Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Is Community Swim 365 using a professional strategist?

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I find it interesting that the group has propped up Margaret Sumption as one of their citizen spokes people. Who is Margaret? She is the partner in Sumption & Wyland, a strategic planning firm;

Margaret J. Sumption, MSED, LPC, SPHR, has over thirty years of experience as a teacher and counselor, nonprofit administrator, development officer, and volunteer board member serving a wide variety of organizations. She is a popular, dynamic, and effective speaker and trainer for nonprofit professionals, customers, and policy makers.

Not sure if Sumption is volunteering her time to the organization or being paid for her advocacy? But the group has a spiffy little website that was hardly thrown together by some swim team teenagers. They also are using a PO Box instead of a physical address for the organization which tells me this isn’t some Mom & Pop social club.
No surprise, the Events Center advocates put together the organization Build it Now to promote their cause, so it only makes sense that Community Swim would do the same. But the real issue here is posing as a ‘grass roots’ operation, when you are clearly using professional assistance to get your message out there;

Members of Community Swim 365 say Spellerberg Park is the perfect place for an indoor swimming pool. Margaret Sumption, a longtime central Sioux Falls resident, says a year-round aquatic center would help draw more families into the area.

“I want very much for my neighborhood to remain vibrant. It is a beautiful community area. It is in the center of Sioux Falls and that center of Sioux Falls is changing,” Sumption said.

Small business owner Susie Patrick believes an indoor facility would preserve park green space and enhance access to the nearby sledding hill with more parking.

“We just like to swim. Taught our kids to swim at a really young age and think it’s really important for the community to have access to the same swimming lessons and have a pool for everyone to use,” Patrick said.

The stark irony of the group when compared to the Hockey or Indoor tennis folks is that CS365 doesn’t have any skin in the game (private/public partnership) but seemingly have found a way to raise money for professional marketing assistance, oh, and some t-shirts.

So let’s be honest here, are we dealing with a ‘grassroots’ organization, or a ‘professional special interests’ organization? Not sure. I would also like to point out the name of the organization is kind of odd. I doubt the pool will be open 365 days a year, but you never know? I can’t wait to get in my Christmas day swim.

What candy cane?

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Just another game being played by the city’s parks department?

Maybe they were too busy salting the streets to participate in silly candy cane games?

But the candy cane hunt never took place.

“It is rumored that Santa’s elves were left behind in Sioux Falls after Christmas. It is believed that they hid numerous candy canes in Tuthill Park,” read the description on the Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation Department website of an event scheduled by Parks and Recreation for Saturday morning.

The rumors apparently were wrong.

About a dozen families with children showed up at the park prepared to ferret out the wily Christmas confection. But they had to resort to alternate plans when no one from Parks and Recreation showed up to get the hunt under way. There also was no cancellation notice on the department’s website, and attempts to reach Parks and Recreation officials were unsuccessful; their offices were closed for the weekend.

Maybe that’s why they didn’t show up? Should have had the public works guys take care of the event, according to everyone and their sister, they work 24/7, just not to change light bulbs on Christmas lights downtown, they have to hire a private contractor to do that.

I wonder if the ‘candy cane consultant’ the city hired fell through?

Can’t wait to hear the excuses for this mishap . . .

“Yeah, Carlos Candyland, our director of sugar, snow and winter fun for the Parks Department suddenly became ill and could not attend.”

Is Great Bear a worthy expansion project?

Believe it or not, like the new Hockey Ice Center, I support the expansion of Great Bear. I think that Great Bear has proven with it’s attendance numbers, it is very popular and worthy of capital dollars;

The staff at Great Bear is celebrating a big step towards expanding the popular slopes.

“Our last expansion was in 2000. Back then we were seeing 22,000 visits a year. Last year, we did 43,000,” General Manager Dan Grider said.

Tuesday night, they presented the master plan to the city parks board and received overwhelming approval.

As I have stated in the past, recreation projects in Sioux Falls that are ‘needed’ will have usage, and hopefully financial sustainability, like the city golf courses. I will confess that I was a little leery about supporting the expansions in the past of Great Bear, but have changed my tune. I have never expected our city parks or bike trail to make money, they are amenities that can be used at no charge.  But I do think the recreational facilities such as the Ice-plex and Great Bear should generate enough revenue to sustain.

Congrats to Great Bear on the expansion!

Even with Mayor Huether’s recusal last night, he still had a conflict of interest

Mayor Huether recused himself from the discussion and vote on the Indoor Tennis facility last night, to avoid a conflict of interest. He also will not be signing the contract.

The fact is that it doesn’t really matter. We will get to that in a moment.

Councilor Staggers was the lone ‘NO’ vote on the contract last night;

. . . but Kermit Staggers cast the lone no vote on the tennis contract. He questioned whether there are enough tennis players in the area to support such a facility.

Even if the council would not have approved the contract last night, they have already approved the expenditure in the CIP budget earlier in the year. This was just a contract approval, not an ‘allocation’ approval.

And that is the gist of Huether’s conflict. Who prepares the CIP budget and presents it to the city council for approval? THE MAYOR! By budgeting the money for the tennis facility in the CIP budget, the mayor performed his conflict already. His ‘non’ performance last night was just smoke and mirrors.