Well, he didn’t quite say that, but in response to Belfrage about the great volunteerism he basically does say that;
“If the city would have launched an effort right away, that the city is going to take care of this, people would have sat on their porches and waited for us.”
Give me a Freaking Break! People were immediately cleaning up the next morning, with or without your blessing. Just like the ice storm, people were cleaning up their own yards. I don’t think ANYONE wanted or expected the city to clean up their private property, that was NOT what people wanted, they just wanted a truck to come by and pick up the rubbish, and the city SHOULD do that for people who don’t have the resources like what was done during the ice storm.
And guess what, the city did ultimately end up doing that (notice that was left out of the interview).
To say the people of Sioux Falls would have just put their feet up and waited for city employees to clean up the mess is ridiculous and insulting.
Then Paul flat out lies saying that councilors Stehly and Starr did NOT reach out to him and he tried to reach out to them. I’ve seen the correspondence folks, that is NOT how it happened. I can’t speak for Starr, but I do know that Stehly was constantly trying to get information from the mayor on what citizens were supposed to do with their tree waste and he ignored her.
It is amazing to watch how this is being spun into the ‘great’ volunteer effort of the century. I have lived in the Midwest 95% of my lifetime. I have lived in city’s, towns, and on farms. I have also lived in Sioux Falls since 1991. I have never known neighbors not to help each other! Ever! Whether it was an ice storm, wind storm, or even a major snow storm. It is in our blood to help each other. The State of South Dakota actually ranks 15th in the nation in volunteerism. The mayor should be ashamed of himself to even think that Sioux Falls residents would simply just wait on the porch for help.
In every single one of the interviews or talks that I’ve given with Todd, he has always made it clear that the sirens are for outdoor use only.
This is absolutely TRUE, but Greg decides to spin it, like him and his Trumpster ilk like to do;
In my opinion, Councilor Stehly jeopardizes lives when she spreads such blatant misinformation.
As you will see in a FB comment below, the only one jeopardizing lives was the people who failed to turn on the sirens to begin with. While it is true they are for outdoor use only, it doesn’t change the fact that someone really screwed the pooch, and just blowing it off as ‘human error’ and it really doesn’t matter (because apparently people are not outside during storms) is hogwash. Stehly should be concerned the sirens didn’t alarm, whether they are for outside, inside or for the moon.
One of the chief concerns of the mayor is that several hundred employees will be retiring within the next 4-5 years. As Holsen points out below, I look at this as an amazing opportunity for the city to bring in fresh talent while saving taxpayers money. Maybe some of these people don’t need to be replaced at all? Holsen also points out that city jobs are coveted, something I have know for a long time;
I will have been retired from The City of Sioux Falls for 11 years. Prior to my retirement, I was the Director of Human Resources for 23 years, working for 5 different Mayors, under 3 different forms of government.
Mayors are elected officials who come to city government mainly naive in their understanding of governmental accounting, finance and governance issues. That does not diminish any managerial or leadership qualities, it just recognizes their lack of bureaucratic, leadership, management and cultural issues and personnel in city government itself.
Mayor TenHaken’s latest proposal to add a chief culture officer that would work out of his office to address employee turnover in city government by fostering better employee engagement and administering programs that cultivate the next generation of leaders at City Hall makes no sense.
The city has a Director of Human Resources and an extremely competent HR Department whose responsibility is to address and plan for those very issues.
The Mayor is responsible for the overall administration of government operations. That’s why he oversees his appointive officials who are directly responsible for managing their departments and functions.
Employee retention and recruitment is the direct responsibility of the Human Resources Department. Leadership development, culture development, people development and succession planning is the responsibility of the Director of Human Resources and department managers. That’s what they are paid to do.
How do I know that? Because I speak from experience. My department, under my leadership, monitored employee recruitment and retention. With forecasted retirement and turnover data, the directors were constantly informed of retention issues and were tasked, along with our direction and leadership, with putting together comprehensive training and leadership development action plans to deal with the so-called “silver tsunami” which, by the way, is not some new phenomenon just discovered by Mayor TenHaken. We identified it well over a decade ago.
