Public Works

City Council defers Snowplow purchases

It seemed a majority on the council were suspicious of this deal and why we need to buy these maintainers BEFORE the yearly budget is approved. And for good reason. So the question that we ALL need an answer to is; ‘Was it the city’s idea to purchase the maintainers or the contractor?’ I don’t know, but the more that gets revealed it seems this deal was concocted and pitched to the city by the contractor wanting to ‘rid’ themselves of the used equipment. So why would they need to get rid of this equipment? Long story short, the contractor who leased the equipment had the contract tied to a major developer who is out of the business now. So did this contractor inform the city they were no longer going to do the lease? And while they were at it, did they offer the city this ‘deal’ to purchase the used equipment we have already been paying leases on? Yup, that’s right folks, they want to sell us the very equipment they have been leasing to us. So since they are apparently not in the business anymore and a major investor has passed away it seems like a sweetheart deal for the contractor and ANY investor he may have had. Be warned council, this isn’t being done to bail out the city, it is being done to bail out a contractor. No surprise, while there is nothing nefarious about the current lease agreement, you have to question the arrangement with the developer, the city and what goes on at the yearly ‘High Tea’ meetings. The city council needs to budget for a NEW lease agreement with a NEW provider after a RFP is put out. I hope the council comes to their senses and looks at the current lease agreement and who is listed on it.

City of Sioux Falls drops the ball on code enforcement . . . again

As you know I have been encouraging the city for over a decade to tear down the MX liquor property at 15th and Cliff. I was happy to hear they were finally moving forward. They tore down MX and an abandoned house but gave the property owner a couple more months to fix up the two remaining houses. He has done nothing, and the deadlines have passed and the houses still sit there rotting (literally).

On top of that, I have contacted 3 city councilors and someone at public works (demolition) about why these properties have NOT been demolished yet . . . crickets. Which tells me they plan to do nothing. And they wonder why I call them incompetent?

But it gets even better.

(Yes, the power pole is hanging at an angle with extremely heavy transformers on top)

One of my neighbors noticed that a tree in the backyard of one of the dump houses broke and landed on the garage and a power pole, bending the pole and some of the equipment on the pole (this pole provides power to Century Business Products). So my neighbor, being the good gent he is, called the non-emergency police line to tell them about it and his concern for a fire being sparked. So a couple of minutes later he was standing in his front yard and he saw a fire truck pull up, the driver pointed out the window, talked to the other firefighter for about a minute and drove off. My neighbor was called back and told that Excel and the SFFD can’t do anything because it is on private property. HUH? Excel OWNS the pole, not the private property owner. They have a thing called an easement.

It’s time to bulldoze these places before an electrical fire, or worse breaks out. But I am not holding my breath. I told my neighbor we may wake up one morning and the houses will have collapsed into the basements and it would take another 10 years before the city would come and clean it up. If you ain’t in the Jones neighborhood in Sioux Falls, yah don’t matter.

More Public Art, another critique

My first critique of the sculptures is something everybody has been saying that have seen it ‘There is too much crap in that space and it just looks like the lawn sculpture garden on Cleveland Avenue’. Besides the overcrowding I would have done one of two things with the sculptures. The pieces themselves are beautiful and I think they will withstand the rigors of SD weather (I have a wait an see on that one, glass doesn’t do well in hail and subzero temps). I would have either spaced out the existing sculptures more or I would have made the bases narrower to make more space between the pieces. It goes back to the overcrowding in that space and it looks like the space between the pieces was compromised. But hey when you hire Mark Cotter’s kid with a lawnmower to prepare the site, what do you expect? I even saw them hauling in a bunch of trees today.

Speaking of city projects, looks like the ice ribbon is finally getting poured.

Public Art Critique

I have been admiring this new sculpture at the Steel District. I like the concept and the design (the cut out key hole is laying to the side of the piece) But, the yellow color doesn’t fit well in the development. I would change the color to a pearl essence iridescent paint that illuminates and sparkles in sunlight and moonlight and changes color depending on the light shining on it, I would also round the edges of the outer structure while leaving the keyhole with a straight on cut. It would give it more of an obelisk look to it. This is why ALL public art should go thru a PUBLIC vetting process even if it is privately funded. You get better art. We learned nothing from Mural-Gate when a private donor email harvester, the police chief and the mayor censored a piece that was later presented at the Smithsonian. When picking public art, a diverse jury of not only artists, but designers, contractors and other lay people help decide. This diversity gives you diverse public art. I can guarantee how this played out; The developer picked out the piece (concept drawings) and presented to the VAC ‘as is’ and they approved it. Zero vetting process. Money doesn’t buy class or taste.

Nepotism run amuck at Sioux Falls City Hall

Besides the secretive roof repair happening at the Pavilion they are also installing new outdoor sculptures.

Besides COS Erica Beck’s son getting a job in HR straight out of college, there seems to be some other nepotism and conflicts going on. There was a rumor for awhile that the Public Works Director’s wife who owns an interior design company got the contract for the redesign on city hall recently (that is a rumor I am still looking into), but his son, who owns Urban Oasis, apparently got the contract to install the sculptures. His father makes $232K a year with the city, so it seems a bit odd that he would need even more from the taxpayers. Now they could argue that the sculptures purchase and installation was paid for by a private donation so there is NO conflict, BUT, as I argued in the past that since these sculptures are sitting on public property, they are public art, and the taxpayers will be responsible for their future maintenance, this is a public project NO matter who is paying for it because we own the property the sculptures are being placed on. There are plenty of experienced landscape contractors in Sioux Falls who could have done the job, and with more then a couple years experience. This was clearly an inside handshake deal. I wonder what the city council will do about it. My guess, like the Selberg incident, they will look the other way.