Entries Tagged 'Sioux Falls' ↓

As you can see the City Council will meet on Monday instead of Tuesday this week. Have no idea why, because, as you know, this council and administration are not real big on transparency.

At the informational meeting they will discuss the September financials and a sewer study (which means spending more money 🙁 and a fun filled executive session. Is it just me, or does this administration have an unusual amount of these? Oh, right, the secrecy and corruption thing again.

At the regular city council meeting, it is pretty sleepy except for item #6, Approval of Contracts, Sub-item #9; Engagement Agreement to Provide Legal Services as Plaintiff’s Counsel, Woods Fuller Shultz & Smith P.C., $20K. Could we be more vague? It seems this administration is getting sued quite a bit. Who is the ‘Plaintiff’? Is it a city employee? An elected official? Shall we play Bingo to figure it out?

Item #31, 1st Reading, addresses the Historic Neighborhood vote the Planning Commission decided to throw into the consent agenda and have a zero discussion about.

Item #43, 1st Reading, raises the vacant building fee from $200 per year to $1,000 per year. I fully support this. I have a property owner in my neighborhood who has had 3 vacant houses and several other commercial buildings for several years (10 years? 15th and Cliff). They have now become a dumping ground for his junk vehicles, tractors, trailers and whatever other crap he can throw there. I have pressured the city numerous times to at least get him to clean up the property and rent out the houses with NO avail. But as I have said in the past, it isn’t happening on White Church Lane, so it doesn’t matter.

Items #45-46, resolutions, more (Covid) money to welfare queens, Lewis & Clark. Once these guys see a government tap of money, they come a running, and now strangely, the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, City Council is authorizing monies from the State of Iowa. Did GOP chair, Iowa Dan Lederman have something to do with this?

Item #47, As we all know, the city plans to sell the parking lot directly South of the downtown Ace Hardware to Lloyd properties to build an apartment building. I may be wrong about the developer, but this sh!t show has been in the works for so long, if they sold it to someone else I would be totally shocked. This, of course, is what happens when you have a former executive from the company working as the mayor’s chief of shaft. It will be curious what kind of ‘deal’ they receive for the property and other tax incentive goodies for building an apartment building in the heart of downtown.

Item #48 is curious since there is NO attached documents telling us what this surplus property is. Shady I tell yah, very Shady!

While I understand peeps frustration in Stapleton cancelling his show last night (he really could have done it earlier in the day) I really think this could be a lesson in local economic impact. As we know, the Denty hasn’t really helped the economy in Sioux Falls that much, in fact it is a drain of over $10 million a year to taxpayers, money that could be spent on needed infrastructure instead. As I have said before, besides the little bit of tax revenue we draw from the place each year, almost 100% of the money that is spent at the facility goes straight down the highway. The promoters, management companies (beverage and food included) and the artists get the lion’s share and take it straight out of town. Very little gets recirculated in the community.

But last night, I saw something amazing in DTSF. The streets were filled with flannel wearing, boot scootin’ concert goers that were stuck in town for the night without a show to go to. They were spending the money they intended to throw away at the Denty in our town at local businesses instead of to a corporate giant.

It would be interesting to see what the sales tax boost to the city was from last night.

One of the main reasons I opposed the Denty, wasn’t because of the price tag, it was because it would not benefit local business. When people are dropping $400 per person in one night (tickets, beverages, taxi, hotel, etc.) basically in one place, they have blown their entertainment budget for several months and not spending it locally.

I remember a time around 10-15 years ago when you had oodles of options to see live music and entertainment at a host of different venues. And not just local yocals but National and Regional acts. The money spent got recirculated in our community.

Let us learn from this incident.

Just like clockwork, the Jesus plows appear in the Fall. It’s like our own little version of the Taliban. Like Afghanistan, let’s end this war with the US Constitution.

As we know this happened this week;

A Sioux Falls man who was stabbed in the head earlier this week has died in a hospital, police say. 
Christopher Joel Mousseaux, 32, was stabbed Sunday night and died Wednesday night, police spokesman Sam Clemens said. An autopsy was set to be performed Thursday.
Steven Tuopeh, 26, and Jeff Pour, 28, were arrested separately on Tuesday and charged with aggravated assault, Clemens said.
Mousseaux was stabbed around 10:30 p.m. Sunday near Eighth Street and Indiana Avenue, Clemens said.

