Attendance got a little better last night with 6 voting members in attendance, but the level of ignorance hit a new high.
Item #5A was an obvious ‘work around’ the law. While legal, completely shady.
The applicant bought a liquor license for a different location, realizing they couldn’t use it at that location they had to move it. While this happens a lot in Sioux Falls, this one takes on a new twist. Not only do they want to move their liquor license they only want to move it temporarily (where they can’t use it because that location is currently under construction) then once the intended location is finished they will once again move the license. In other words they are essentially putting a liquor license in ‘storage’ which I would think would not be legal. So after all the applicant’s testimony and the Planning Commission staffers basically lying about how the situation needed to be handled you would think the PC members would be weary about supporting this dubious plan using legal loopholes. Nope, all 6 voting members supported it. The worst part was before they approved it, they asked tons of ignorant questions about liquor licenses. How can you approve this when you don’t even know how the system works? The next mayor needs to remove every single member of that board and replace with new folks that actually want to serve the public and at least have an inkling of how things work in Planning.
As you can see from the PC’s website, they are supposed to have 9 members in attendance with one of them being non-voting (chair). They haven’t had a full house for YEARS! They have been warned about it by me personally and the council. I told a councilor last week when the agenda came out to look at all the rezones, all approved by 3 votes. He must have spread the news to his fellow councilors because Curt brought it up during the council meeting. He asked how they can approve something with 3 votes? Jason, from the planning office, who will lie to no end (Don Kearney must be mentoring him) said some had to recuse themselves and it was all consent agenda. It wasn’t, and why are we having planning members with conflicts? I know this is a volunteer position, but if you can’t attend the ONE meeting a month or you have multiple conflicts, maybe you should NOT take the position or resign. I would love to sit on the Planning Commission as a regular person not a business/developer/architect insider, as it currently is. If I was the city council, I would reject ANY recommendations from the PC unless it has at least 7 votes of approval, if not, send it back to the commission the next month. Trust me, if you do this a couple of times, developers and contractors will be LIVID and my guess is attendance would improve.
UPDATE: I reported about this a year ago that peeps are camping in our parks, it took the geniuses at city hall a year to figure out how to stop it, but I am NOT sure I am completely on board (Item #45):
This ordinance amendment addresses dwellings in public places and areas not intended for habitation. This ordinance reflects our growing concerns around public health, safety, and the responsible use of our parks, green spaces, and other public areas.
While our trespassing laws would work in there current form, I’m not sure adding more layers to a simple law that works well is the solution. When I brought up this issue, it wasn’t so the city would make it illegal to camp, all I was asking was to enforce our current trespassing laws and interact with these individuals to give them options. How does the SFPD handle it now? They just chase them out of an area, and they are back the next day. If you are not giving these folks an option for REAL shelter, and you are NOT arresting them on trespassing charges, what are you doing with them? Just chasing them to another picnic shelter. We need to work on PERMANENT removal instead of whack-a-mole. I thought about buying Foam Mallets for the police that they can use to chase the transients from the picnic shelters. If you are NOT going to enforce the common sense laws on the books now, the police might as well look just as ridiculous as the enforcement itself.
If you look at some of the city business over the past few weeks, it is obvious a lame duck is in charge, and he has really been flailing since the real mayor of the city resigned last month and now Poops can’t use the Erica Auto Pen anymore.
MAYOR TENHAKEN TO APPOINT FORMER CITY COUNCILOR RICK KILEY TO THE CHARTER REVISION COMMISSION (Item #49)
Let’s pretend for a moment that Rick was qualified to take this position (he is not), being a former city councilor he has a conflict of interest because he was only appointed to protect the interests of the city, the mayor’s office and the city council and could care less about changes that benefit the community as a whole. He was appointed to be another sock-blocker on the CRC tamping down citizen initiatives. I would encourage the city council to vote him down, but we know it will be an 8-0 vote of his approval, so I am looking forward to his arrival on the board 🙁 You do know that the public interacts with the CRC during these meetings unlike the chicken sh!t council that is scared of their own shadows. Rick doesn’t handle public interaction well, frequently talking down constituents at the meetings, it doesn’t roll that way at the CRC. Better put on your big kid pants Rick, this isn’t another day in the park city council meeting where you hide behind made up rules. Can’t wait for him to start telling his HS science teacher stories and how it applies to city law 🙂 I wonder if he will tell the story about the student in the hallway?
TRE MINISTRIES BACKING OUT ON ORIGINAL PROPOSAL AFTER LYING TO CITY COUNCIL, Planning Commission (Item #5A)
So after they lied to the city council about investors and a developer so they could get a $500K, interest free loan (that never has to be paid back) to demolish the buildings on the existing property, including an historical building, they are having a change of plans. I hope the neighborhood shows up to bitch about this. They are basically scaling back the housing portion and are putting in an office building, like we need more office buildings in this town, right next to a bustling residential neighborhood. Tre really needs to sell the property to an apartment developer and put in housing instead of their indentured servant program they plan to run in the name JC. It often cracks me up when these supposed religious organizations lie in public meetings to get tax dollars. Maybe they need the 10 Commandments tacked up in their break room.
