UPDATE: CALL TO ARMS: E2 Bike Ordinance Change to meet first hurdle Wednesday

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UPDATE: The Active Transportation Board tabled their recommendation today saying they didn’t know enough about E2s to make a decision. Which is good.

As I have mentioned before, there is an Active Transportation Board meeting Wednesday morning at 8:30 AM in City Hall in the old commission chambers, 1st Floor, and at 4 PM a Parks Board meeting with a recommendation.

I ENCOURAGE ANYONE WHO WANTS TO RIDE THEIR E2 ON THE SHARED USE REC TRAIL TO ATTEND AND TELL THE BOARD WHY YOU WANT THIS CHANGE!

The board will be taking action on the E2 recommendation from Councilor Greg Neitzert with some clarity with rec trail speeds and ADA mobility devices.

As I have mentioned in the past there is a lot of misinformation out there about E2s.

The Micro Mobility Device industry is one of the fastest growing in the world, most users in Sioux Falls are over 60 years of age and finding an E1 bike has become increasingly difficult and will probably be non-existent in 5 years. Police Chief Thum has told councilors that he supports the change and doesn’t see any issues with it, just more concerns about speed, which is addressed. The Parks Director (and probably the board) support the change also telling us at a recent meeting their hasn’t been any major accidents involving E2s on the trail in the past 5 years. I have heard about 2 major accidents, but didn’t get a lot of details.

Besides the health and mobility advantages for seniors, I like my E2 for commuting and can easily switch from the trail, to a sidewalk to a street, riding safe speeds on all (I can lock in certain speeds depending on level, essentially a cruise control).

The opposition is coming from the fact that E2’s can be throttled (I have suggested a no throttling rule on the trail) which is a shallow argument since most users only throttle when starting out or going up a hill. There is also the ‘what about the kids’ group, and I get it, I want kids to safely play along the bike trail, but when I am riding my bike ON THE TRAIL my main focus is my safety and the safety of riders and walkers around me. If your child suddenly decides to break free in a public park and jumps in front of my bike on the trail, that’s on the parent or caregiver. I have never had a close call with kids. WHY? Because parents ARE responsible and ARE watching their kids when in the parks. I have almost got into serious accidents when dogs off leash decide to run in front of my bike, maybe that is the rule that needs to be enforced?

Your attendance is crucial form informing the board about your experiences with your E2.

If you cannot attend, please call or email your councilors HERE telling them you support the change.

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, August 15-16, 2023

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Budget Hearing • Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at 3:00 PM

Health, Planning, Transit, Public Works, Housing

Regular City Council Meeting • Tuesday, August 15, 2023, at 6:00 PM

Item #7, Approval of Contracts,

Sub-Item #6, River Greenway Improvements: Downtown River Greenway – Phase 3; To award a formal bid. Lloyd Construction Co., $10.7 million. (So we are going to pay the very developer who is benefitting from the greenway adjacent to their commercial property, Sioux Steel District, all the while they are getting a $25 million dollar TIF and a $3 million dollar BID tax grant).

Sub-Item #9, Park Land Acquisition: 1328 N Phillips Avenue Site Demolition and Restoration; $16K (the price tag isn’t at question here. I’m trying to figure out what park we are trying to improve by tearing down this home?)

Item #45, 2nd Reading, Re-Zone for halfway house (The council has expressed they will be voting against this rezone, but the discussion should be interesting considering councilor Neitzert pulling the halfway house ordinance change and deferring it to next month’s meeting).

Item #51, 2nd Reading, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO A LEASE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS AND THE SIOUX EMPIRE TRIAGE CENTER. (apparently this is the only agreement the city has in writing, or at least the only one they are willing to share. I have told reporters that I don’t think the city has a standing contract with the non-profit that lays out operational obligations or expectations. Recently the Director of the Link resigned with no comment. Why was that? And who is running the facility now? Looks like the city’s cruise control button just landed at another quasi-city-non-profit.)

Items #58-60, Union Contracts

Active Transportation Board • Wednesday, August 16, 2023, 8:30 AM, Commission Room, City Hall

The board will be taking action on Councilor Neitzert’s proposal to change the E2 bike ordinance on the shared use rec trail. If you look at the agenda packet and read Greg’s changes he is simply just adding E2, and making some minor adjustments to verbiage and ADA accessibility while identifying speed limits. I am not sure how this vote will go, but hope to sit in on the discussion. There is a Parks Board meeting that same afternoon and they will also be taking action on the proposal.

Charter Revision Commission Meeting • Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 4:00 PM

The CRC will be taking up two proposals that were presented in the last round of CRC hearings and will likely be rejected by them again. Kirby wants to remove the mayor as a city councilor and chair of the meetings and Zitterich wants to increase the size of the council. I agree with Kirby’s proposal and is long overdue, but I disagree with increasing the city council’s size. I think we should only have 7 councilors that ALL represent a district and NO At-Large members.