For several months the Dudley House exterior property and adjacent public property has been the stomping ground for transients not allowed in the facility. They have been crapping, urinating, drinking, shootin’ up, fighting, sleeping and fornicating on the property or adjacent public property. Neighborhood complaints have been lodged at the SFPD, the Sioux Falls City Council, the Mayor, the Catholic Diocese who runs the house, the house director herself and several other organizations who assist the facility to no avail.

Now we have a person who has been murdered. Stabbed and beaten to death.

(the incident supposedly started at a bar on 8th and occurred directly North of the Dudley in a parking lot the volunteers use at the Banquet)

The media really needs to report the facts of what is going on in and around the Dudley House in that neighborhood, this is NOT a random isolated incident, the area around this facility has fallen into complete chaos and NOBODY wants to fix it and the MEDIA is dead silent about it.

We may humor the term ‘Fake News’ but in Sioux Falls we have ‘No News’.

It seems the city is handling this like they handled Covid, ignore it and maybe it will eventually go away.

I’ll get us started;

‘A Pastor, a Color Blind Graphic Designer and a Narcissist walk into a bar . . . wait, maybe I got those mixed around’

Rich personally asked me today to share this, and I appreciate him reaching out. I will post any candidate information if they send it to me;

Rich Merkouris, a respected faith and community leader, has announced his intention to seek a seat on the Sioux Falls City Council in the 2022 elections. He will be a candidate for the At-Large B seat held by Christine Erickson. The election is April 12, 2022.

“My commitment as a Councilor would be to listen, communicate and collaborate,’’ Merkouris, 39, said. “I will work hard to hear the concerns of citizens, share my perspective and work alongside others to find compromise for the good of all citizens.’’

Merkouris, a Sioux Falls resident for 20 years, serves as President of Kingdom Capital Fund and Senior Pastor of King of Glory Church. He is on the board of directors for Empower Sioux Falls, Compassion Child Care, and the Sioux Falls Hope Coalition. He has helped lead multiple collaborative efforts in Sioux Falls including the development of the Empower Campus, the formation of the Sioux Falls Hope Coalition and housing re-development in Pettigrew Heights. Over the last eleven years, Merkouris has served as a Volunteer Chaplain for the Sioux Falls Police Department and Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office.

Merkouris pledged to focus on several critical issues, including strengthening housing options, renewing core neighborhoods, enhancing public spaces, lowering youth crime, and encouraging collaboration across all segments of the community.

“I love Sioux Falls and believe it is the best city in which to raise a family,’’ he said. “Our family has been given so much by this community. We want to strengthen it so that every family can flourish in this city. It would be a great honor to represent citizens from all different parts of the community on the City Council.”

Merkouris and his wife, Shannon, a special education teacher at John Harris Elementary School, have three children: Hannah, Henry and Hazel.

EDITOR’s NOTE: I personally have NOT endorsed anyone for this seat. Rich is the first to announce and the only candidate so far for AT-LARGE B (Erickson’s current seat).

I have argued for a long time that religion and politics don’t mix and I don’t think a pastor or faith leader should be an elected official. Either pick to lead a congregation, a non-profit or a city, you just can’t do all three. I fully support separation of church and state and I really don’t care about anyone’s arguments against it because you are not only ethically wrong, it is a violation of the US Constitution.

It is also important to note that Rich was a part of the group that received city funds for rental assistance. It said this in that agreement with the city;

The Organization shall provide the City with reasonable documentation of distribution of the grant funds upon request by the City.

At this point this group has NOT provided the city council OR the citizens an audit of how the money was spent and who it was sent to. I would appreciate before Rich moves any further into his candidacy he explains where my tax dollars went. I have personally heard a lot of gossip, but until the group comes clean with documentation, I’m tempted to believe some of it. For instance, were the landlords forced to only except 70% as a full rent payment? Has all of the money been spent? Where did it all go?

