SF City Council

Who could serve as Sioux Falls City Councilor Cole’s fill in?

Here is the short list;

Jeff Barth

Pat Starr

Janet Brekke

Greg Neitzert

Theresa Stehly

Alex Jensen

Rex Rolfing

I know, those last two made me hurl a bit in my mouth. I do know that Jeff, Pat and Greg are interested and if I had to be a dictator I would pick Barth. Hopefully the appointment process is open and we see every one interested testify at a public meeting. If that is the case, I will also apply and I encourage as many as possible community activists do so also. Even if they don’t pick you, it is a learning experience in municipal civic engagement and it may convince you to run for office someday.

UPDATE: CITY BALL FIELD TO BE NAMED AFTER FINANCIAL INSTITUTION WITH NO DOLLAR VALUE OF SPONSORSHIP

UPDATE: So that only took 3 months but we finally know what the sponsorship was on this project;

They started with a goal of $150,000, and they ended up raising $175,000, according to neighbor Emily Fink, including a five-figure donation from Sammons Financial and grassroots efforts to knock on doors in the neighborhood and solicit donations from local businesses.

Well maybe we don’t know. So did they give $10,000 or $99,999? Apparently in SF you can sponsor a park with whatever figure you want. At least we know what the sponsorship goal was. Why did this take 3 months? Oh that’s right, this administration wouldn’t know transparency if it dropped on them like manure from a fighter jet.

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Aug 5, 2025

(Item #44) In one of the strangest park sponsorships I have ever seen, they are granting a 30 year naming sponsorship to a financial institution for a new ball field with NO DOLLAR AMOUNT mentioned in the sponsorship. I have never seen this before. They only reference what they will be paying for;

WHEREAS, HBA and the City agree that one of the conditions of such gift is to name the ballfield
“Sammons Field at Prairie Meadows Park” for the life of the Improvements and may be referred to as
the “Sammons Field” on any signage; and

While it is great they will be paying for the improvements (and why would we accept this field from Harrisburg?) there should be a yearly spending cap, so what is it? Transparency is just a turd to flush to this current administration. Don’t be fooled, the taxpayers of SF will be paying for most of the improvements, while we slap a financial institution’s name on it because they bought a couple of park benches. Even the rich and powerful now control our parks, while we have to pay to maintain them.

Country Club needs public street for more parking

First, let’s start with transparency. During Item #26’s public hearing in which a private applicant was asking to change parking to diagonal on a public street no where in the meeting did they say who it was and it was presented by the Public Works department. One would assume it is for ONE of the country clubs but all that was said at the meeting was it was ‘for the country club’. Well guess what, both clubs are on that street, so which one? Also, while I don’t oppose the parking change since it is a weird street that only those d-bags use, I found the excuse from the mysterious applicant that they didn’t have ‘land available’ for more parking. Ridiculous! All the country clubs have is LAND! And acres and acres of it! Also, if you don’t have the ‘land’ for additional parking, why not just buy the street/land from the city and make it your own private parking lot? Just another bailout to the rich who don’t need it. I would have said, “You want the land for parking? Then buy it and pay property taxes on it, otherwise, talk to yah later.” and this is what it is about, they want property tax free parking and the council rolled over like old ewes to give it to them, BAAAAAAAA!

Only Curtist the Blurtist voted against it, and my assumption was because he didn’t want taxpayers footing the bill for country club parking. Duh.

I have been enjoying Curt’s rebellion, but don’t fool yourself, this is about supporting a mayoral campaign. Heels thinks he supports her, but me thinks he is Huether’s lap dog*. But Mike may be running for Congress as an Indy. Extra weird. But when you have a corrupt AG vs. a Cajun chef he may have a chance.

*In order for Huether to successfully take the mayorship he must show that the past 8 years of Poops have been worse (I am not going there!) And all Curtist is doing is propping up Mike by dissenting the current administration. I told someone if Curt was so concerned about these things, why didn’t he bring them up 7 years ago? Hey Curt, you are NOT fooling anyone!

Charter Revision, Faux Ministries and Gardening for Pot Heads?

The CRC meets on Wednesday to discuss the 1st Chapter of the Charter. Zitterich is presenting a council commission to study the size and makeup of districts, which I support. If the CRC approves this, which I think they will, it go on the ballot for the June election and voters will be asked if they support forming such a commission.

The council will also reconsider the rezone of Tre Ministries project. This of course is the project that got the city to pay for a $500K demo job (no loan was given, we paid for it out of Public Works funds) and they lied about the investors. This is a bad idea all the way the around. I told someone from that neighborhood this was about the ‘credibility’ of the developer and a rezone can be denied because of that. I told this person I heard that Tre was changing it’s name to Lyre Ministries, it has a more Old Testament feel to it 🙂

I have to admit that some people have some strange business ideas. There was a business that closed by my house about a year ago and finally someone started leasing the retail space. It is a Bong and Gardening supply store. I looked at some of the ‘gardening supplies’. Let’s just say you could grow some killer indoor hydro toms, but I have never tried to smoke tomatoes in a bong.

