Public Works

UPDATE: Cry me a river . . . of crap

l3wis November 4, 2025 6Comments

UPDATE: What’s with all the crying these days? I see he goes to same stylist as Sue Peterson. The intro was priceless, ‘Known to many as Mayor Mike’. Hey, Buddy, you lost that title 7 years ago, and you ain’t getting it back.

Public Works director, Cotter, did learn something from Huether, turn on the water works, uh I mean sewer works. No doubt it was an exhaustive project for Cotter, over 270 days of construction. But I am not sure it is worth crying about. Mr. Cotter gets paid $232K a year + benefits. We pay these wages because it is important job and it is hard. I compliment Cotter on getting this done, but it is his job. I also fault Cotter for not taking a firmer stand with Mike on the Sewer expansion. This project was supposed to be done BEFORE the Event Center and if we would have gone that route you would have saved taxpayers over $50 million in capital expenses and millions in interest payments, but Mike wanted that tin can so bad he had Cotter bury the project and any discussions about it. Cotter should have got in front of the council and pushed them to implement the project before the Event Center. So I guess it was appropriate to cry. While the project was a success, it would have been a heckuva a lot cheaper if we would have started it 10 years ago.

Rhoden spoke briefly at the end of the presser, and he was the only one that said anything that made sense. He basically said, these are the kind of (infrastructure) projects the government is setup to take care of. I agree, I have often said SF out of control spending could be tapered back by simply dedicating tax dollars to NEEDS not WANTS.

And now that the sewer plant is finished, get ready for the $30 million dollar bond next year to make repairs to the Denty. It’s coming.

WHEN YOU BUY A NEW CAR YOU HAVE TO BUILD A GARAGE FOR IT

I guess the Public Works department is angling for a new garage to house the new snow plows. The rumor is a building 100 x 300 FT. building. This should come as no surprise. They bought all these maintainers now they have to store them somewhere. Funny how the finance director didn’t mention this when he wanted the council to buy the maintainers. Even a pole barn that size will be millions. It reminds me of the applicant who showed up to the Zoning Board for an adjustment on his garage. He wanted to extend his garage 3 feet in the front. When asked his reason he said, “I bought a new truck and it doesn’t fit in the garage.” 🙂

Why doesn’t the city own it’s own mil grinder?

l3wis October 21, 2025 0Comments

While chatting with different employees in the Sioux Falls Public Works department they seem surprised the city would be buying used maintainers for snowplowing and spending that much money for equipment that is essentially only used for plowing snow. Maybe this would be the reason why we have leased for so long?

I also asked about collection times and if they would be effected. They told me NO because they pull drivers from Parks and Rec and other departments like Water, and Fire.

But I guess the large purchase irks the employees because they have been begging the city purchases it’s own mil grinder (I probably have the name of the equipment wrong, but what it basically does is grind down a street a few inches for resurfacing). I guess the city leases the equipment and they have trouble getting it because other contractors are also leasing it at the same time they want to use it. Employees have told me it would save taxpayers $$$ and would be more convenient for our Public Works department. As one employee said to me, “And we get a heckuva a lot more streets fixed, faster.” So while $9 million for some snowplows may be a worthy investment, it seems the city’s priorities once again are whacked!

Somebody is certainly in hot water

l3wis September 4, 2025 1Comments

Anytime I see a warning or notice on the city website I get curious about a cover-up (I really do). The other day the city was warning that folks near Veterans Parkway were under a boil order. The city reported it as an accident with a contractor. I was waiting for one of my city hall moles to call me for the other side of the story. I got that call tonight. According to them there was quite the kerfuffle at public works about how this all came down. It seems the ‘accident’ was partially the contractor’s fault and partially the city’s. According to my source who was getting their information from another city employee (so it’s a bit fuzzy) they said the contractor called the city asking permission to open a valve. The city granted the permission but the contractor opened the wrong valve (maybe?). So partially the city’s fault, partially the contractor’s. No harm. No foul.

Well it didn’t end there. So someone at public works apparently didn’t want any blame on the city and blamed the whole incident on the contractor, so NOW the contractor is facing a ‘unresponsive contractor’ label, which means they won’t be able to bid on RFP’s anymore.

Like I said, 2nd hand info, from a grunt, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true, because, you know, the city engineers NEVER F’k Up a city project 🙁

Bunker Ramp

Unity Bridge

Admin building

Midco

Denty, and much more . . .