do I think public transit for everyone should be totally FREE? No. But I do think we can provide better service and make it extremely affordable to almost FREE. We need to concentrate on the economic impact of public transit and getting people to work. If we can provide an efficient, hassle free and affordable way to get people to work the economic impact of it would pay for itself. While we are dinking around with TIFs for parking ramps and bailouts of historical movie theaters we are neglecting the people who make this city spin, OUR WORKERS of every economic stripe and status.
When Mike wants something, he will say about anything to get it. He keeps bringing up the fact that we need to raise fees, especially on public transportation and Paratransit. He points out that the Feds give the city about $13 million a year for several different programs, then he makes the hysterical comment that we ‘should pay for these things ourselves’.
Let remind my conservative friends who think the Federal government is going broke (and now that Mike is a Trump loving Indy) that it doesn’t really matter. WE pay Federal Income Taxes for Federal programs, and I am sure it is WELL over $13 million a year in Sioux Falls. When the Feds ‘Give’ us money, it is OUR money.
But what I find hypocritical is that the same mayor didn’t blink an eye when FEMA gave us $10 million for the ice storm or $27 million for the RR track land that is worth about $2-4 million.
Which brings us to his continuous rant about Paratransit costing $30 a ride.
You want to know why? Inefficiencies. I don’t think or believe Paratransit has upgraded their dispatch system for probably over a decade. And why would they? When you had the cash cow called the Feds funding most of your program, inefficiency means you can charge more.
I will defend MMM on one thing, it’s time to start finding a way to save taxpayers money on Paratransit.
I did some rough 30 minute research on what a taxi company makes on rides, expenses, etc. Then I looked at the Paratransit route system in Sioux Falls. Even if we gave only one way rides to one person on transit system like a cab, and used a similar old school dispatch system, it shouldn’t cost more then $12 a ride. Now let’s say we put in a super modern dispatch system that picked up multiple riders at once we could probably get that number down to $4 or $5 a ride.
There is obviously some efficiency problems with Paratransit, so why punish the riders with higher fees? That’s business acumen for yah!
ArtMaze, one of the better parts of Sioux Falls life in 2016
2016 has been a rough year for citizen activism. While it has been up and down here in Sioux Falls with many successes and failures to boot, it seems Washington DC has gone into full collapse as we allowed racist, sexist, hillbillies to elect our president.
But locally there were three things that stood out;
• Governor Daugaard claiming that voters were ‘hoodwinked’ into voting for IM 22, then getting the Pierre (in)justice system to go along with it. Funny how for over 40 years voters have been voting his party into power, and no word about ‘hoodwinking’ but once that corrupt power will be challenged, all the voters are idiots. As one official told me that used to work for Dennis, it’s not the public that are idiots, it’s Dennis. And his idiocy has been shining through.
• The South Dakota Democratic Party’s bottom completely fell out, and the people in charge patted themselves on the back. Insanity I tell you! Insanity!
• But one of the greatest achievements of the year is the Sioux Falls City Council’s change of power. The four new councilors have been flexing their muscles with a little help from Councilor Erickson, and while they have had a few missteps to start out, they have been learning from the battle scars. While ‘leadership’ of the council (Rolfing and Kiley) seem to be on a two man mission to rubberstamp all things Huether, shut down public input, and concoct false ethics charges against a fellow councilor (until they got caught lying like the snakes they are) they are becoming more and more in check. The city council has many big plans for 2017, and I have a feeling their agenda will push through easily as our lame duck mayor melts.
Let’s take a look at some the finer high and low points of 2016;
• The Huether Tennis center continues to block parking from other event attendees at the Sanford Sports complex though they basically stole $500K from taxpayers for the facility. Throughout the year there was several reports on cones and signs blocking the lot with not cars in it. But hey Mike’s Bride won an award this year and seemed surprised she did, without commenting that her check to the organization that gave the award wasn’t returned.
• The Sioux Falls City Council leadership and mayor’s HR department pulled a military retiree out of their asses for city clerk, a person who will be in charge of our city elections and hasn’t been registered to vote for years. He also proved his knowledge of official stamps when he stamped a petition without even bothering to read it. While Mr. Greco has gotten better over the year, the city clerk position should not be a $80K+ a year job as an apprentice, sadly being trained by one of his assistant clerks who has ten times the qualifications and applied for the position but was turned down. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the council chair’s view of women in the work place.
