Planning Commission

1st Amendment Planning Commission Sioux Falls

7 minute Planning Meeting

l3wis February 4, 2026 1Comments

So there was a planning meeting tonight, it was a whole 7 minutes with a 3 minute pre-recorded chew out session about public input. Yup, 4 minute meeting. Why is this? To avoid conflicts of interest with board members they put everything on the consent agenda and pass it with one vote without presentations or discussion. It is the EPITOME of closed government and unethical behavior.

They started this dog and pony show a few years ago, putting most of rezones on the consent agenda so they don’t have to work, but it is totally against open government.

What is a ‘consent agenda’. It basically assumes these are ‘non-controversial’ items so there is NO hearing, presentation or individual discussions on each item just a blanket vote. Yeah, shady. It is also a violation of 1st amendment rights because they say before general public input you can’t talk about agenda items in the previous meeting. Really? Why would they when we have NO IDEA what the agenda items were.

For legal reasons they do ask anyone from the public to ‘PULL’ a consent agenda item and if someone requests it the planning department has to do a presentation of the item and have planning commission discussion, it also allows for public input, and an individual vote on the item.

Like I said, anyone in the audience at the meeting can request an item gets pulled from the consent agenda.

So a former local government official told me this, ‘Maybe get people from the public to come to the planning meeting and ask items to be pulled?’

Brilliant!

The Planning Commission meets ONCE a month on the 1st Wednesday of the month at 6 PM at Carnegie. I encourage folks from the public to start attending these meetings and request ALL consent items be pulled for discussion. And if any member recuses themselves from an item, DEMAND, DON’T ASK, they follow state and city ordinance and explain their conflict in DETAIL! It is the law and they MUST do it! If they don’t they are violating city and state statutes.

I have nicknamed the commission the ‘Conflict of Interest Commission’. Don’t take my sarcasm as fact, just watch the meetings, tons of recusals with NO explanation.

I think the next mayor needs to terminate the ENTIRE board and install new members who have NO conflicts of interest and can have 100% attendance to the meetings. Seems like an easy ask.

1st Amendment Planning Commission Public Utilities Public Works Sioux Falls

Non-Unity Bridge Deja Vu

l3wis January 31, 2026 7Comments

The city opened bids on Minnesota Avenue January 22. The estimate submitted by the engineering consultant was $19 million. Low bid was $11.8 million. Another blown estimate.

So remember the Non-Unity bridge fiasco? We spent $10 million over recommended bid, this time we are $7 million below? What gives? And why is the city’s engineering department hiring a consultant to calculate cost? Are there no engineers in the city’s engineering department? Apparently not.

I feel sorry for the next mayor and the turd sandwich waiting for them on their desk.

1st Amendment Elections Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls Uncategorized

UPDATE: Data Center Petition Drive, Wonderful Chaos!

l3wis January 29, 2026 3Comments

UPDATE: Looks like they only turned in about 5,000 sigs so it looks like the petition drive failed. I truly think if they would have gotten organized a month before the approval they could have had petitions and volunteers ready to start collecting immediately. I am impressed though that a group of unorganized citizens were able to get that many sigs. Keep the petition data, there is a big petition drive coming on the horizon, and you are going to want to be involved.

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They turned in the sigs today, and like I mentioned before they went on the Chaos route. So we have no idea how many valid sigs they have until they are verified by the city clerk. I also suspect the developer will be requesting a copy of the sigs to peruse. I stayed out of this, like I have told peeps, I hate petition drives but thot this one was needed this is why I quietly contacted people before the vote. I also look at this as a learning experience for different advocacy groups in Sioux Falls that worked together, which they did. Folks, it is not left against right, or poor vs. rich this is taking on a tyrannical government. And any government that votes against the interest and well being of it’s citizens is tyrannical. The Data Center rezone was tyrannical.

Just read this comment from King Maker Matt Paulson on Facebook;

Dude, you are on the wrong side of history on this topic. A data center is a single story office building with a bunch of computers in it on racks. You are turning them into a boogeyman for no good reason. Sure, they use a lot of power. That’s why they want to build one next to an Xcel substation with excess power generation capacity and room to expand. Sioux Falls is quickly becoming an anti-business state… If you don’t want anyone from out of state to invest in projects in South Dakota, keep up with B.S. like trying to overturn zoning approvals after they have gone through both planning commission and city council.

The guy who made all of his money from the Rec MJ bizzo in Canada harvesting email addresses is giving us advice on Data Centers. LOL. Hey Matt, we are calling them the Boogeyman because that is what they are. I also like how he justified the approval because two rubber stamp commissions approved this. Hey Paulson, your authoritarian tendencies are showing.

There is a lot of other issues going on behind the scenes that I really don’t want to get into, but don’t be surprised if they have the valid sigs. Next stop, the courtroom. Petition drives are not easy, but you can’t throw in the towel mid match.

1st Amendment Developers Development Elections Planning Commission Rapid City TIFs

Libertyland TIF gets Slaughtered

l3wis January 21, 2026 3Comments

It is no surprise to me this failed, I predicted a 70/30 split;

RAPID CITY, SD — Results have been finalized by Rapid City Officials, who have declared the citizens of Rapid City have voted against the establishment of the “Destination” TIF District, with a final tally of:

All 25 precincts in:

Yes 3,415 (30%)

No 7,965 (70%)

22.32% Turn Out (11,380 out of 50,995 Voters in Rapid City)

Absentee results

Yes 961

No 2,479

It surprised me there was so many absentee, seems a lot of snowbirds voted 🙂 which is ironic considering some of the people behind the petition drive are against mail in voting.

The success of this vote doesn’t surprise me, I think if citizens have an opportunity to vote on ‘economic development’ TIFs they will vote them down, they just don’t have any payback to the average Joe and actually cost us in higher property taxes and retail taxes. Notice our legislature keeps trying to shift tax burdens onto the consumer, it is regressive and idiotic and for every penny paid in retail taxes one penny gets taken out of the local economy. Horrible way to fund government.

So with the petition drive going on with the Data Center, it may be time to keep those clipboards warm for another one.

Yesterday at one of the City Council meetings there was a gentle mention that this development was coming back. If you read what I posted, you will notice that the TIF for this development was ONLY approved by the Planning Commission and that was in July of 2024. The project got stalled so the city council NEVER approved a TIF or final development plan, that means if they are resurrecting this project it will have to go thru the same process as it did 2 years ago. They will have to present a new development plan and TIF proposal. If the TIF proceeds are for any NON infrastructure upgrades we could challenge the TIF with another petition drive and I think we should. Citizens really should be deciding on their own property tax increases and not letting a vote by a meaningless board decide. So I hope the new development doesn’t include a TIF, but if it does, I smell a petition drive.

Oh, and the developer is from out-of-state, so we would essentially being subsidizing an out-of-state developer welfare queen. We can’t even launder money locally anymore 🙁

1st Amendment City Administration Building city Link Downtown Sioux Falls Minnehaha County Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Pitiful Pavers and absent minded Engineers

l3wis January 11, 2026 0Comments

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.

7 minute Planning Meeting

Non-Unity Bridge Deja Vu

UPDATE: Data Center Petition Drive, Wonderful Chaos!

Libertyland TIF gets Slaughtered

Pitiful Pavers and absent minded Engineers

You Missed

It pays to work in the Sioux Falls City Attorney’s office

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth

What was the count?

Thomas Nails it!