Sioux Falls

The City of Sioux Falls should move towards leasing office space

l3wis July 24, 2021 8Comments

At Tuesday’s informational meeting there was a presentation on maintenance of the city buildings. While I understand there are some buildings we HAVE to own like fire stations I think we need to learn a lesson from COVID and when we were debating the City Center building (which is still entangled in a lawsuit over the failed HVAC system) the Finance Director at the time suggested that leasing is way more affordable than building and maintaining. And with COVID we have learned that many, if not all of the pencil pushers with the city can easily work from home.

Saving money by leasing office space makes sense on many levels. You have NO maintenance costs, no bonding costs and if you need more or less space you simply pack up the office and move.

Working from home could also save the city bundles of money in office space. Obviously many city workers can’t work from home, but I think most of the office staff could.

I also think the Mayor (he is the city manager per charter) should look into selling off city property we don’t need anymore after moving many people to work from home or to leased properties and we should use the revenue to pay down bonds on current properties like The Denty, the Bunker Ramp, the City Administration building and water treatment expansion.

I have often been baffled by not only this mayor but past mayors who want to expand FTE’s for the city (23 this year) because with advances in technology, etc, we should be finding ways to reduce the city workforce by making working conditions for city employees more efficient. I have also suggested that the city terminates most of their middle management. There really should only be team supervisors and directors. I have found following city politics over the past 15 years that middle management really does very little except talk a lot.

I believe if the city would take a 3 tier approach to our building infrastructure and workforce they could save the taxpayers millions of dollars a year. This of course would require the Mayor, any mayor, to follow the charter and do their job, which is managing the city, it’s properties and employees instead of getting in the weeds with legislative priorities which is the council’s job.

I have often taunted councilors to start violating their charter duties and start talking directly to city employees about complaints. Of course they are NOT allowed to do this by charter, so why does the mayor think it is OK to screw with the council?

I think this city could run way more efficiently if we had a mayor that actually concentrated on managing the city instead sitting in his garage coming up with cute program names. Just listen to his budget address, I couldn’t even keep track of all the acronyms he presented about employee improvement and mentoring. The only thing city employees should be trained on is CUSTOMER SERVICE to the citizens. That should always be their top priority. Holding hands and singing campfire songs doesn’t really matter when our streets are full of potholes and violent crime is on the rise. I am all for training city employees and keeping them up with the latest standards and procedures, but we need a city manager that understands that public employees serve those who pay their wages not the mayor. I have noticed since the Munson days that administrations have used city staff (mostly management) to serve their whims instead of the people.

Something needs to change with it comes to managing our city, because the current administration isn’t cutting the mustard.

Dusty Johnson Sioux Falls

Is anyone in leadership going to address the housing crisis in Sioux Falls?

l3wis July 23, 2021 4Comments

The other day I heard Dusty Johnson talking about this issue, so I decided to email him the other day with my ideas;

Dusty,

I heard you talking the other day about the struggles with affordable housing in South Dakota.

We are in a crisis mode in Sioux Falls. I’m afraid the combination of developer and contractor handouts to build has caused this situation, plenty of businesses coming, not enough people to work those jobs. I’m afraid Amazon will have to build an RV Park/Campground to house the workers, because there will be no other place for them to live.

While we can’t go back in time, this all happened because we used taxpayer resources to incentivize the developers and contractors instead of the workers and housing buyers. We can do differently moving forward though. We need to end the welfare to big out of state businesses who pay below living wage salaries and start using Federal, State, County, and City programs to fix up our core neighborhoods where the affordable housing exists if the buyers are incentivized. We can do this through low interest or no interest loans, property tax rebates, fixing up infrastructure, etc. I call it starting from the bottom up. It also would prop up local contractors and businesses to fix up these homes. It also helps fight crime and neglect and it would be great for transferring slumlord neglected rental housing to first time homebuyers to fix up.

Trickle down has never worked, in fact it is proof that it has created this crisis. Instead we need to prop up residents to create more density in Sioux Falls and clean up these neighborhoods.

I know you are a Republican and may this agree with some of my suggestions, but the opposite just hasn’t worked, and never will. I told the planning commission and city council all these TIFS, tax rebates and breaks to big business and developers is just like pouring gasoline on a fire. We don’t have the workers, and even if they move here, we don’t have the housing. If we don’t do things completely opposite of what we have been doing, in five to ten years Sioux Falls is going to be a crime ridden dump.

Thanks for listening.

Scott L. Ehrisman

I figured since no one at city hall or in the state legislature is doing much about it except suggesting prisoners in Springfield work harder at building Governor houses, I would suggest to Dusty what is really going on here, is that we are failing, miserably, because of the bullcrap theory that if we give the rich developers and contractors at the top, somehow magically it would trickle down to us and solve our affordable housing issues. We also have to find a way to control rents in Sioux Falls and stop realtors from falsely inflating home prices in Sioux Falls. The value of my home changed very little over 17 years, usually 0-2% each year and then within two years it jumped up over 25%. Give me a break.

