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UPDATE II: How long have SouthWest Sioux Falls District residents been without a legitimate city councilor?

l3wis April 2, 2024 5Comments

UPDATE II: Ran into a local journalist, almost literally 🙂 tonight. They told me they called Selberg and asked him about the move. He didn’t deny it and said that he needed to move on after his council service and owns several properties. So where do you live Marshall? Mars? Your last meeting is May 21st, and you must be in compliance until then. What Mr. Selberg doesn’t understand is that you can still be brought up on ethics and perjury charges AFTER you are done on the council.

Technically, on the books, Mr. Selberg is your councilor. But is he still legally? Going thru voter registration, you find some interesting things. Selberg registered to vote in the Northwest District this past February;

Name: Marshall Selberg  A

ADDRESS: 3208 W WOODCREST WAY

CITY: SIOUX FALLS SD 57105

CITYWARD: Sioux Falls Ward-3

He has owned the property since October 2022 (not sure has he lived there that long, but a possibility).

So I wonder how this is going to get explained away?

Now there are some rules that if redistricting occurs and the property you live in MOVES into the new district, you can still serve out your term in the new district. BUT, if you buy property and MOVE after the redistricting, that doesn’t count.

UPDATE: I guess Marshall Selberg thinks listing his former address on his campaign finance form AFTER he changed his voter registration was a good idea. He changed his voter registration to NW in February and his treasurer signed this form in early March. So where do you live Marshall? NW or SW? So I guess when Marshall is acting as a councilor he lives in the SW when he votes he lives in the NW. So does the person who lives in your old address KNOW you are using their address on a legal document? Probably not, guessing we all know who is living in the former address.

Also, did you bother to tell your treasurer your new address? You know, by her signing this she is committing perjury by putting a false address on the form. So is she part of the conspiracy, or did you lie to her also?

So the whole ‘honest mistake’ argument isn’t carrying much water with me. Everyone knows what their legal address is, especially someone who has served on the council for 8 years. And I would hope the treasurer would know the REAL address of the candidate. I almost want to stop digging around on this, every corner I go around I see another form filled out wrong, what a trainwreck. This is just like the Title IX Plaintiff that is running for School Board, just fill out forms willy nilly, and guess what, no one of authority will look into it, the media will run the other direction, heck even give you a heads up and tell you screwed up then don’t cover the mistake in the news because that would be too ‘negative’.

Now we will see if anyone on the current city council or media want to challenge this one. Probably not. If it helps I heard he filled out the documents at a chamber event in the back of a food truck while making walking tacos (for Denny Sanford).

ONLY one Sioux Falls Council Candidate understands council powers; Deffenbaugh

l3wis April 1, 2024 10Comments

The Dakota Scab did a great Q & A with council candidates, this one really was a gotcha question;

Does the Sioux Falls City Council have enough autonomy from the mayor’s office when it comes to policymaking?

Only one candidate understands the separation of powers, and answered the question appropriately, Deffenbaugh;

No. Since we made the shift to the strong mayor model of government where in our mayor serves like a CEO the council has been largely removed from the process of being the cities legislative arm. The Mayor’s vision of ONE Sioux Falls seems to me like a very lockstep mindset that doesn’t allow much room for disagreement or dialogue as a Councilor. I want to see neighborhoods at the forefront leading. I want to listen to the people in our community doing the work on the ground and seeing them more involved in our conversations about governance.

Jordan is correct. The council has the power to work on it’s own thru the legislative process, in fact it is laid out in the charter that way. The mayor’s only duty when it comes to policy is bringing any regulatory items from other departments forward, otherwise his main duty is the manager of city employees and making sure things like streets, fire and police are running well. Jordan is also correct that your councilors are your direct connection to government. As an example, I wanted the E-Bike ordinance changed and I worked with councilor Neitzert to make that happen. Also, the mayor’s office actually put up quite a few roadblocks when Neitzert first proposed the changes, but he kept after it. While it could have been faster, the process still worked and he helped me and many other constituents. Jordan understands that the council is it’s own independent body and they don’t have to give two sh!ts about what the mayor is doing. Besides, as I pointed out above, the mayor doesn’t care about policies that actually help people’s lives become better, he is concerned about if his property investments are making money.

Other candidates seem to be fine with the status quo (which is actually a violation of charter), Thomason thinks the relationship between the council and mayor is just hunky dory;

Our form of government has worked well with the checks and balances in place between the council and mayor.

The ‘concept’ works well, but unfortunately there hasn’t been many checks to that power over the past 3 mayors. The council shouldn’t be the rubberstamp of the administration, and when any councilor has challenged that power they are quickly challenged in an election* and replaced with a rubberstamper like Thomason. While I think Thomason is a good person in general, it seems he is happy about the status quo, not only of our legislature but our city council. We have enough pro-business people on the council, we need some pro-citizens on the council.

