Yah Think?

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You think rock & wood thingy is FREE? Pay up bitches!

During the city election campaign I told a candidate for the city council what makes are city great; PARKS & LOW CRIME. In fact it doesn’t take a freaking rocket scientist to figure it out, just a parenting magazine;

SIOUX FALLS, SD – Many families are spending Father’s Day honoring the men in their lives and for some that means spending time together doing activities. The Family Fishing Park near Sioux Falls was a hot spot today. It’s one of dozens of parks in the area and according to Parenting Magazine, it’s also one of the top cities for families.

Sioux Falls ranks at number 11. The results are tallied by considering the city’s crime rate, unemployment rate and numerous recreational areas. Those enjoying what Sioux Falls has to offer agree the city deserves its rating.

What makes are parks great? Most of them are FREE (sure, we pay taxes to have them maintained). But a part of me worries a bit. The Parks department has been continuing to raise rates for certain amenities. Are they going to start nickel and diming us for stuff we already pay for thru taxes? How pathetic would it be to have to pay a toll to ride on our bike trails? I have often thought out trails are ‘extravagant’ (ie, we could have functional trails for a lot less) and that some day we would pay the piper. We have expanded them during good economic times, now we want to maintain them and the money has ran out. Go figure. Deal. Cut back. Make sacrifices, like the rest of us have. Like I said before, this isn’t rocket science, just third grade math.

Keep our parks, Keep our cops (even Gaye Mustache) just do it on the cheap.

I’m a cusser to, but hey, I’m not running for mayor of Sioux Falls like Mike Huether.

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I found this tidbit interesting;

This doesn’t surprise me, I have heard Mike has gone off on other media types, and former employees. He has even said fuck to me before (casually) – doesn’t bother me. It is common in the Credit Card industry, greed makes you a little crazy. I like to cuss though to, makes me feel better to get it off my chest. But I am not running for public office. For all the years I have known Kermit, I have never even heard him even say ‘damn’. Not in his nature, he usually laughs things off or is very pointed in his remarks.

While some of my friends have claimed that I have ‘gone off the deep end’ for supporting Kermit, it kinda sounds like Mike is the one ‘going off the deep end’ he knows nothing about running for public office. And if he becomes mayor, he will have a rude awakening when in the first 100 days of his administration the media is slapping him around like a sock monkey for his lack of knowledge of government.

While Greg and I don’t see eye to eye, I will commend him for talking about this, it needed to be heard.

UPDATE: Greg will be on KCPO’s the Facts this morning at 10:30 AM talking about the mayoral race (Cable channel 2)

Michelle Erpenbach; Poor choice for Sioux Falls city council

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Nice sign, if you are running a bed and breakfast (this was an actual comment made to someone who had the sign in their yard)

But besides the signage, Michelle seems to be acting like Stehly even though she is nothing like her;

Then, look at the overall city debt. It’s $227 million! That’s a lot of money and I don’t mean to belittle the honest fears people have about debt. But, let’s take a quick line-by-line review. All of this is public information that I downloaded off the city’s website at www.siouxfalls.org.

Some of our debt is what we have left to pay on the new police station. Final payment will be made this year.

More than $31 million of it funded the flood control project completed in 2009 in the Garfield and Edison areas.

We’ve invested $5 million in keeping the landfill functioning at the level required by federal guidelines. Landfill users are paying this back with their fees and residents see it on their monthly garbage bills.

Another $112 million is improving the city water system. Water users will gradually pay this off as we pay our city utility bills.

And, $70 million is working in our water reclamation system. Again, a fee-based project that doesn’t affect tax dollars.

Yes, some of the funds are in the Quality of Life bonds that built the new Harmodon ballpark and the Drake Springs pool. Those funds will also bring a new library to the city’s westside and revitalize the River Greenway downtown. Those payments are also budgeted: from our sales tax funds.

I would not vote to put the city into further debt that doesn’t make sense.

Really? All of sudden you are a fiscal conservative? Guess you better send back that check you got from Tom Daschle. You wouldn’t vote to put our city further in debt, yet you just rationalized that the above debt is okay? Huh? I am still baffled why we paid Lewis and Clark up front for something we won’t have for another 2-4 years (maybe) We are paying higher water fees for something we don’t have, some of that interest, mind you.

That being said, I have to look at this in terms of the commuter corridors in the city.  Look at Minnesota Avenue.  Look at Cliff Avenue.  And 10th  and 26th streets.  All of these are key streets in the Central District and in the city of Sioux Falls.  We must come together as leaders of this city to balance the use of that second penny sales tax so those critical commuter corridors don’t fail us anymore than they already have.  Let’s make the second penny sales tax effective for road construction and re-construction while continuing to support those projects our growing community so vitally needs.

You are concerned about the city not spending money on the streets? Really? Then why haven’t I heard you say anything publicly about it? I have never seen you at the council meetings talking about it and you never brought it up when you were trying to get appointed to the council. You are using this as a campaign issue because all of a sudden residents have figured out our streets are in piss poor shape. You are not fooling anyone.

My work with community garden families led to my appointment to the Sioux Falls Parks and Recreation Board. I’ve served nearly five years in this volunteer position, helping guide the future of the parks system, reviewing and revising the annual budget, and gaining a deep understanding of the city’s capital improvement process.

Another reason 1) not to vote for you and 2) that you are not this ‘fiscal conservative’ you claim to be. SF Parks and Rec has one of the most bloated budgets of any department in the city, and tons of waste (people reading novels while watering trees, mowing a 1/4 inch of grass, etc, etc.) I have often said we could spend half of what we do now and still have the same great parks. Heck, we even had Gene Rowenhorst saying that was the first place they would cut back on this summer is mowing the grass less and after that he said, “And most people wouldn’t even notice the change in service.” Then why haven’t we been doing this all along Michelle? Was this ever discussed in all the years you sat on the board? Or are you only concerned about ‘wasteful spending’ now that you are running for office. Deeds speak louder then words sister.

Michelle, give it a rest. Your strategy of trying to look like your opponent will not work. We need LEADERS on the city council, not FOLLOWERS.

Your website looks nice at least.

SF Parks and Rec worker struggles with multi-tasking I guess

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watering-trees-with-treegator

For the third time in less then a month I caught the same P & R worker enthralled in his novel while watering trees in Yankton Trail park. (you know all those new trees they planted after cutting perfectly good mature trees down last year). I tried to snap a picture with my camera phone but he caught a glimpse of me, so no luck. The same worker in a brand new P & R truck has been sitting in the cab of the truck reading a book while watering trees. Sure, it probably takes a few minutes to water each tree, but couldn’t you be either A) watering multiple trees at once and using your time to move hoses or B) weed whacking around the trees while watering? I guess multi-tasking isn’t a requirement of the P & R workers. I guess that is why you always see two of them on an ATV picking up trash. One to pickup the trash, and one to hold the garbage bag. And we wonder why the city spent $7 million in labor on our parks this year. Gee, I’m no accountant, but I can probably guess why.