Downtown Sioux Falls Levitt Pavilion Sioux Falls

Levitt, this one doesn’t go to 11

l3wis July 23, 2021 2Comments

I finally figured out what the city, or should I say a developer, has requested as a reasonable decibel level for the Levitt. The story I was told is that the Levitt’s decibel level has to read 90 or below by the South Entrance of the Cascade Apartment building/complex, which I find to be an interesting boundary considering the level determined by city ordinance should affect the whole area. I have argued to the do nothing city council, who have literally done nothing about the decibel levels downtown (especially when it comes to trains, planes and motorcycles) that they need to be increased, at least on the Levitt grounds which is a publicly owned park. It is NOT the taxpayers fault or problem that a developer who takes massive amounts of welfare TIFs from the city built apartments across the street from a live outdoor music venue. If I were the Levitt, I would crank it up, and if the private developer doesn’t like it, they can sue the city and we can cancel their TIF. I would also suggest the next time they build an apartment building in a noisy DT area, they need to insulate the windows and walls.

I will say though last night at the Levitt I was pleasantly surprised, the volume was perfect, so they must be experimenting with the Spinal Tap amps after all.

This reminds me of the other issue with Levitt, selling alcohol in a park that by city ordinance bans alcohol. I have told the city council that this is silly and they should just lift the ban, let their be private sales AND let people bring their own. But like I said, when it comes to our city council doing things that benefit the public in general like noise levels and alcohol ordinances they put on the cruise control, look into their laps and do nothing.

Also folks, I am pleading with you to leave your dogs at home. They don’t want to be sitting in the heat and it is not good for their physical or mental health and as an audience member, I really get tired of them pooping and peeing around me. I still think the Levitt in coordination with the City Council should ban pets from the premises, or at least have an area for people that are too dumb to not bring their freaking dog everywhere.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council approves land transfer in Public Meeting without providing public supposed confidential legal documents

l3wis July 20, 2021 17Comments

At the council meeting tonight you will hear a lot of legal mumbo jumbo about ethics ordinances, Supreme Court rulings and executive confidentiality. The problem is that it’s all horse pucky.

I am still of the opinion that the city council CANNOT meet publicly and vote on publicly announced agenda items in a public meeting without sharing the legalities of this land transfer. This is what they were told tonight, that they would essentially be violating ethics rules if they talked about the legalities discussed in executive session in a public meeting.

The whole purpose of having a public meeting to approve an agenda item, any agenda item, is to release that information publicly to the public before it is voted on.

Ethics be damned if you can approve deals like this in a public meeting without giving the public the legalities of the deal. I believe it is a gross violation of public meeting laws and rules and I would have been sitting up there tonight, I would have recused myself from the vote and stated that I would be violating said rules if I voted on it. I found it interesting that one councilor probably knew that since they were absent tonight, or likely they are heavily invested in the project.

When I talk about corruption and openness in government, this is a prime example. It’s what the public doesn’t know that corrupts the process.

I have never been so disappointed and disgusted as I was tonight watching this boondoggle. What makes it even more hypocritical is the very people who benefitted from this top secret land transfer didn’t even have the courtesy to show up tonight. Go figure.

Sidenote; there is a new public advocate in town that moved here from Florida in March who speaks during public input. He is very well spoken and takes the council to task for the issues with housing, public transportation, internet access monopolies and lack of affordable healthcare for self-employed individuals. It only took this person a couple of months in Sioux Falls to smell the lack of leadership in our city government.

Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Parks and Rec

Is the City of Sioux Falls secretly planning $40 Million in Quality of Life bonds after the 2022 election?

l3wis July 17, 2021 2Comments

I got word from some city hall moles yesterday that the Parks Department in cahoots with the Mayor’s office is rumored to be planning around $40 million in quality of life bonds for two new swimming pools (I think outdoor) after the 2022 municipal election is over.

It’s no secret a couple of pools are at their life, but what I find ironic about this rumored proposal is the fact that we can’t even get lifeguards to work for the city, because of low pay and no paid certification.

What makes it even more egregious is that we need to prop up our infrastructure, workforce, housing and crime prevention before we think about building under staffed pools. This is just another handout to contractor buddies of city hall, much like the Bunker Ramp, Admin building, Indoor Pool and Events Center.

When are we going to get a city government that works for the people instead of the developers? This is what happens when you give executive authority to your chief of staff that was a former executive with the largest developer and TIF welfare recipient in the city, and possibly the state. Lots and Lots and Lots of payback.

The running joke amongst my political friends in the city on the right and the left is that the developers run city hall and the city council. Sadly, it’s not a fictional joke anymore, it’s fact.

Sioux Falls

The City of Sioux Falls should move towards leasing office space

Is anyone in leadership going to address the housing crisis in Sioux Falls?

Levitt, this one doesn’t go to 11

Sioux Falls City Council approves land transfer in Public Meeting without providing public supposed confidential legal documents

Is the City of Sioux Falls secretly planning $40 Million in Quality of Life bonds after the 2022 election?

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