This is what I said when it was proposed at the City Council meeting;

What is wrong here is the delivery system because it lacks transparency. It would be logical to assume no matter who pays for this the money will be direct payments to the property owners of the rentals. But by transferring public dollars to a private fund, the taxpayers will never see who is receiving these funds. Once again, I will stress, this is not about knowing the names of the renters, they will not be an equation in this because they will never see the money, it’s about knowing what property owners are receiving the payments. Will it be the big guys? The little guys? Will it be evenly spread between them? We will never know because the city will be giving up their rights to transparency by having a private non-profit distribute the money.

As I said, nothing personal against Rich, but he needs to do some housekeeping before moving forward especially after hearing the rumor he was personally recruited by Mayor Poops and promised the Pot of Gold that goes along with that support.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God”. -JC

UPDATE: As I suspected today during the informational, the Public Works department dropped their bomb. The garbage haulers want curbside service, don’t want to give a discount for it, and get this, want to charge extra for VALET service (what we currently receive by ordinance). The city council did push back and said a larger discussion must be had first. As I predicted, big business in Sioux Falls wants to get their way, and there is NO way it will trickle down to the citizen consumers. We will see what the rubberstamp council decides, but I’m guessing we (working stiff citizens) will lose in the end, with less service and higher rates. Isn’t deregulation wonderful?

Oh, and if you want a real get in the sack, watch public input during the regular council meeting tonight. Sierra drops the bomb on the Dudley House situation and one lady testifies the Covid vaccination is a bitcoin injection that will be turned on with a micro-chip activated by 5G phones to steal our bank accounts and kill us. LMFAO!

While around 58% of respondents were ok with putting garbage cans at curbside that was about the only clear answer we received.

RESULTS

Some don’t want government to tell garbage haulers what to do, which means the (private haulers) will be telling the consumers what to do and the very reason we have regulation that apparently people don’t want.

And while most consumers agree customer service and price is what they look for most, only around half think they should get a better deal because of curbside. Around another half think it is okay to take the cans to curbside, they just want the hauler to return them to beside their house. So about HALF want HALF-WAY curbside.

The comments are also interesting to read, over 70 pages of them.

I have argued for a long time leave it up to the CONSUMER to decide if they want to take it to curbside, and if so sign a contract with the hauler that says if you do this 100% of the time you will receive a discounted rate in your next bill.

Also, in the comment section, many people feel the city should be broken up in districts so garbage collection only occurs once a week on your block instead of multiple haulers picking up multiple days at multiple times.

I have said for a long time a money and time saving solution to all this madness is for the city to contract with the top haulers (like they do with snow removal) and make it a public system using private haulers. We could supply them their fuel and charge NO tipping fees. We would pay the companies directly for volume and the city would bill you for the garbage fee in your water/sewer bill. You could have the option of having curbside or by your house pickup and one hauler would come to your block once a week.

Many have argued competition keeps prices lower. There really isn’t competition in Sioux Falls. In fact, with all of the companies Waste Management has bought up there really is only one major hauler, them.

One of the main reasons I have argued against curbside is because the haulers are not willing to give a discount for helping them out with fuel and labor costs.

If the council makes changes to curbside, the haulers MUST be willing to discount for that kind of service, but like TIFs they will argue the trickle down economic benefits to the rest of us without actual deliverance of those benefits. Think about it, the results came out on August 20th and the public works department has been fiddling with how they are going to spin this to the public and the council for almost 2 months! In the end we will get screwed.

I truly think the haulers want to save money on labor and fuel, but they also want to put that savings right into their pockets, and frankly, that’s a bunch of garbage.

First off, I don’t think this place needs any advertising considering people are waiting 2 hours in drive thru.

I also question how a fast food place has anything to do with One Sioux Falls?

And lastly, my tax dollars should not be used to promote ANY private business.

This administration will do anything to distract from the real issues going on.

I sometimes even wonder if Mayor SelfTaken is even serious about a 2nd term or if he is just acting as a place holder to raise money for who ever they will pull out of the Taupeville Hat?

Love this program. I will confess I had friends who participated and are in the exhibit encourage me to be in it and I think I said, ‘Meh’ and some other dirty words. That doesn’t mean I don’t like it. Good stuff;

Pretty sleepy, unless you are into the garbage ruse;