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Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Sioux Falls

Munson Sioux Falls

Dave ‘No Shame’ Munson talks about laws, growth and disappearing platting fees

l3wis 0Comments

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This morning I saw David Kranz did an interview with Dave Munson, he was sharing some of his wisdom as advice for the next mayor. My suggestion is to do the opposite of everything he has done, and you will be just fine. I’m not sure if Kranz used this as Munson’s first quote in the article so that I could fall out of my chair laughing, but it worked;

“I think my advice to anybody is the same,” Munson said. “Make sure you do things legally. Do the things that are right. Just do what your heart tells you to do so that you can make things better.

Those of us who have followed Munson’s administration know that when King Dave talks about doing things ‘legally’ he means ‘try not to get caught’. During his two terms he has been accused of many violations of State law and city charter, yet no charges have ever been brought up on him, mostly because the people who have accused him of these violations chickenshitted out and didn’t follow through. They include

– Campaign Finance violations

– Approving 100% expenditure increase of Phillips to the Falls of $1.5 million dollars without council consent (violation of city charter)

– Private closed door meetings with developers promising them taxpayer resources (Cherapa Place)

– Stifling free speech at council meetings by threatening arrest and police intimidation

– And recently rewriting an ordinance after the council voted on it (Staggers pointed it out in a council meeting and Munson went beserk on him).

But the Monday morning funnies don’t end there. As I have said before the council has had heated debates about maintaining our current city streets, estimates are that we are close to $100 million behind on them and with close to a Half-billion dollar budget this year, you would think that we would be spending a large chunk on maintenance? Guess again.

Last year, the city stepped up street resurfacing and repairs. But Staggers said the city still is not putting enough of its second-penny sales tax revenues into maintaining streets.

 

“They know people are concerned about the streets,” he said. “We’ve had a street problem for a long time.”

 

Next year’s plan calls for spending $6.3 million on resurfacing existing streets and making other repairs. Last year, the city spent $4.9 million.

That’s right, out of a $500 million dollar budget we spend a measley $4.9 million on resurfacing. What a joke. When we are spending so little, on the streets you would think the city was broke. We will probably spend more then that refurbishing McKennan Park. Like I said, all about priorities.

But it gets better, as we gear up to build these precious arterial streets that the developers have been begging for, their 60% share in the form of platting fees has mysteriously been taken out of the equation, or at least Dave ‘No Shame’ Munson, The Argus or KELO-TV didn’t bother to mention it in their stories even though I tipped them off about it last week;

Mayor Munson says the second penny sales tax will help pay for projects in this growth period. The tax is estimated to bring in about $4 million dollars a year that would go to help developers pay for building new streets, sewers and curbing in new neighborhoods.

Make sure you do things ‘legally’ and if you don’t, mislead, mislead, mislead.

Public Works Sioux Falls

Bologna! (Updated with letter)

l3wis 0Comments

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I find it ironic that just one day after I send a letter to the editor of the Gargoyle Leader about how inefficient our public works department is, the same paper comes out with an editorial praising them and KELO does a story on the Capital improvement money being spent on infrastructure, finally. Do I think it is a conspiracy? Not at all, just a funny coincidence. I can’t post my letter here until it prints, but I pretty much talk about how the Public Works department wastes a lot of time filling the same holes instead of just fixing them correctly the first time;

That’s why it would be fairly easy to miss that Sioux Falls’ Public Works Department has been handling ongoing maintenance fairly well.

Bologna! Seriously! Filling a hole one day with blacktop, then tearing it up the next day and filling it with concrete is f’king assinine. It’s time the AL Ed Board pulls their heads out of the city’s ass.

UPDATE (This is a letter to the editor I sent to the Gargoyle on Monday, I haven’t heard a response from them, so I’m sure the trashed it, so you can read it here):

As a heedful follower of Sioux Falls city politics I had to laugh when city hall boasted to the media we were in superb financial shape. That’s an easy assertion when you only audit half of the city’s finances (an internal city audit only included the operational fund not the capital improvement). It would be like a mechanic informing you your car is road worthy even though two of your tires are flat.  It’s good to see our city bureaucrats have a glass half full mentality, even though that glass is nearly empty and has a crack down the side that is leaking badly. The truth is Sioux Falls is between eighty to hundred million behind on road construction infrastructure and with constant fee, retail, and property tax hikes you wonder who they are fooling with their myths of great fiscal responsibility. If we are in such superlative financial shape why do we keep escalating taxes and fees at such a high inflationary rate? And why aren’t we driving on streets of gold?

