South DaCola

Emergency Response to Floods in Sioux Falls was great!

l3wis June 28, 2024 4Comments

I’ll have to credit our police chief who I believe has been doing a pretty good job. I was happy to see the quick response with street closures. I believe this was a joint effort by SFPD, SFFR & and both Sheriff’s offices.

I have heard Chief Thum has been very busy cleaning house. A few months ago I heard the number of officers that have been ‘relieved’ of their duties was 25. The recent number is 38. Keep it up, takes awhile to clean up bad culture.

But I have been pondering the response to the floods all week as I have been riding the trails and seeing other storm damage.

Why can’t city employees be this responsive ALL the time?

The state ain’t much better, the commander in chief of our National Guard, our very own Sarah Palin, says she won’t deploy the NG because that is up to the counties.

Oh, Bullsh!t!

You sent them to the Texas border to lean on a fence for a couple of weeks, maybe a storm cleanup is a better use of resources.

But we know what cloth Noem is cut from, you know, the guy that has the morality of an alley cat . . .

Maybe the Orange Menace should open all his rallies with this song;

DaCola 17 Year Anniversary

l3wis June 26, 2024 7Comments

South DaCola just celebrated 17 years on June 24th! Thanks for reading.

CITY OF SIOUX FALLS EXECUTIVE ORDER 124

l3wis June 25, 2024 4Comments

The city owns the sidewalk adjoining your property, as well as the parking strip yet require you to pay for the maintenance unless the city causes damage, which may be the case here, BUT, what about damage done to sidewalks by city plows in NON arterial road neighborhoods? And why is this a reimbursement program? Why isn’t the city just doing the work and paying for it up front?

I have felt for a long time that the city should just pay to fix it’s own sidewalks and trim trees in the parking strip. Other cities have figured this out, and so can we.

Oh that’s right we spend millions bailing out private gyms ($12 million) and fiberglass thingies on the Pavilion ($6 million). Can you imagine the trees we could trim and the sidewalks we could fix with $18 million?

Is it laziness, incompetence or something else?

l3wis June 25, 2024 2Comments

We were told when the bike ordinance passed I believe in March(?) that the city needed time to 1) educate the public on rec trail usage AND 2) put up signage, specifically speed signage.

They have done little of both.

The city has it’s own sign department in public works, at least they did a few years back. So making the required signage would only take a few days and installation maybe a couple of weeks.

Now I am NOT asking for a MPH sign every 10 feet, but at mile markers would be nice, which would come to about 30-40 speed signs on the rec trail.

I would also like to see info graphics at the trailheads.

Besides the fact that city employee responses have been anything but stellar on various other things, I think the missing MPH signs has more to do with POLITICAL motivation. I think some peeps in the acoustic bike community maybe didn’t show up to the lead up meetings because they have a backdoor to city hall, or at least some on the parks board and parks department management and I think they strongly encouraged them to NOT have MPH signage (because the Lance Armstrong wannabes of the world in their colorful costumes exceed 15 MPH most of the time).

After June 1st when the new ordinance went into effect (the only change was permitting E-2’s) I have seen every electric device imaginable on the trail. I think if the acoustic bike community doesn’t want to have the MPH signs (not sure if they are behind it, but I am speculating) then we should just allow everything on the trail. Why not make it a free for all? If the ‘A’ riders don’t want to follow the same rules as the ‘E’ riders why should we follow those rules?

All you are doing is setting a bad precedent for less experienced riders who are trying out an E-Bike for the first time. You are basically saying you can go as fast as you want, so why can’t we?

Stop pouting and enjoy the ride, safely, and take off the frickin’ clown suit, you look ridiculous.

Cars, Floods and Falls Park

l3wis June 25, 2024 5Comments

This was Cherry Rock park Saturday morning. You should see it today. All the sand from the Volleyball courts are by the bathrooms. Oh my.

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that there was lines and lines of cars going into Falls Park this past weekend?

You do realize the reason we are experiencing these torrential rains is because of GLOBAL WARMING and our use of FOSSIL FUELS. So I find it ironic that you drove your planet killing vehicle to observe the damage you have done 🙂 Now I ain’t full on hippy, I still drive my car. But wouldn’t a smart person maybe park their car a few blocks away, heck even a mile away, and enjoy a stroll down to Falls Park? Not sure if you looked around, but Sioux Falls ain’t getting any skinnier.

I’ve told people that we have already passed the time of no return.