Who to Appoint or Not to Appoint, and other prickly stuff

Old Detroit Lewis has been down the appointment path many times. I even applied once to be appointed to the Minnehaha County Commission, and then Chair Cindy Heiberger said she was offended that I came to the public input portion of a meeting to give my resume in advance of the nomination process. Yeah, she was a real peach. She makes Councilor Erpenbach look like Mary Poppens.

Or when Dean Karsky was appointed to the City Council and when he actually ran for the seat he put on his signs ‘RE-ELECT’ Karsky. I think I asked him how can you be re-elected when you were never elected to begin with? He gave me his insurance salesman look of I either ‘I sharted or lied’. It was usually a Shlart (C).

This whole appointment process is pure hypocrisy when you consider we have to have a runoff for council races instead of a plurality.

I digress.

Recently, Councilor Dr. Cole announced she is moving for her job. Good for her, but no surprise. I warned everyone before the election that Brekke was retired and had the time to dedicate to the council position while Cole had a lot of commitments with her employer as a medical doctor and being a single mother and would not have the time to dedicate to the position. I was 100% correct. I even predicted she would not make it to the end of her term. I was 100% correct. City government is sooo predictable. Well no one listened so now here we are, we need to appoint someone to fill out Councilor Dr. Cole’s seat after she leaves town in December. The stint would be a simple 6-7 months (I know, South Park reference). Four councilors have confirmed they want to appoint someone who is not running for council in 2026 and simply want a placeholder until the next election. They also have expressed appointing a former councilor who would be willing to help out for a few months without the intention of running, which I totally support. The short list would be;

• Brekke

• Stehly

• Neitzert

Yeah, there is the vampire guy, but c’mon!?

I have suggested Brekke or Neitzert and Neitzert confirmed to me to today that he would ‘think about it’. He thought having a former councilor with no desire to run would be a good fit. Greg also had some biking initiatives he was working on when he left council that he could finish (many of the projects are already funded). But if I wanted to be a rabble rouser I would appoint Bob Kolbe. And don’t laugh, he has the experience and would run circles around the current dais.

COMPOST PILOT

I guess the City of Brookings, which oddly has a progressive community and a conservative local government has started a compost program, I have suggested to two councilors we look into this PILOT program in Sux. I guess food waste takes up 25% of the landfill and produces most of the methane gas. So it is kind of a double edged sword for us to have residents compost when we sell methane gas to POET which helps to self-fund and expand and improve the landfill. I compost as much as I can and have several bins outside. What is great is after about a year you pull from the bottom and the black fertile stuff that comes out is pure fertilizer gold.

I AM AWARE

I want to thank my diligent foot soldiers for the messages this week about a certain someone running for a certain office. I am aware and have been 🙂 all week.

NO FAUX-KING FASCISTS!That was my favorite sign I saw at the protest today;

There was a small number of protest protesters.

When I took the photo a gentleman from the group asked if I would take them down Phillips in front of the protesters with flags. This guy was incredibly respectful and likely a veteran and he did say to me that I probably didn’t want to get into the political back and forth. I said, yeah, I had a No Kings protester ask to ride down the street with a signs, and told them no. That would send the wrong message and he was totally cool. I really appreciated that. And while there was close to 2-3K NO kings protesters or more, there was about 20 MAGA supporters.

IMAGE: Patrick Lalley

I enjoyed the peaceful interaction and commend both groups even though the SFPD and Feds tried to start a fake controversy about a stolen van with likely a joint laying on the floor into some conspiracy about Oklahoma City. What a f’kd up world we live in.

RANDOM FUNNY

As I was riding around the protest tonight a mom and her children were storming down the sidewalk in front of the wine shop just north of Minerva’s. They have this metal sandwich board sign in front of the wine shop and the boy totally smoked it. He was probably around eight? And had no mobile devices in his hand. Not only was I laughing, everyone who saw it was dying. The boy was fine and guessing by his red face, not forgetting this moment for awhile, but I have a point at his expense; They were obviously going to the protest and in a hurry, which is awesome. There were tons of families and kids and I even saw some grandparents taking a todler to the protest with her own handmade sign. A portrait of patriotism (they were likely in there 70’s or 80’s).

That is why it is so laughable and ridiculous that these supposed anti-american protesters are somehow violent?! (maybe to sandwich boards?).

No body is buying the bullshi!t. Trust me when you have 3000+ peeps on one street corner and 30 peeps from the opposition on the other street corner it sends a clear faux-king message!

It wasn’t a business decision to not allow protesters from either side to ride the Rick, it was a mortality decision, and how faux-king sad is that?! I don’t recognize this country anymore.