Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

No Soup for You! Green space closed with little explanation.

l3wis June 2, 2025 2Comments

I Southdacola foot soldier sent me this photo. I do have to commute to this area of town (36th and Sycamore) and have seen the signs. I guess I didn’t think much of it, maybe it is a conservation area? I am having a city councilor look into it, because this person also sent the picture to the council. This person has lived near this detention pond for over 30 years and told me the sign was put up recently after the city stopped mowing the area. They told me that when the city mowed it, kids would play soccer over there and fly kites or walk dogs. I guess they told me ‘it was being used.’ My assumption is it was added to the infamous ‘no mow list’ to save money. I have been talking to minions in multiple departments with the city and they said their budgets are being cut even before July. Want to save the city money? Less lawn cuttings won’t even move the needle. You need to cut out ALL non-profit handouts and layoff all middle managers with the city. You would save us millions. You also need to stop hiring consultants to do the job city employees are supposed to do, this would also save us millions. The lack of vision is so awful at city hall they need to put an image of the 3 blind mice on the front door.

My prediction was correct. ONLY ONE PERSON DESIRED Jacobson Plaza; Mr. Jacobson

l3wis April 16, 2025 7Comments

I have been saying all along the $4M Ice Ribbon that has ballooned to $16M was NOT the idea of constituents. I haven’t heard a single person say they wanted that Plaza or needed it. There has been talk in the past of putting in a ‘temporary’ refrigerated ice ribbon at a park, but no permanent structures. A lot of this talk ended when they built the Scheels Ice Complex. So I have been saying all along, this was the idea of ONE person who was looking for a tax write-off after selling their Electrical Supply Company. (I’m all for private gifts to our parks, but that money needs to go into the Parks’ general fund and let the citizens decide how that money is being spent.)

Now don’t take my word on it, during Poops State of the City address he told the audience how the ice ribbon came about. Mr. Jacobson called the Mayor, took him to lunch and told him he wanted this. As I figured. No constituent polling. No advice from the city council. No consultant proposals. Just a rich guy buying the mayor lunch.

So this is how we make $16 million dollars in parks programming decisions, we let some rich dude looking for a tax write-off to take the mayor to lunch, while the skatepark folks had to scrape for years to get the city to pony up ‘something’.

If you want to know what the citizens want for Parks Programming, just ask them. Duh. Because as I have said, money can’t buy you class, purpose, style, taste or culture, so why do we let the rich determine our parks programming? Because they buy the mayor lunch. Unfcknbelievable.