Myself and other selected directors attended a national succession planning conference and came back to Sioux Falls ready to put plans in place to deal with this issue.
As directors, we worked together to identify people within our organization who had either been identified as having the potential and skills necessary to move into leadership and managerial positions, irrespective of their home department. We totally revamped the recruitment, testing and hiring practices for police and fire where the “silver Tsunami “ was a clear and present danger.
The city of Sioux Falls is a coveted employer by people looking for a job. It offers an excellent wage and benefit package including a pension system the private sector no longer offers its employees. The turnover rate has always been historically low, ranging anywhere from a low of 2% to a high of 5%. That is what, we in the field, call a healthy turnover rate. Why? Because change is good and with change comes new talent. The fact is, the city of Sioux Falls didn’t have a recruitment and retention problem that other employers were faced with back then and they don’t have one now. That did not mean we ignored the “silver tsunami” or that we ignored targeted areas where we knew we needed to identify specific recruitment actions for certain technical or highly skilled positions that were outside our normal recruitment area.
The point I’m trying to make here, its totally inappropriate and and actually rather arrogant of the Mayor to propose a Chief Cultural Officer in his office. If the position is actually needed in the organization, it belongs under the direct supervision and oversight of the Director of Human Resources. That department has all the tools and information to administer programs that cultivate the next generation of leaders at City Hall.
Mayor TenHaken needs to go back and read the City Charter so he has a better understanding of his role as Mayor. If this position is actually needed, based on the feedback and direction of the Director of Human Resources, then the City Council should fund it and put it where it belongs. It does not belong in the Mayor’s office.
There will be a presentation on a Pre-Annexation plan. I’m not sure if the property owners requested this or the city is proposing it. As you know, annexation into the city can be very expensive for individual property owners.
Brekke and Stehly will be doing a presentation on their beekeeping ordinance.
Item #6, Contracts/Agreements, you can see how much we are paying for private contractors to clean up city. What I find amazing is that the city IS spending money for cleanup, so why not just clean it all up? This is a great economic impact for our local contractors who will circulate their earnings throughout our city’s economy. While the city will be spending our taxdollars, that money will stay local.
Item #7, Change orders, A $121K expenditure to the bunker ramp for utility changes. The hits keep coming folks for this fraudulent mistake by two mayors and several city councilors. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Item #19, Sanford’s new wedding barn is asking for a retail liquor license. Still wondering why a hospital needs a wedding barn?
Item #41, Councilor Man-Child is asking for money for the bike trail while asking volunteers to clean up a natural disaster.
Item #42, Property Tax increase, this will pass unfortunately. But what will be fun to watch is how they will tell us we need to keep reserves then turn around and deny those reserves in cleaning up the city. I wonder if they know how stupid they look?
Item #43, The city is buying property from the Soukup family in the tune of $2.6 million. Not sure what this is for. As you know the family donated land to the city for family park.
Item #47, CIP budget approval.
#52, NEW BUSINESS, Stehly and Starr are proposing the city cleanup all rubbish placed in boulevard from the storm.
You would think the city’s chief information officer, TJ TypeOver (Nelson) would have better things to do with his time then go on FB and mock people who are commenting about the storm cleanup. Crazy that TJ has time to comment in between all his volunteering and cleaning up the city. Maybe you should concentrate on giving CLEAR information and reading dictionaries.
BTW, TJ, you really SHOULD be wearing a baseball cap, because that Trump-Like thing you got going on isn’t working for you.
I was pretty surprised when I watched this video and saw Michaels endorsing and introducing Julian (who is a Democrat).
If I was Julian, I would remind voters every single day that as a former law enforcement officer, he would never vote to go into a private/public partnership with a bunch of criminals like Greg did with the bunker ramp. I would make Greg own it every single frickin’ day.
After the ice storm there was a discussion about passing an ordinance that prohibits anyone from planting new or replacement trees in the boulevard. Besides the obvious mess it creates if we have windy storms, boulevard trees often cause damage to taller vehicles like trucks and snowplow maintainers. The roots also wreak havoc on utilities.
