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SF City Council

1st Amendment Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

In Accordance with Robert Rules? LOL!

l3wis 4Comments

Look at at this change to policies, (page 13) they are trying to find cover from their Constitutional duties;

Robert’s is a guideline on how to run a meeting, but those RULES do not supersede the 1st Amendment or US Constitution. Like I told the council last Tuesday (FF: 1:10) these are consideration rules that the public AND the council should use as a guideline to the meetings, but when it comes to PUBLIC INPUT anything besides violent threats is allowable and limiting speakers is blatant censorship and little else.

Instead of spending so much time trying to silence the public, why don’t you talk to us? The only time I see councilors is at Carnegie, makes you wonder if some of them are playing Marshall Selberg Musical Districts on us? Speaking of that crooked fella, still wondering why all the councilors and mayor shirked their responsibility of managing their own? Selberg should have been booted from the council and he should have been charged, but not these guys, circle the f’ing wagons.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council changes title of Budget Analyst one week after hiring replacement

l3wis 5Comments

UPDATE: I contacted a current city councilor about this and they said they were unsure what was going on. A former city official told me this title change is NOT going towards the new budget analyst but the CURRENT council chief of Staff, Jim David. But what is confusing is that Mr. David would also be the direct supervisor of the clerk staff which is odd since the city clerk is really the defacto COS of council because of charter language. So why is Mr. David getting the new position and NOT the city clerk? That answer I cannot give you.

Most organizations would have changed the title before advertising the position, but that is NOT how the city council does things. Half-Backwards. The Budget Analyst/legislative advisor was retiring so the city council was tasked with replacing that person (a position that I thought the city really didn’t need because I was unaware of any policy he helped work on or crafted over the years). We also PAY the municipal league to lobby the legislature on our behalf, so having an internal legislative person seems like duplicity.

So I guess the city council just waited for this person to retire before admitting that the position was obsolete;

So why didn’t they just advertise the position that way? Oh, that’s right, because if you look under the pay grade, you will see they get quite the bump. Not bad, getting a raise a week after you are hired, she must be an over achiever. I wonder if the pay bump will be discussed in the meeting. Doubtful.

While I agree the council staff should have some kind of a supervisor, they already do, the city clerk. So why isn’t he the supervisor for the city council staff? I don’t think the council staff needs a direct supervisor but someone who they can go to with day to day HR stuff but the council chairs really should be the direct supervisors.

It’s funny how the new council is taking on all this new staff and I don’t think it was their idea, I think that the council chairs, Soehl and Merkouris have been cooking up these staff additions for awhile so that when stuff goes south on the council they can blame staff, oldest political trick in the book.

1st Amendment Open Government Open Meetings SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Public Input on Fire Tonight!

l3wis 6Comments

Maybe I was the setup? I spoke at the informational meeting* today during public input. Since there was nothing on the agenda except more executive sessions I chose to speak about item #4 on the agenda, which was PUBLIC COMMENT. I basically informed them that council meeting rules don’t supersede the US Constitution’s 1st Amendment and they need to stop cutting people off. I directed my comments at the entire council, not just chair Soehl. I told them they need to STOP the chair if they are wrongfully cutting people off. I think the council needs a crash course in the 1st Amendment and Public Input, and would even be willing to give my taxdollars to school them. They don’t seem to understand who controls the government, it’s not them, it’s us.

Well the mayor must be off at a jumping jacks convention because Curtis decided to chair the next regular meeting (FF: 41:00) and he got another earful about how they fail to listen to constituents and when they have no discussion on unanimous votes it tells the public you are making decisions before the meeting in private conversations (heck, the school board has been doing that for decades!)

Though some of the people who spoke tonight have shady pasts (that was an interesting google search 🙁 they made valuable points about our 1st Amendment rights and how ineffective and thin skinned our current council is, and the longer termed members are the worst of the lot!

This council better buck up fast and take control of the public’s meetings, because it is turning into a real circus and the dancing bears are the council.

*The meeting hasn’t posted yet because they were having ‘technical’ issues. These same issues pop up every couple of weeks for the past decade or more. You would think the city IT department would have figured this out already?! I am pretty damn sure they are censoring certain things and that is why it happens so often. I mean, someone can’t f’up that much unless it is on purpose.

One of the public inputers, Bruce Head told us he is suing the city over civil rights. Here is a link to the filing.

Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken Riverline District SF City Council Sioux Falls Zoo

Is the President of Downtown Sioux Falls running for Mayor?

l3wis 6Comments

Well, that is what my exploding phone told me today (it’s not Hungarian 🙂 the phone . . .

President of DTSF, Joe Batcheller announced today he was stepping down in December for personal professional development. The rumor is he is running for mayor.

I am relieved to hear this. I was a bit worried we were going to have the same slate of grifters running for mayor. Joe, as an urban planner, would be an excellent candidate and would make a fantastic mayor. I know the last few convos we have had about city issues told me he wasn’t going to be warming the seat at DTSF for much longer. Good for him, surprised he lasted this long.

If you are NOT running for mayor Joe, I apologize for the rumor mill, but I blame you for the burned hole in my pocket, because half the town seems to think you are running, and if not, YOU SHOULD! (I also like that he is not very good at keeping a secret. WOOT! WOOT! Open government baby!!!!)

BROCKHOUSE PETITION DRIVE

I was told today that Mike Zitterich is heading up a petition drive to save the Brockhouse Dusty Monkey collection. I wish him luck. I will post the petition once it is certified and circulated. I encourage people to sign it, even if you are opposed to keeping the collection. Let the people of this city decide if they value it not some anti-science pumpkin recycling administration.

RIVERLINE STACKED DECK

Oh the things I could say about this committee. So laughable. Why didn’t they just make up some AI characters and have them on the committee? Probably more trustworthy. They should call the committee the ‘Grifters Social Club’. And who let former city councilor Rick Kiley out of his cage (or should I say wet paper bag)?

Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken SF City Council Sioux Falls Zoo

Say good bye to the Brockhouse Collection

l3wis 7Comments

City officials are soooooo chickensh!t to tell the public in person they already gave away Lenin’s Tomb of Dusty Monkeys they are telling the public in a webinar;

This is the informational meeting on the future ownership, preservation, relocation, and utilization of the Brockhouse collection.

Representatives from the City of Sioux Falls and the Great Plains Zoo and others will be on hand to answer questions about the next steps for the collection.

If you go to this LINK then to this LINK you will see you can sign up for this meeting ONLY online, so NO public meeting where the public can intervene. This is also a Q & A for interested parties. Don’t make me laugh. The collection has already been chosen to go somewhere, this is a formality to make it look like they are going thru the proper steps.

If the ZOO, it’s board and director, the Mayor and his devious staff, really wanted the best interest of the public on this, this meeting would be in a public forum like Carnegie or the Convention Center, hiding behind your little web cameras doesn’t cut it, but doesn’t surprise me from the spineless individual who had to call in security to defend his po(o)p cooler at city hall.

Since the media rolled over like an old (dead) dog on this matter, don’t expect them to come to your rescue, this collection is as good as gone, as I predicted, because no one will hold our mayor and the person running this city, his COS, accountable. And that folks is sadder then a dead dusty monkey crying arsenic tears.

I do believe the night of the first reading of the ordinance tossing the tomb out of town will be one for the record books. I think I will watch from the SAFETY of my home 🙂

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