(FF: 51:00) The LCC discussed removing an evening meeting that they recently started. The ‘excuse’ two of the commissioners made (Schmidt and Otten – they had a change of heart at the end of the discussion) was that the winter weather could make it dangerous to attend the evening meetings. Commissioner Joel Arends tore into them about it, also during public input a legislator also chewed butt about the stupid excuse. First off, the meetings are for the PUBLIC not so you can be comfortable attending. Secondly, if you feel the weather makes it unsafe to attend the meeting it should either be postponed to the next day OR you can attend by telephone. Also, the public doesn’t have to be in the chambers. They can watch it LIVE instead of on replay (morning meetings) and they would not have to leave their homes but get to watch in real time on YouTube. I am just astonished by how much our local government bodies fight openness and transparency and then wonder why the public is so misinformed they don’t bother voting in local elections. The commission voted to keep the evening meetings, but it should not have even been up for debate UNLESS they were considering on making ALL meetings at the evening. More closed government Bullsh!t!
*The end of the discussion is the best where Arends calls out the chair and the other commissioners for promoting closed government.
A few months back Cameraman Bruce (Danielson) and I were talking about all the missing information to the public about how the dam got approved and what process was happening to make this happen. In an ideal society that has a local government that is TRANSPARENT we would have had all that information, but not in Sioux Falls. So Bruce had the brilliant idea to do a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request from the Corp of Engineers for the project. While it took several months and 2.2 GB of information, the CORPS granted Mr. Danielson’s request. I have been sorting thru the materials for over a month and finally have them to where I can start posting about the process. There was many twists in turns in the process, including changing the direction of the design, water contamination, a refusal from the SD Historical Society (State Agency) and much more. While most of the materials are redacted of personal names, it is easy to determine who the contractors are, who the city employees are and who the CORPS are. The irony is any email or correspondence coming from the CORPS is extremely professional and detailed, city employees and especially the independent contractors NOT SO MUCH. It seemed they didn’t want to get the CORPS involved unless they ran into an issue. Which is odd since the CORPS won’t officially approve the project until it is finished, and that may not be until the end of next summer since after the dam construction is finished they have to create wetlands around the area to preserve the area AS IS.
What I have found fascinating is the city seems to be doing this by the seat of their pants and crossing their fingers it will work, which I believe has put the project over budget by at least $1 Million because of the poor planning and lack of concerted coordination with the CORPS. This city will never learn, when you do things in the OPEN you save the taxpayers money and it makes the process smoother. If they would have also made the process more open and brought the public along, there may have been members in our community who wanted to weigh in with ideas. I have often argued our city is full of smart folks who understand this stuff, if we would just ASK them. It reminds of the process when a group of citizens decided to tackle sustainability in Sux and all of the efforts and work turned into toilet paper Poops used to wipe his tight ass. We have experts in Sux, but instead we use leaders who are more concerned about selfies and jumping jacks then expert advice.
I hope to put up the materials by week’s end, it’s going to be a whopper of a post.
TenHaken told Sioux Falls Simplified that the cuts are strategically aimed at impacting the average citizen. He said if he just “lays off people behind the scenes,” no one will notice, and it won’t mean anything. But if someone who’s used to going to the story hour at the library at 9 a.m. doesn’t get to do that anymore, they’ll notice and ultimately call the mayor to complain.
First off, a municipal government can’t just lay off people behind the scenes (that may be illegal). You CAN and SHOULD tell constituents about the layoffs. I think most people would support a handful of overpaid middle managers being laid off opposed to cutting services. It only makes sense. But not to this guy who is worried a handful of city employees will be mad at him. I am hoping the city council has the courage to make the cuts to salaries (the council doesn’t have to instruct the admin to lay off anyone, but what they can do is force his hand by cutting the salary budget by $3 MILLION a year, which would force the mayor to lay off managers.
Jennifer Sigette had this to say;
“I’m really curious to know what the public’s going to say,” Sigette said. “We tend to hear from some fo the same loud voices. I’m hoping, since these are things the broader community uses, we’ll start hearing from people who don’t necessarily typically reach out to councilors.”
The public won’t say anything because they won’t know because city government has no transparency, as for the ‘loud voices’ comment, I’ve calmed down a bit, so I will just be to the point. Those people who come each week are actually representing folks who either can’t make the meeting or are afraid to publicly speak. Tim represents the Whittier neighborhood and Sierra is the president of the Pettigrew Heights association, I have a blog that has 5-10K readers a day and get many emails from constituents. We are LOUD because we are speaking on behalf of others. You really don’t get it? Do you? This is what happens when you elect someone with ZERO percent of the vote.