Well it doesn’t take the Wizard of Oz to figure that out.

On my way to work each day I drive past the intersection of 41st and Cliff Avenue. This winter a water main broke at that intersection and public works had to fix it. After the repair they filled the hole with gravel and poured black top over it instead of filling it with cement like the original road surface. Since then they have poured black top over the spot and refilled it at least seven times. They tore it up today and started digging an even deeper hole. I suspect though that this may be the final repair because a private contractor was working on it. We can only hope.

I’m starting to think that if this is how we fix all of our roads in Sioux Falls it’s no wonder we are overdue on road maintenance. It takes a great deal of resources to fill a hole seven times instead just fixing it correctly the first time, and God only knows what this is costing us.

It’s time the Sioux Falls public works department takes a course in efficiency and while they are at it, maybe the finance department can share the classroom with them.

John Morrell's Sioux Falls

Is John Morrell’s closing in SF?

l3wis 0Comments

plugging-your-nose-by-a-dead-skunk-adria-nieve-grant-funston-august-14-2008

Bye-Bye stinky.

Consolidation has been going on for awhile and in a recent Gargoyle Leader article, Sioux City is gearing up for a bigger plant.

But the biggest piece of news that has been circulating in news circles is that Smithfield foods who owns JM’s has filed Federal consolidation paperwork (but the document does not include location). – Sorry still trying to find a link

I have said for awhile that it doesn’t make a difference to me, but there is a lot of powerful people in SF that would benefit greatly from the closure, and with the Stockyards for sale, that is a prime piece of property.

So what are Sioux Falls city and business leaders doing about it? Probably helping JM’s pack – but they will never tell you that.

I suspect once they drop the bulldozer blade to tear down JM’s they will probably keep going east until they hit the insterstate, considering that neighborhood will be emptied overnight.

Sioux Falls

It’s about time someone said it

l3wis 7Comments

Slater Barr, president of the Sioux Falls Development Foundation and Theresa Stehly had some great quotes in this story about Sioux Falls growth;

“Focusing only on the growth number is the wrong measurement,” said Slater Barr, president of the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. “It’s not, ‘How many people do you attract?’ It’s ‘What are the skills of those people?’ ”

 

To that end, Barr said the development foundation, the city and several other local organizations are raising about $200,000 to study trends in the city’s growth.

 

“If your per-capita income isn’t keeping pace, then you’re adding people, but you’re adding people at lower wages,” Barr said. “We’re putting together … an analysis and strategic plan for the community.”

Slater is right, especially with the per-capita earnings. The results of that study will be interesting. I have lived in Sioux Falls for 18 years, mostly in apartments in the central district. I can tell you it was rare to see a Hispanic or African refugee in those neighborhoods 10-15 year ago. Now, that is all that lives there. I believe most of our population growth has been due to construction laborers, packing plant workers, and Lutheran Social Services locating refugees here. Most of those kind of workers tend to have larger families. Don’t get me wrong, I think diversity is great for Sioux Falls. But I can also say a majority of these people are not ‘Lifers’. If they can find a better paying job in another state doing the same thing, they’ll be gone in a heartbeat. Like I have said before, if JM’s closes, you will see a mass exodus of these kind of workers. I would expect our population to drop 8,000 – 10,000 people practically overnight.

“We hear a lot about bringing quality people to our town. I think we’re all quality people,” Stehly said.

I agree with Theresa. I think a lot Sioux Falls residents who have been here most of their lives are hardworking, great people. We should be attracting those kind of people. But that of course has to do with what kind of jobs we want in Sioux Falls. Do we want low paying construction and packing plant jobs, or do we want green energy manufacturing, research and technical jobs in Sioux Falls? The SFDF’s study will be very telling.

Of course Dave couldn’t resist putting on the rose-colored glasses;

Sioux Falls’ 2.3 percent growth between 2007 and 2008 ranks the city 34th among U.S. cities. No other city in the region has seen its population grow by as large a percentage as Sioux Falls since 2000.

“I would say they’re really right on. I think that’s a good number,” said Mayor Dave Munson, who has seen the city grow steadily during his two terms. “It really is attributable to the quality of life you have here.”

And the unskilled cheap labor pool we have here.

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