So the Pavilion, who is running the Lodge restaurant and bar at Jacobsen’s Plaza, has decided to go ‘cashless’. Not sure that is such a great idea considering a lot of people like to pay cash for a single cocktail or beer, but hey, I ain’t running the joint. So a compromise was to put in cash vending machines in the bathroom hallway (they also take credit cards). So I bought a pop with my debit card from the machine. According to the text on the machine there would be a 10 cent fee to use my card so the price would be $3.10. Well imagine my surprise when I just happened to look at my bank statement that night. They charged me $4.50! A $1.50 CC transaction fee! This is ridiculous. I already informed some city staff and hopefully they will address it.
UPDATE:Item #14, I guess we figured out why the city hasn’t continued demolishing the MX Liquor property, looks like he owes some money;
This is silly, put a lien on the property if he doesn’t pay for demolition and when the property sells the city will get it’s money. That property is in an Opportunity ZONE and they could easily get over $1 million for it. It is prime property for apartments and with it being a OZ a developer could get gobs of Federal Tax breaks for building it. I would encourage the current owner to look for a buyer or find a developer and lease the property. The city can still demo the remaining properties even if he won’t pay right away, we will get the money on the back end, and they know it. Ironically, they gave $500K to demolish a couple of blocks for a religious non-profit that lied thru their teeth to get it done. I would suggest going after that money before we worry about a slumlord who simply refuses to pay (he has the money).
Item #23, While the Operations Committee meets on occasion (they meet tomorrow to talk about a separate issue) they are making changes to the operations manual without addressing it in a public meeting. One of the many changes is letting the Mayor appoint certain board members and employees without the consent of the council. Not sure why they are ceding more power to the mayor’s office, but it explains why they didn’t announce it to the public in a meeting before the council meeting.
Item #10, They are moving forward with 2nd reading of the ball field in Harrisburg sponsorship without a dollar amount attached to the sponsorship. I have asked several councilors and other involved ‘How much is the sponsorship?’ No answer. While I get that they may not have all the bids in to determine how much the upgrades will be, they CAN put a cap or a minimum on the sponsorship without having the actual costs. This is NOT being done. This is the first time I have seen a park sponsorship with NO DOLLAR amount of that sponsorship included. Tells me the sponsor is only paying for a sign and that’s about it, if NOT, prove me wrong, and give us a dollar amount at the 2nd reading. Not sure why this is so top secret?
Item #11, The city council is moving forward with the campground ordinance, not sure if it will pass, but I am sure they have at least 4 votes and the mayor’s tie to pass this. Once again the council is giving in to the SFPD instead of creating ordinances that require them to do their job. Just because someone is the Police Chief, appointed by the mayor, doesn’t mean they have all the solutions in solving homelessness and the council should take lightly any advice he may give in solving this problem. The council needs to implement policy (their only job) that forces the SFPD to fix this issue. If they don’t want to follow the new ordinances, show them the door.
Item #12, Oh, the irony of this funding;
This ordinance is to supplement for $8 million to procure motor graders (currently leasing) and $1.8 million in network technology equipment to build out the data center to ensure a reliable and redundant network.
So in order to save a couple million on snow removal we have to spend almost $10 million to take over the service. I sometimes wonder if the peeps making these decisions are mentally challenged. You will see snow removal becoming less effective and a lot slower, if at all. In order for drivers that work for the city’s public works department to plow streets they will have to work a lot of double shifts and overtime, and if we get a big storm, it will be virtually impossible for them to keep up or complete the job in a timely manner. It’s going to be a bad winter for snow removal because of this change, but not sure how it could get worse. Remember the current snow plow chief had over a 100 car accidents in one day because he had his de-icing crew on pothole duty while it was raining ice. Should have been fired due to the millions in insurance claims and damage that was incurred on this day last winter.
