Tea

Is this proof that Mayor TenHaken is actively pursuing closed government?

Not sure, but I will lay this out for you. Around a year ago or so MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization of Sioux Falls) had a zoom meeting. At the meeting were several city administrators I believe from Tea, Canton and Mayor TenHaken. The city manager of Harrisburg could NOT attend so he designated a private contractor who was the city’s acting (part-time) planning director at the time (they just recently pulled back after hiring Watertown’s Planning person). The ‘fill-in’ at the meeting said the discussion quickly turned to the dividing line between SF and Harrisburg and Poops adamant distinction of HWY 101 being that line. The ‘fill-in’, a former city of Sioux Falls engineer, disagreed with the mayor and said that is not ‘definitive’ and never has been. Then the mayor proceeded to accuse this person of lying about what he ‘knows’ and what he believes (I am still waiting for the minutes from the meeting). Besides the meeting itself being a little rough and contentious it was what Poops did after the meeting that was really petty. He instructed that MPO changes it’s meeting rules only to include city employees as fill-ins and not private contractors. While I agree, seemed it a little odd you would send your private contractor to this meeting, BUT, they were discussing planning and development and he was the acting planning director for Harrisburg, so it made sense at the time. I just find it incredibly insecure and petty to make a rule change because you didn’t like a private citizen telling you what was up in an a official meeting so you change the rules. You got a lot of issues man.

City of Sioux Falls Housing Director, Unruh, working for Tea’s development?

I just shake my head when I see these kind of conflicts. The taxpayers of Sioux Falls are paying Unruh’s salary so she can represent it’s citizens in helping with more affordable housing in SIOUX FALLS while serving as the President of Tea’s Development Board.

I don’t have an issue with her serving in either position, but she needs to pick one or the other.

C’mon Paul! This isn’t Rocket Science, it’s ethics, and this one is easy.

85th Exchange Meeting

Taxpayers, get ready to get bent over the barrel, this is going to cost us. This project will be getting not only State and Federal money, but also money from Tea, Lincoln County and Sioux Falls. Tea has already raised taxes in order to save up for this. I guess I really struggle with growth for growth sakes, especially when the core of our city needs a major re-hab and more density. Do we really need another retail center or could we diversify our core? More money dumped into developers who want to turn up cornfields and swamp land instead of investing in our core.

City of Sioux Falls Housing Director tells Tea Residents to NOT use Sioux Falls services

While she has no problem with driving to Sioux Falls to draw her paycheck from Sioux Falls taxpayers she encourages residents of TEA to not shop in Sioux Falls or use their services.

It still baffles me that we hired a Tea resident to run our housing division, and also allowed her to run for Tea City Council. But her comments about her civic pride in Tea says a lot about what she thinks of her employer, the City of Sioux Falls.

Sioux Falls Housing Director now using city funded program to promote her run for TEA city council

Chellee appeared on Inside Town Hall in November when she was still working for SE Tech,

She posted this image of her on the show on her campaign FB page;

She is bragging about working with SIOUX FALLS city councilors to get some pork for SE Tech (a place that is funded through our property taxes and sales taxes to the state), which has nothing to do with Tea and now that she works for the City of Sioux Falls, she will have to work with councilors, which brings us to why this is a conflict.

I’m not sure if any campaign rules were broken with this post, but I still would like to see an ethics question posed by the administration as to whether it is ethical for her to run for Tea City Council. I guess they are too busy trying to defend closed door meetings.