South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

SF City Council

Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

Update: Why our very ‘Special’ city council is ignoring a special election

l3wis 4Comments

UPDATE: I didn’t think about this until this afternoon but also if there’s anybody sitting on the current council that is running for reelection as an incumbent or if any councilor decides to run for Mayor that’s a huge conflict to be picking your own election date for a campaign you’re running in. Why? Because by picking a June date that means fewer months of campaigning and having to raise less money.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, we know the scenario. The State DoDo birds we call our legislature decided to change state law so they could control local elections. Tsk! Tsk! Stay the F’ck out of our elections and start working on your AA and diet plans. Either way, we now have a decision to make, but for some reason our brilliant city council thinks they need to make the decision, but that is NOT how the law is written. It is up to the citizens of this community to decide that date (June or November) not them. So at the informational today (I encourage to watch before forming a opinion) they pitched this legal concept that indeed the citizens do get to choose the election date, BUT NOT for this first election, that was up to them. Bullwash! What needs to happen is a special election in September determining the date of the election, and while they are at it, also put a charter amendment that eliminates the ‘Rex Rolfing/Stehly Rule’ that there has to be a runoff in city council races if no one gets more then 34% or some whacka-doodle thing like that. Make it a plurality so there is no runoff. Barranco suggested this. I think it would be incredibly confusing to voters showing up to vote for council and mayoral candidates and having to choose an election date, they would most likely pick the day they were currently voting, which is a setup because the council is initially leaning towards a June election. One of the arguments they make that they HAVE TO decide the first election date is because candidates and campaigns need to know ASAP. Silliness. Anyone considering running has already kind of made up their minds, they also know that the earliest their would be an election is June and the latest November. The date of the election is of no consequence to the candidate if that decision isn’t made until September. They would only have to adjust their campaign budgets if November was picked. That’s IT! They would also have more time to campaign, which is a good thing locally. I think the city council is on shaky legal ground. I think they know they have to call a special election and let the citizens decide, but instead they continue to eat the Fiddle-Faddle. I would get really weary of chomping on the old maids . . . wait . . . or maybe not 🙂

Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

Girl Power at Carnegie?

l3wis 1Comments

Oh, the political games played on such an unsubstantial level. The other night the city council elected their chairs. Usually I chide a few councilors into nominating someone (they never pick the person 🙂 but this time I stayed out of it, I guess I wanted to be surprised. Councilor Merkouris was promoted to Chair, which was no surprise, and Barranco kept his Auditor Chair title. Sigette was nominated as Vice-Chair. While I was a little surprised, I was also NOT. She has shown she wants to dig in, so that’s good. But she seemed surprised to accept the nomination. I asked a councilor afterwards, did she know in advance? They said, YES. This is SOP with the city council. They usually play games behind the scenes trying to get the person nailed down on voting night so they are not surprised or embarrassed. So how do I think this played out? I’m not sure, so I am going to take an educated guess; When Rich and Curt set out to find their candidate I am sure they reached out to all the councilors asking who would be interested. My guess is Thomason probably said he would like to do it, because I know he has mentioned it to me in the past. Then in comes the COS Beck and the Mayor’s office encouraging a female councilor. My guess is that all three of them turned it down. Miranda probably turned it down because of work commitments, Cole is not running for a 2nd term, and Sigette may have considered but also worried she wasn’t experienced enough. So what happened between the time Thomason probably told leadership he was interested and the moment Sigette was convinced to take the job? Not sure, but now the Mayor’s office is apparently playing games with the council’s leadership picks. tsk. tsk. But that’s just WILD SPECULATION on my part 🙂

Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls TIFs

UPDATE: What’s going on with promised Apartment Complex behind 8th and Railroad?

l3wis 5Comments

Last Tuesday the City Council got a presentation on RFP’s vs. Negotiated Sale. The topic came up because a negotiated sale is what the city is apparently still in the process of negotiating with the developer, Christensen, for the proposed development behind 8th and Railroad. I find this a little alarming. Back in June of last year the council got a presentation on the development. The developer told the council then that they planned to break ground in the Fall of last year or Spring of this year, now the planning department says it is is still in the ‘negotiating stage’. How can you be in the negotiating stage when the Planning Commission approved the TIF last July? Now there was a statement made by the proposed developer in June when they made their initial presentation; they said they would coordinate their build out with how fast the properties at the Steel District and more specifically Cherapa II would lease out. One wonders if those properties are having trouble being leased, and coincidentally slowing investment in the Christensen development? But we know how these games are being played in town. Years ago a franchise motorcycle repair shop tried to come to town and a major competitor with their wrench in city government convinced banks and other investors to back away from this franchise essentially shutting them down before the doors even opened. Funny how a TIF gets approved before a land purchase is even signed. We got some real clowns running the city these days . . .