MX Liquor Property; This isn’t on the agenda because the city is being very secretive about it. I have asked people in public works, the city attorney’s office and the entire city council, ‘When will the remainder be demolished?’ The deadlines have passed and the properties look even worse then when this process started. So did the city drop the ball on this? Why are the properties still standing? When the next mayor is installed, and if those houses are still standing, I will approach them on day two of their job and get them to finish the job. I can’t believe it took 20 years and 3 different mayor’s to get this done, and the mayor doesn’t want to lay off any city employees because they are so valuable. LMFAO!
A few months back Cameraman Bruce (Danielson) and I were talking about all the missing information to the public about how the dam got approved and what process was happening to make this happen. In an ideal society that has a local government that is TRANSPARENT we would have had all that information, but not in Sioux Falls. So Bruce had the brilliant idea to do a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request from the Corp of Engineers for the project. While it took several months and 2.2 GB of information, the CORPS granted Mr. Danielson’s request. I have been sorting thru the materials for over a month and finally have them to where I can start posting about the process. There was many twists in turns in the process, including changing the direction of the design, water contamination, a refusal from the SD Historical Society (State Agency) and much more. While most of the materials are redacted of personal names, it is easy to determine who the contractors are, who the city employees are and who the CORPS are. The irony is any email or correspondence coming from the CORPS is extremely professional and detailed, city employees and especially the independent contractors NOT SO MUCH. It seemed they didn’t want to get the CORPS involved unless they ran into an issue. Which is odd since the CORPS won’t officially approve the project until it is finished, and that may not be until the end of next summer since after the dam construction is finished they have to create wetlands around the area to preserve the area AS IS.
What I have found fascinating is the city seems to be doing this by the seat of their pants and crossing their fingers it will work, which I believe has put the project over budget by at least $1 Million because of the poor planning and lack of concerted coordination with the CORPS. This city will never learn, when you do things in the OPEN you save the taxpayers money and it makes the process smoother. If they would have also made the process more open and brought the public along, there may have been members in our community who wanted to weigh in with ideas. I have often argued our city is full of smart folks who understand this stuff, if we would just ASK them. It reminds of the process when a group of citizens decided to tackle sustainability in Sux and all of the efforts and work turned into toilet paper Poops used to wipe his tight ass. We have experts in Sux, but instead we use leaders who are more concerned about selfies and jumping jacks then expert advice.
I hope to put up the materials by week’s end, it’s going to be a whopper of a post.
As if the screaming contractors and idiotic detours, signage and blockades aren’t enough, we now have to deal with an inferior resurfacing, that is actually extremely dangerous and causing accidents.
As I pointed out recently they have been doing upgrades to the bike trail this summer. Some of it has been totally resurfaced (which is the best way to go) but in a effort to SAVE money they are not resurfacing it all (a resurface is actually pouring a few inches of NEW asphalt over the current trail).
On a stretch out to Family Park and various other spots on the trail they just filled the cracks (with a sealant instead of actually filling the cracks with asphalt) All the sealant does is make a crack twice as bumpy, because the original crack still exists because the sealant just settles into the crack, then it creates two new bumps with the dried sealant on either side of the crack, then they just put a black oil over the top (lipstick on a pig) essentially just painting over the cracks and sealing the bumps. It is dumb on many levels, including creating more bumps and sealing those bumps with oil, but what makes it worse is that it makes the bike trail extremely slick (oil is a petroleum based product, oil and water don’t mix). If it is wet after a rain, or if there is extreme humidity or spotty ice patches it turns the trail into an ice skating rink. I have almost wiped out a few times and have learned that you should take corners slow on this oil surfacing or you WILL wreck.
Last week after a brief afternoon rain I took the trail to commute to work. There is this hairy corner under the interstate by Rotary Park that I always take slow, even in dry conditions because of the poor visibility, the incline and the slippery trail. Not everyone gets it. As I was navigating the corner I noticed it was very slick so I was going pretty slow. Off the side of the trail I saw someone had wiped out on a regular road bike (non-electric). I actually knew the person. He slipped taking the corner and ended up in the trees with scratches on his face, hands, arms and knees and covered in mud. I asked if he was ok, and he was, but pretty scratched up. I told him that black oil is just like snot to ride on when wet or humid and you have to watch yourself. He is lucky he didn’t run into a tree and cause more injury to himself. He is a DTSF business owner, so I told him to complain to the parks department about the hazard, I think he will. Just another example of poor planning. You didn’t fix a damn thing and you actually made it worse.