REZONE FOR DATA CENTER MOVING FORWARD EVEN WITH OPPOSITION FROM THE CITY OF BRANDON’S RESIDENTIAL GROWTH AREA (Item #46)
I don’t have a problem with a Data Center in the middle of a cornfield, but the problem is the City of Sioux Falls is sticking their noses in the County and specifically the City of Brandon’s residential growth map. Brandon is opposed to the rezone to allow a data center because they want the land to be developed residential as it is zoned right now. Also, the foreign owned company who owns the property has been very secretive about their plans, which should be worrisome. As for jobs? Sure, it will create hundreds of jobs for out-of-state contractors while being built, but very few once open, it’s just a gigantic building sucking electricity full of servers. The planning commission justified their zoning change because the owners will still have to go thru a permitting process. Hogwash. If you would have refused this rezone abruptly this whole process would be over and Brandon would get to keep the land for residential development. So what do we need more of in SE South Dakota? Data Centers or Housing? I think you know the answer, but does our city council? This would be a very easy NO vote, but they never make anything easy. Hopefully they can defer this until they have the full plans from the FOREIGN company proposing this.
CITY BALL FIELD TO BE NAMED AFTER FINANCIAL INSTITUTION WITH NO DOLLAR VALUE OF SPONSORSHIP (Item #44)
In one of the strangest park sponsorships I have ever seen, they are granting a 30 year naming sponsorship to a financial institution for a new ball field with NO DOLLAR AMOUNT mentioned in the sponsorship. I have never seen this before. They only reference what they will be paying for;
WHEREAS, HBA and the City agree that one of the conditions of such gift is to name the ballfield “Sammons Field at Prairie Meadows Park” for the life of the Improvements and may be referred to as the “Sammons Field” on any signage; and
While it is great they will be paying for the improvements (and why would we accept this field from Harrisburg?) there should be a yearly spending cap, so what is it? Transparency is just a turd to flush to this current administration. Don’t be fooled, the taxpayers of SF will be paying for most of the improvements, while we slap a financial institution’s name on it because they bought a couple of park benches. Even the rich and powerful now control our parks, while we have to pay to maintain them.
WHY DOES THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS NEED A MARKETING STRATEGY?
Media Planning and Buying Services and Strategic Marketing Support
First off, the city has a large media department, this can be handled internally, and secondly, the city doesn’t need a ‘Marketing Strategy’ you are a non-profit, not a for profit business. What we need is a qualified public information officer whose only job is to disseminate information to the media and public thru press releases, press conferences and city link. We give thousands to the SF Development Foundation each year to do this, that is LITERALLY their main purpose, DO YOUR JOB!
DAKOTAFREEPRESS IS BACK AT IT
This is unrelated to city bizzo, but Cory is back at it. I figured he would return, everyone needs a break. I will probably take a break after the 2026 city election.
Sundance believes that Mayor Paul TenHaken or one of his staffers with the City was retaliating against them for seeking to terminate the restatement agreement as it conflicted with TenHaken’s “2026 Housing Action Plan” focusing on accessible housing, a key element of his 2022 reelection campaign and one of the four areas of TenHaken’s One Sioux Falls framework, the lawsuit states.
What do we mean by “accessible housing?” #OneSiouxFalls
Posted by Paul TenHaken on Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Ogborn echoed this.
“They (the City) wanted to get back at Sundance leaving the program because the mayor had not met his goal of providing affordable housing,” he said. “Sundance pulling out of the deal was another hit to that program, and at the end of the day, the City was going to exact retribution.”
TenHaken, according to The Sundance Group’s lawsuit, allegedly directed city officials to prevent the company from selling the units to force them into default with lenders. This, allegedly, was done to allow the City to acquire the project below Sundance’s development costs, enabling the City to sell the units under its affordable housing program and meet public housing targets promised during TenHaken’s campaign.
I have been salivating about a jury trial against the city for years, it may happen. I’ve been told by sources familiar with the suit that the judge may have agreed to a jury trial a few weeks ago but awaiting confirmation of that.
If this does go to trial, I think I will attend the proceedings, it is rare when the city gets sued that it goes to a jury trial, so this will be an exciting one to watch. It also scores just how corrupt this current mayor and his minions are. The city may just pay the settlement to avoid a trial, but I would demand the trial anyway, even if you may lose. The public needs to see how this administration operates, and it would be on full display in this case. I hope this leads to other corruption and fraud suits. Corruption must be punished, severely.
l3wis 