Before the ash borer the city would remove a tree in the boulevard at no cost to the homeowner. The top two reasons were it was either dead or messing with utilities.
It’s at least time to discuss the matter and do some serious research on the possibility. There are also many arguments for them. I think you could have it both ways, by maybe limiting density, etc. You could also have homeowners plant trees on the private property side of the city sidewalk.
Since Tuesday’s disaster I have been waiting for a government official representing Sioux Falls and South Dakota to say the FEMA word. No one has until yesterday when Rounds finally talked about FEMA assistance. But he clarified that would be up to Noem to ask for that assistance. So Donita Trump Noem. Are you? How about you Paul? As I said to someone today, watching the city’s ‘political’ response this week is like watching 1st Graders run city government for a class experiment.
So we hire private contractors to clean up residential areas while city employees are cleaning up the bike trail?! There was 4 of them. While I do know that cleaning up the bike trail is important and has to be done eventually, shouldn’t the priority be the residential neighborhoods first?
And apparently NOW the city says they ‘could’ pick up your stuff if you cannot;
Funny, as I predicted, TenHaken had a change of heart after Stehly and Starr put a motion forward. Heck, Neitzert’s FB post from below even disappeared. I wonder why? But the bigger issue is the mixed messages out there, citizens are confused why the city is picking up stuff when they said they would not. Many people have told me that the private contractors have been picking up all waste in the boulevard and have been asking NO questions about where it came from. So are they NOT following orders? Who knows? I guess one resident said that Councilor Kiley told some people to stop putting their private property waste in the boulevard, they ignored him and guess what? They picked it up. So I’m telling people, just drag it out there, they will probably pick it up.
Somebody asked me if I volunteered? I did not. Nobody asked me for help, in fact one of my friends asked ME if I needed help, I told him NO.
You will see that Neitzert calls the motion a political stunt. Greg can say some pretty ridiculous things (probably why he took it down). When a natural disaster occurs you have to have a multiple tiered approach. They definately should include volunteers, and I commend people for that. But it also should include a government response with assistance in cleanup. All people are asking for is that the rubbish be removed from the boulevard, they will do the work to get it out there. Why is this so complicated?
I will say it again, we pay taxes and maintain a reserve fund for these kind of events. This is NOT a handout, we will be paying for it. Not sure why the mayor is acting like the city doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.
The only political stunt occurring is the mayor and some city councilors acting like they know how to lead, because they are failing miserably.
Press Release Contact: Joan McMillin Phone: 605-331-0037 Email: commongroundssd@gmail.com
Secure Our Election Rally
When: Tuesday, September 17, 10:00 a.m.
Where: Office of Senator John Thune, 5015 S, Bur Oak Place, Sioux Falls
Why: Our elections are under attack. We have been warned by Robert Mueller, by FBI Director Christopher Wray, by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, and by all our intelligence agencies that our elections in 2020 will be under even greater attack by Russia and other nations.
Yet legislation which would dedicate $600 million to update vulnerable election systems and ensure all votes are backed up by paper ballots sits languishing on the desk of Senate Leader Mitch McConnell..
We are rallying to urge Senator Thune to use his influence as the second ranking Republican in the Senate to bring this legislation to a vote. It has bipartisan support.
What is more important to our democracy than that our elections are secure?
WASHINGTON (AP) – A new study suggests when a pregnant woman breathes in air pollution, it can travel beyond her lungs to the placenta that guards her fetus. Pollution composed of tiny particles from car exhaust, smokestacks and other sources is dangerous to everyone. During pregnancy, particle pollution is linked to premature births and low […]
KDLT- TV, along with Billion Auto and Shipley’s Garment Spa are teaming up with The Salvation Army to help make the winter season a little warmer for those in need. This year marks the 32nd annual “Coats for All” coat drive campaign. Starting September 23rd you can drop off your new or gently-used coats, hats, […]
Lebanese Army soldiers stand guard outside a military court where an arrest warrant was issued for Lebanese-American Amer Fakhoury, who confessed he'd worked for Israel during its occupation of Lebanon for nearly two decades, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Sept. 17,…
