snow removal

Snowgates: The dis-information campaign continues. Nothing like kicking a horse while it is down.

l3wis December 20, 2012 2Comments

From GP:

I hate to beat a done deal but for every piece of bad PR out of the Mayor’s office we need to beat it back.  This is SubPrime Mike and staff’s latest effort to make us look petty and foolish.   Commenter ‘Matt70′ is part of it.

Notice how it is now “hundreds’ and not ‘thousands’ of…  Since when does 8,000 signers become hundreds of signers?

Soukup crying crocodile tears because they are being pushed to do what the citizens want… Cartoon of Soukup face on crying croc would be nice….

How much information does the city and contractors need to find to convince the public to vote against what the citizens asked for, a public vote?  The city rents / leases about ‘32′ plows for 6 months, so make the spec for blades to work with the city owned gates.  Tell the contractors and city drivers to learn how to work together. The contractors need to learn how to plow the streets the way the city requires it to be done.  After listening to the testimony I now understand why so many areas of town are plowed so badly.  One of the biggest complaints heard during the petition drive was the horrible way the contractors have been plowing or not plowing the neighborhoods.  There is a great deal of anger boiling under the surface of this town because of the preferential nature of certain neighborhoods when it comes to street work.

Let see, according to Soukup, the contractors are in charge?  Let’s add the ill-conceived Spellerberg pool issue in to this mess.  Pam Homan’s poor decision making processes endorsed by the school board we have been experiencing.   I thought this was a citizen owned government but I guess we are seeing a tip of the spear pointing at the citizen’s ass once again…  As the spear gets poked enough times during the next 17 months we may see the anger realized when SubPrime,  councilors, school board and all are before the voters May 2014.  Ahh, a perfect storm on the horizon.

From Detroit:

It seems the VP of the AGC’s get’s to decide if snowgates are doable;

“Our contractors would like to see the true cost of what snow gate is before they weigh in and decide whether it is something they’d like to see happen,” Toby Crow, Executive Vice President of Associated General Contractors of South Dakota, said.

Toby, hate to break you the news, but it is NOT up to you and your members, it is up to the voters whether or not we are going to have snowgates. This constant talk from city directors, contractors and councilors is getting down right annoying. Shut your pie holes already.

Snowgate lies and misconceptions

l3wis December 17, 2012 7Comments

65,000 households x 45 minutes = 48,750 man hours x 8 major snowfalls = 390,000 man hours x $25 per hour = $9,750,000 in lost wages (double that if you pay a contractor to scoop out your driveway).

Snowgates; Why is the SF Media strangely quiet about the election resolution?

l3wis December 15, 2012 7Comments

On Tuesday SF city councilors will vote on holding the snowgate election this Spring. (They conveniently put the resolution as Item #31 at the bottom of the agenda – which is fine, because they will have to stare at us snowgaters for an hour or so before public testimony – and we are bringing props!)

This is precedent for several reasons. Not just for the number of signatures that were turned in, in such short period of time (7,000 valid in 10 weeks) but good government and common sense would tell us that an election of this scope should be held ASAP. Denying a citizen driven petition a timely election would be a first in SD, as far as I can tell, and make the members of the council who vote NO, really look like a bunch of self-serving, self-interest jerks.

Oh, they will make the ‘We haven’t studied snowgates enough argument.’ (They have been around for over 40 years). And my other favorite ‘We haven’t budgeted for it OR even have the money.’ (The council and the mayor have the power, thru, ironically, resolutions to appropriate funds, reserves, and transfers, whenever they want to, and secondly have over $100 million to play with in the 1st penny operations fund) So when they spout this, they are flat out lying.

So here is the word on the street;

• Rolfing will not be in attendance (that leaves us seven councilors)

• Entenman and Karsky are FOR SURE NO votes.

• Aguilar is on the fence with Erpenbach (with Michelle leaning Yes).

Staggers, Anderson and Jamison are YES votes.

Huether, who would normally be the tie breaker has not taken a position, he is probably busy playing pickle ball or combing his hair, either way, I am sure he will follow the vote by saying, “Now this is government at work, people of Sioux Falls. Good Job!”

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the media isn’t covering this, because the average citizen doesn’t spend big advertising dollars with our media. And I know people think I am a conspiracy theorist for saying that, but I know how the small minds in this city work. Trust me, the Sales Manager and Managing Editor ARE talking to each other, even if the peon reporters are not.

There has also been this assumption that councilors are calling back citizens and responding to their questions about the election. Not happening as frequent as they would like you to think. I know of one councilor who has been left several messages from multiple constituents and has not returned one single call.

Here’s the deal, this isn’t about snowgates, it’s about responding to citizen’s requests to hold an election. That’s it. Heck, snowgates may fail, who knows?! We will have months to have that argument, allow us to have it!