• Speaking of letting the mayor’s HR department and Leadership’s Mutt and Jeff pick the next internal auditor, the council barked loud enough that they did not want another ‘Greco’ pick. Not sure if the barking worked, but the person who was set to take the job saw the writing on the wall and turned it down. Hopefully the person who ultimately gets the position won’t be turned down because they shave their legs.
• The city continues to blow money on the Winter Wonderland Display, but the way the mayor has been cutting budgets these days, I expect next year’s display to be a couple of homeless barrel fire pits, sponsored by the Dudley House of course.
• After posting about the ridiculous corporate like raises the mayor has been giving to his management team, he turns around and still screws the minions with dismal raises again this year. I think in a special note to the city employees on their Christmas paystub he wrote, “I don’t care.â€
• The city continues the FREE condom distribution program at area bars, and for some reason Monk’s is always emptied the quickest. Coincidence that is also a favorite watering hole of city managers . . .
• The Tuthill shooting case becomes ‘inactive‘ and a tree branch shadow gets off scott free.
• The Erp wrongfully calls out local massage therapists as prejudice because they pointed out the ‘shower massages’ that were taking place around town. Apparently someone got a bad fortune cookie that day.
• The car rental tax and BID tax grabby-grabby fails in Sioux Falls, but the state legislature passes one of the most idiotic tax increases ever so our teachers are now just tied for last instead of dead last in pay. Out hoodwinking governor already has plans to rob the pot only one year after its passage.
• Hartford’s city government was in a state of collapse. Who really cares?
• The Levitt Pavilion is moving forward in Sioux Falls. It will be nice watching outdoor concerts sitting in the grass while battery acid is boiling beneath our asses.
• The Boulevard ordinance changes went into effect. Now stop worrying about rocks and plant a garden.
• The Washington Pavilion got a change of leadership after Darrin Smith takes over as President. So far he has only eliminated one director, but I hear the blood-letting has just begun. Now let’s throw another couple of million at the place to fix the poor construction to begin with. That will never happen with the Events Center . . .
• The Events Center cracks down on outside snacks and guns at events. We are all now safe from cheap fat people shooting us, but not in the parking lot.
• The Pottie Room war starts in Pierre and is guaranteed to return in 2017.
• A state legislator calls transgender people ‘twisted’. Now I’m struggling with what word to use describing our state legislators?
• A city council candidate throws a hissy fit over a post I wrote about his wife’s involvement with the Jesus plows and after threats to my employer I pull the post. He ends up taking last place in the at-large race. How’s Jesus working out for you now?
• Due to health reasons, Kermit Staggers decides not to run for a 4th term on the city council. His endorsement of Stehly puts her over the top.
• One of the youngest candidates in city history runs for city council. I apologize to Briggs for all the shitty things I said about him during the campaign.
• The Argus Leader sues the city for the details in the secret events center siding settlement. The Argus loses the first round but it is headed to the SD Supreme Court.
• On a similar note, the SON neighborhood is also awaiting a judgement in their Walmart suit with the SD Supreme Court.
• While our Sioux Falls City Council approves the DAPL through Sioux Falls, it takes thousands of protesters in ND to actually stop it. Too bad our city council chair doesn’t understand how to vote.
• The Mayor and Q-Tip Smith screwup the DT parking ramp development by flapping their traps to soon, and the council later on in the year returns the favor and defunds the ramp all together for 2017. I still think the fiasco is what got Smith to seek refuge at the Pavilion.
• City officials throw a hissy-fit over Bruce’s camera at a city meeting we were invited to by then city councilor Kenny Anderson. Looking back on it now, I just chuckle.
• Former city councilor Dean Karsky and now commissioner elect has become the official endorser in Sioux Falls.
• Bruce and I do a presentation on voter turnout in Sioux Falls at Democratic Forum and one of the mayor’s buddy developers in Sioux Falls tries to shut us down. When he fails, he walks out. Another casualty to transparency.
As I understand it they will be more like a taxi service for the disabled that are more ambulatory then those who normally ride paratransit, and will charge $5 a ride. It will be an experiment at this point. I expect a more detailed explanation tonight at the council meeting.
It's setting up to be another hot day in much of KELOLAND. However, we do have a better chance of scattered rain this afternoon across the east. More on the that story in moment. Highs yesterday reached the mid 90s in many areas from Aberdeen to Sioux Falls, a growing sign of the dry weather […]