UPDATE: So I came to the presser today a few minutes late, and the door to the media room was locked so I asked the security guard why it was locked and he told me it locks automatically, and did not assist me in getting in. I asked a reporter after the presser about it and they told me they always have it locked and you have to wiggle the handle and they will let you in. WTH? This is an open to the public presser, paranoid much? More closed government BS from the king of closed government.
As for the presser, very interesting. It was obvious the mayor was fed a bunch of this information and just repeated it. He even said that SF citizens should elect better legislators. I would agree, but with gerrymandering and moving district lines, it would be hard to get a near perfect representation, but when it comes to property taxes, they did the right thing.
The mayor also concluded that the City doesn’t have much leverage when it comes managing what can be collected for property taxes (state legislature). This is patently FALSE. The council approves a tax increase every year since I can remember and having the power to institute TIFs without the approval of the counties and school district is a massive property tax restructuring that only increases taxes on the rest of us. If you stopped further TIF’s, our taxes would go down without legislation.
Now, Paul is correct, property taxes fund operating costs, but funds CAN be moved around to different departments. There are also quite a few operating expenses we could eliminate that wouldn’t have an effect on service. Paul suggests we cut essential programming instead of other cost cutting measurements. If we stop funding all the non-profits in town unless they are directly contracted by the city to provide professional services (Like the Link) we could easily save millions. But, Megan from SF Simplified had an even better suggestion, she asked why employee cuts were not looked at? I told a recent mayoral candidate that I would terminate all non-union middle management, not only would the cost saving be great (wages, benefits, retirement) they are NOT needed. The candidate laughed at me, but I told them, ‘Really? You have a director who gives an order to a supervisor below them, usually the assistant director, and takes those orders to union management. Silly. There is NO reason the director can’t instruct lower management, there is NO need for a middle man.
GREAT QUESTION MEGAN!
I heard that TenHaken is having a presser this morning (even though I can’t find any media alerts on FB or on the City’s website). I know, shocker, with all the openness and transparency with this admin . . . never mind.
He is going to discuss the city ‘losing’ $26 million in revenue over the next decade due to property tax cuts. Him and his lapdog finance director have been pushing this BS narrative for a week.
First the obvious, you are not ‘losing’ revenue that was never owed to you. The tax formula changed. So that means you change your budget forecast modeling after the new tax code and budget accordingly (in other words make cuts to capital programs).
Secondly, there will be NO cuts to regular programming (Fire, police, public works, etc.) that’s a false flag they are promoting. Who will take the hit? Mostly capital programs. In other words we may miss out on some park expansion and rec trail expansion, but these cuts wouldn’t affect regular services and they know it.
Thirdly, it is incredibly disheartening to see a lame duck promote higher taxes instead of cuts.
Lastly, I have maintained in my 18 years of blogging that TAXES are for essential services and not play things and entertainment venues. We have over extended ourselves on play palaces.
My first suggestion would be to cut MOST capital programs that are NOT essential the next 5 years. You would be SHOCKED at the tax savings, I would suggest it would be a heckuva a lot more then $2.6 million a year.
Also, I find this resistance to tax cuts insulting. As constituents we have had to cut back on stuff since Covid, and the Trump economy is making it worse, as I predict a full on recession by the end of the year.
I’m sorry, but when I am struggling to maintain my household expenses, I could give two-sh!ts about a new parking lot at a tennis court.
Big thanks to Mike Z for finding me this video. (FF: 14:00) It lays out why we need to get rid of the 50% councilor race approval. The facts are on our side. But will the current council look at them, or brush them aside to save the integrity of a former city councilor who had the ethics of a street rat. (I could write a book about the vindictive nature of the former councilor who implemented this insane rule.) So do you do the right thing and change this back, or will you continue to defend a councilor who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. We know what will happen. Power is cancerous, and if you continue to defend this stupid rule, you contribute to the cancer of local government. Do the right thing for once. You may not get accolades and flower bouquets, but you will feel good. KILL THIS RULE!
*Also, this former councilor has been on a VINDICTIVE tour after he left the council. Trying to get former political foes fired from their jobs on trumped up charges. I will say this, if I ever see this person in Sioux Falls, they best prepare themselves for a long convo.
So while the city has been finishing the lowhead dam at Falls Park they have been doing some interesting form building;
But before they started the project they drilled a hole by the old water chute and for about two weeks they were pumping this green oily substance out of the hole. I went there this weekend and it seems they found a way to stop the primordial ooze. I have been told by several local historians and engineers that the entire bedrock under Falls Park is full of this crap because of the old industrial waste pit. Lipstick on a pig.
l3wis 
