Public Works

The POOP Hole Crew

l3wis January 8, 2026 2Comments

So, it has been very bizarre lately, I have been having random city employees approach me lately at Slumshine. Sometimes former employees but some current who tell me about some of the crap going on in the minion divisions. For instance, over the past year two randos told me that the salt trucks were turned down to the lowest level (200 lbs per lane mile) even in the coldest conditions to save money on salt and chemicals and to not have to fill so many potholes and the other rando told me they are on a mission in HR to eliminate any non management employees over the age of 50, and they are ruthless about it. I told them, “You should hold a rally protest in the lobby of city hall over lunch hour and have signs that say WE WILL NOT BE REPLACED.” They were puzzled by my dark humor. One of them said, ‘I’ve heard that somewhere before.’ Wow. Never met anyone who has attended a Klan rally or a Puss Boys BBQ. I kid.

But let’s get to pot holes. Remember a few years back we had this new fangled app to report pot holes? I’m sure it came from Poops Bloomberg conferences. So you can go online and report the pothole and once filled it will show the work completed. Not a bad idea. How it used to be done is potholes in residential areas would be filled on a complaint basis, and arterial and thoroughfares would just be maintained 100% in the Spring. That all ended with the app. Why? I ran into a FORMER city employee who wanted to tell me about the ‘farce’ the pothole app is. For the record, she is NOT disgruntled, she left the city for a better offer with a local contractor. She told me for the last 3 years she was on a pothole crew. When she first started they were sent to a neighborhood and told to fill every hole. Then the app came along and they were only to respond to the complaints. So they would, but she would also look around the intersection and fill other holes that were NOT in the complaint. She did this for awhile and her supervisor pulled her aside and asked why she was doing that. She was naive and believed that she would get a gold star for the day, nope, she was told to knock it off and only fill the holes on the complaint app. It bothered her for awhile and realized that it had to do with analytics and the city being able to show progress on the issue without really fixing the larger issue (like building better roads and having warranties).

She said the city treated her very well and has no ill will, she just thot it was wasteful and untruthful and wanted me to know. So I asked her about being on an 8 hour shift to just fill potholes from the complaint app. She said, ‘Two hours of work, six hours of driving around.’

Our city government is such a complete fraud.

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!