SPEAKING OF A CIRCUS

There has been a lot of talk lately between constituents about how light and meaningless the city council agenda has been lately. The story is the lame duck mayor is telling council no new policy initiatives will be allowed on the agenda. I told someone, “The only reason you would shut down the only function of your policy body is because you have someone bigger then you riding your ass.” More to come on this.

UPDATE: Mike Zitterich sent me this;

I wanted to see how many ordinances and resolutions that get posted to the City Council Agenda by the mayor or city councilors, and in 2024, here is what I came up with: 

Out of 354 Ordinances/Resolutions sponsored from January 1, 2024 to December 30, 2024 — 

Mayor………………………….183……52%……………………5.1 Per meeting

Private Applicants…………..97……27%……………………2.7 Per meeting

City Councilors………………74……21%……………………2.1 Per meeting

36 Meetings in 2024 

HIGH: 

Mayor sponsored 13 total on August 13, 2024 

City Council sponsored 9 twice on May 14th and May 7th of 2024 

Private Applicants sponsored 8 total 3 times during the 2024 season.

Elections SF City Council SF School Board Member

The Bizarre stuff folks do when running for local public office

l3wis 6Comments

You can always tell when someone local is running their own campaign(s) or getting extremely poor advice when they do silly things with their paperwork. So this Thomas Werner dude is running for school board, he has ran in the past for the legislature and failed. I can see why, he seems to be giving himself some very poor campaign advice. It’s too late to correct the F’up now, but it was a really stupid move. So the election for school board is May 13, which gives him just a few weeks to campaign. So what does he decide to do while running for school board? File his paperwork to run for city council. WTF? Do you want to be on the school board? Do you know how this looks? It’s like you already gave up on that seat. No wonder no one votes for you. There is NO voter confidence. So is this illegal to run for two different seats at the same time? In this case NO. But if the city council and school board were the same election and on the same ballot he could NOT run for a council seat and school board seat at the same time. I just shake my head sometimes when I see folks run their own campaigns. Maybe he will file paperwork to run for Central District city council, At-Large city council and Mayor. And if he wins all three seats he will save us a lot of money. No surprise his FB page is littered with Trump Junk.

Downtown Sioux Falls Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

First SF City Council candidate emerges

l3wis 11Comments

Mike Zitterich is running for central district city council. The election will either be next June or September. I also heard this will be a crowded race with the potential of 7 candidates running, which means a runoff.

I am filing this document today with the City Clerk Office. Mike Zitterich for Honest Government for the Central District. I will be updating my website in the near future to provide additional info.

I want to see from the City Council: 

  1. Financial Transparency, 
  2. Honest Government,
  3. I want to see more investigations done by the council of the government,
  4. I encourage a better dialogue/correspondence between city council and residents both during meetings, and outside the meetings,
  5. I see myself as the next Kermit Staggers, a strong opposing vote against large government bureaucracy’s, voices, more in line with residents,
  6. I want to see more planning and promoting of other Business Districts here in Sioux Falls ‘other than S.F.D.T’  – I want to urge other parts of the community to establish B.I.D organizations,
  7. I want to promote and push to change our T.I.F strategy, getting away from large projects to introducing smaller, single-family type projects 1 Block, 2 Blocks like the City of Sturgis, 
  8. I want to promote, and help lead to establish city-wide Natural Wildlife, Nature, Historic Program that introduces policies to promote our awesome natural wildlife, nature parks, our history, and the idea of adding camping and lodging parks throughout the city within our Department of Parks and Recreation, one that promotes Family and Youth Outdoor Entertainment. 

With your guidance, I would like input on how we could create a public office “Government Financial Transparency” to be made up of appointed members to audit and review ALL city departments, offices, agencies, all Nonprofits that take city funds, with the goal of trimming city expenses,, while using the savings to set aside and perhaps give back surpluses to the residents. 

With your guidance, I would like input on how to move forward with recommending changes to our charter that accomplishes two things – I want the City Attorney to become a “elected member” of the Governing Board, no longer appointed by a mayor, and one that services a 4 year term (two terms), while changing the charter to create a “odd numbered council” with no less than 2 At-Large Chairs, and any number of District Chairs (5, 7, 9, etc), with the Mayor and City Attorney as the other “Elected At-Large Chairs”. 

With your guidance, I would like input on the idea of creating an ordinance to make ALL “legal opinions” of the City Attorney Office to be public record, allowing residents to review them on the city website, just as the State Attorney General must do. This improves transparency, and hopefully urges the Attorney Office to be more accountable to the people, along with being elected. 

I also support lowering the 2nd Penny Sales Tax from 1.00% down to 0.75% to give back to the residents the chance to keep as much money in their pockets, and I urge the City of Sioux Falls to set the example on taking less property tax revenue, thus leading the charge to give back to the property holders the ability to invest in their properties, encouraging more residents to donate to the city treasury, private funds that could be appropriated by the City Council for future community projects such as flower gardens, community watch advisory committees, to public infrastructure supported by the residents. 

Mike Zitterich 

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