While I will give them kudos for going thru the proper process, a better approach would be getting all parties that want to make changes to the charter together and agreeing on a charter revision package that they can sell to the voters thru a petition drive and election. The CRC is setup to be an obstruction to the public from making direct policy changes at the ballot box, and so far, they have been very successful in their mission.

Sioux Falls City Councilor Starr rips Planning Staff

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Besides an absent mayor and supplemental appropriations coming out of our ears at the city council meeting tonight, the council asked planning staff why they are continuing to tell applicants not to show up until 2nd reading.

We have suspected for awhile they were doing this and the council has nicely asked them to stop doing it, privately, that all changed tonight.

A planning staffer, Fletcher, that is a little green while addressing councilors, admitted tonight that he told the applicants to not bother showing up to the meeting until 2nd reading when the county commission will also be attendance (has to do with joint jurisdiction).

That was a mistake. Some councilors were very perturbed about it. Fletcher’s boss(?) Sam from Planning tried to deflect what Fletcher admitted claiming that since the county commission was not there, there was no point for the applicants to attend.

Wrong person to defend the position. Sam has dropped the ball so many times when it comes to open meetings and posting agendas incorrectly he is the last person to talk about open public meetings and when it is proper to attend them.

Councilor Starr wasn’t having it, telling the mayor and planning staff that they are on notice and they better not get caught doing it again (even though they will probably do it again tomorrow with zero consequences).

I often tell people, show up to the 1st reading, you get 3 minutes to dissent and you never know, you may bring up something the council will consider between the 1st and 2nd readings that will benefit your position.

It is pretty obvious planning staff is dong this ON PURPOSE! The city is ran by an authoritarian regime that must squash all dissent and I have no doubt this directive came from the corner office, or whatever playground he is doing jumping jacks on that day.

Is the New ‘No Labels’ party going to be involved with the City of Sioux Falls 2024 council election?

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I heard a rumor recently that a west coast organization was sniffing around in Sioux Falls looking for an opportunity to run ‘progressive independent candidates’. My source wouldn’t tell me the name of the organization, but passed my contact info along.

My assumption is that it is NO LABELS and they seem to have a vested interest in getting involved in local races like school board, county commission and city council.

As I understand it they are willing to assist campaigns, especially ones that are bi-partisan in nature, like a city council race.

I have been telling people I would like to see at least 3 solid candidates for each of the 4 city council races this next Spring, and it may happen.

Someone has already told me they are running for Neitzert’s NW district seat (he is term limited) and another person told me they are interested in running for a different district seat.

There has also been some recruitment efforts by Rick Knobe’s group, the Change Agents, the Patriot Ripple Effect (ultra right wing) and the South Dakota Democratic party.

I have been telling people who are actively recruiting or considering a run that Mayor MisTaken will have his 4 recruited, well groomed, christian, white lackeys in which he will endorse and feed shady PAC money to, and why wouldn’t he? It worked in the last election.

I can tell you that many who watch the council races closely have studied the shellacking the NON-PAUL candidates got in the last election, and they are not going to let it happen again.

Are Rents in Sioux Falls Affordable?

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Recently Sioux Falls Business did this article about apartment availability.

If you go to my zip code, the average 1-bedroom apartment is $970 a month. You would have to make at least $38,000 a year or around $18 an hour to afford this (30% of income).

I heard a rumor recently that 70% of job listings in Sioux Falls pay $15 or less.

It seems in Sioux Falls we have affordability issues with all kinds of things like groceries, housing, and childcare. Maybe Sioux Falls doesn’t have an affordability issue, maybe it has a wage issue?

But don’t bother our local leadership with that issue, because they will tell us that wages should be determined by the FREE market, you know, the FREE market in South Dakota that allows business owning legislators to take government handouts, or that same FREE market that creates special tax districts so developers can buy skywalks and public art, or the millions and millions we give away for parking ramps that will be obsolete within 10-20 years.

While our local governments are quick to throw money at the top and hope it trickles down to the rest of us, they really need to put their foot where the sun doesn’t shine and get businesses to pay living wages, then things like buying a home or even a loaf of bread are a lot less challenging in our community.

The city council has the power and authority to pass policies that would help wage earners in our community, for example, an ordinance that requires all businesses advertising for employment within city limits list their starting wage, or raising the city’s minimum wage to $15 per hour or more.

When we talk about the affordability of our city, it really comes down to what our employers are willing to pay and little else because all this talk about affordability is just a smoke screen to what our real problem is, CRAPPY WAGES!