*Brekke was replaced by Cole (who never voted in a city election before) and Jensen (who is bailing on a 2nd term) replaced Stehly and we are pretty sure Title IX Plaintiff was recruited to peel votes away from Starr in the school board race. Since she can’t legally serve because of the lawsuit and you know, the perjury thing, twice, it is pretty obvious they don’t care if she wins, just mess with the applecart.

While Renville is pro-citizen and has been active in many advocacy projects throughout our state, she doesn’t seem to grasp what our city government does, this is how she answered the question;

Although, of course, the mayor has last say by way of our current form of government.

No he does not. He may put his John Hancock on documents, but those rules, ordinances and regulations MUST be approved by the city council. The mayor can only break a tie or veto legislation. Not sure what Allison has been told, but the council has the final say and once we get back to a council that understands that, we move our city forward.

VOTE DEFFENBAUGH! Early voting already started at the Minnehaha County Courthouse (all the way to the 3rd floor to the north end of the building, surprised they didn’t put it on the roof to make it even harder to vote!!!!)

I am predicting a runoff between Deffenbaugh and Thomason I also think there will be a recount in the School Board election. I am predicting 14-18K voters in the At-Large race (there will be some variances between At-Large, School Board and NE District). NEW Voter registration has been ‘interesting’ over the past 6 months, and it’s NOT what you think. While this election is pretty dismal (only the school board and at-large is competitive) I think the final results will show us some interesting trends for the primaries and general in November.

City of Sioux Falls to hire a Financial Advisor

l3wis April 1, 2024 6Comments

I guess the Half-Million+ staff the mayor currently has isn’t cutting it (Item #6, Consent Agenda, Sub-Item, 16);

Professional Services Agreement to Provide Financial Advisory Services, PFM Financial Advisors, LLC, Establish Pricing

So is this about actual financing? Read the agreement;

The purpose of this letter (this “Engagement Letter”) is to confirm our agreement that PFM Financial Advisors LLC (“PFM”) will act as financial advisor to the City of Sioux Falls (the “City”). PFM will provide, upon request of the City, services related to financial planning, budget and strategic advice and planning, policy development and services related to debt issuance, as applicable and set forth in Exhibit A to this Engagement Letter. Most tasks requested by the City will not require all services provided for in Exhibit A and as such the specific scope of services for such task shall be limited to just those services required to complete the task.

If you look further down on the agreement you will see this is about advising the city thru a bond agreement and the advisor gets paid according to the size of the bond. So what is the city planning to bond for? Is this about the convention center or something else? And whatever happened to the policy body advising the city on bonding and finances? Shouldn’t this be coming from the council? Oh, my bad, forgot they work for the mayor now 🙁

PLANNING MEETING HAS SOME INTERESTING TIDBITS

Including a conditional use permit for alcohol on the consent agenda (I think it is just a catering kitchen so there is likely NO alcohol served on-site just used in recipes) but it would be unusual for an alcohol license to be on consent even if it is harmless. Oh, and Mr. Hahn decided to come back to the city to re-zone more of his rental houses into office space. Wonder if he will tell the truth this time or just stack up some more lies. Really doesn’t matter I guess. In this town you can lie thru your teeth to city officials, get caught, still approve your plan, and a couple months later take another shot at it. Can’t make this crap up.

Lifelight is paying to use public park, a little bit

l3wis March 30, 2024 1Comments

I checked with some city officials about the LifeLight festival and what kind of financial obligations there would be and this is what I was told;

Lifelight has to pay the same fees as any other festival or event.  Nonprofits do not get a special discount.  Fees are very minimal for events.  Most events are from nonprofits, just by chance.

Typically PD does not get involved with traffic control on site at the event. But they do assist with planning of barricades and flow of traffic pre-event.  PD only gets involved if traffic is backed up or causing issues (that would be for any event, if things on the public roads got bad).  The event organizer is responsible for parking managers.  For the sake of efficiency PD will help with traffic during peak times.  Since this event doesn’t have a centralized or main parking lot PD doesn’t think it will be an issue and they will not have to get involved.  Events are responsible to pay for all barricades.  

Why were inmate tablets really shut off?

l3wis March 29, 2024 14Comments

Besides the fact that some state contractor and the state are making money from the tablets, and quite a bit, some wonder the real reason they were turned off.

Noem said it was for ‘nefarious’ reasons. Can’t you just take away the tablets from the inmates that are abusing them? Do you really have to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

If you talk to some family members of inmates, they tell a different story. While I have no doubt that some of the inmates are abusing the usage, I think there was another reason they were shut off. Family members and other sources tell me that the inmates have been making email complaints to the DOC and the Governor’s office about conditions and some troubling CO’s. Of course, when a complaint is filed electronically, there is a record, because as I understand it, the inmates were smart enough to CC’ family or friends on the emails and complaints.

So I guess the best way to stop it is to take the complaint box off the wall.

I have only heard this from a handful of sources, so I don’t know how much of this is happening. But it also doesn’t seem to farfetched from a state and local government that prides itself on being militant closed government authoritarians.

NOW GET BACK TO BREAKING ROCKS AND BUILDING ME EXPENSIVE DESKS!