As for the resurfacing (the best way to go) they need to put in a rough aggregate into the asphalt so the trail isn’t so slick after a rain instead of straight oil. Who was the genius engineer with the city that came up with this? They need to be fired.
“Sioux Falls, we’re asking for this to stop. These construction workers work hard all day in the hot sun to make sure our trail is a smooth ride* for YOU,” the post said.
I have a different approach moving forward, instead of reporting RUDE construction workers, I encourage people to approach them and politely ask them what they are working on, and when they light into you start filming them and plaster all over social media. I think it is disgusting how our only two TV stations picked this up without even bothering to read the FB comments or go out on the trail and see the poor planning done by these 3rd party contractors. As someone who uses the trail almost daily, I am NOT going to let City Hall dictate the narrative on this. The contractors are frustrated because there was NO foresight or planning and now they are taking it out on the very people who gave them a job. It is ridiculous. I thought the media was supposed to stick up for us? A ‘city’ is not a ‘person’ why are you protecting a failed institution? Why aren’t you questioning their lack of planning? Or why they close off 3 miles of trail to pour 20 feet of concrete they could have easily surrounded in fencing to protect it? No wonder people only watch our local TV stations for the weather.
*As for the ‘smooth trails’ don’t make me laugh. I took the completed repaired spur out to Family Park yesterday. Instead of resurfacing they just did crack in seal (which just settles into the original crack and makes more of a bump) and put one layer of oil over the top. In other words, it looks wonderful, but it is still just as bumpy as the Oregon Trail, not sure what was fixed? Well at least it will be twice as hot with the new black lip stick 🙁
UPDATE: I knew it would be just a matter of time before the city blamed bicyclists for RUDE contractors. There is a saying; Treat others the way you want to be treated. Have I yelled at one of these contractors? Maybe, but not before they lit into me, literally SCREAMING at you because you entered a part of the trail they were working on. Maybe fewer people would be treating you this way if you put up proper signage, put in detours, AND STOP YELLING AT US like we are robbing a bank. It is also obvious to me that the city is taking the contractor’s side on this because of what they said in the post;
Many of these construction projects are being conducted by third-party construction companies. We do our best to stay in constant communication with them, but unfortunately, there are times when trail work might occur without enough time to click post.
In other words they have NO CLUE of how these contractors are doing the work. And why are they doing the work? For years, the city has used our Public Works department to make these upgrades, with proper detours along the trail. I don’t condone tearing down signs or driving thru fresh oil or concrete (it just wrecks your bike) but you have to question the poor planning of the contractors. I’m sure they are frustrated, I would be to if I planned a project this poorly. I am encouraging the next time one of these contractors yells at you for NO reason to call the non-emergency police line and report being harassed by them. If enough people complain, this crap will end.
I spoke at the council meeting Tuesday night (last commenter) about how planning detours for bike trail repairs is really bad. I explained to them that for years if there was a detour on the bike trail you just had a temp path next to path being repaved. Not this year. They blocked off 3 miles by Cliff to pour 20 ft of concrete, they did the same today with about 4 miles blocked that has been repaved and completely dry (no oil residue on tires). Besides the poor planning with detours and putting up these ridiculous barricades with chain lock ups, the contractors doing the work are mean. They will scream at you if you even approach a barricade. Here’s the deal, I’m paying for these repairs, so be a bit respectful, and secondly, what do you care? If I am riding in the grass around the project how am I impeding your work? I’ll say it again; There is a lot of stupid people in the world, and most of them live in Sioux Falls 🙁
l3wis 
