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SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Dec 15, 2020

l3wis 3Comments

City Council Informational Meeting • 4 PM

• November 2020 Financial Statements by Shawn Pritchett, Director of Finance (No supporting documents yet)

City Council Regular Meeting • 6 PM

Item #6, Approval of Contracts (Seems the mayor’s office has been busy spending money in some mysterious ways);

Sub Item #5, Great Bear Chairlift Replacement, $1.379 Million. (While we are fussing about a $95K remodel of a historic house in Tuthill park we are paying this amount to replace a chair lift in the middle of a pandemic. Makes sense.)

Sub Item #10, Extending Lease Agreement for two ambulances with equipment for use by Fire/Rescue to provide for surge capacity ambulance service on a limited capacity for an additional term of 90 days ending 2/21/2021. Paramedics Logistics South Dakota, LLC dba PatientCare EMS. $1.00 per month, per vehicle. (I would really like to know the details of this agreement, like how many rides the SFFR is giving and if we are getting reimbursed?)

Sub Item #17, Centralized Facilities Improvements – Central Fire Station Kitchen Remodel; Ronning Enterprises, $220K (Wow, that’s quite the remodel job! Like I said, anytime the city does anything it always costs 3 to 4 times more than what you and I would pay.)

Sub Item #23, Human Resources, Customized education program designed to enhance participant’s ability to collaboratively lead change and foster a servant leadership attitude. University of South Dakota, on behalf of its Beacom School of Business, $40K (So now we are giving business training to city employees to have a ‘servant’ attitude. Weird sh*t.)

Sub Item #24, Human Resources, Professional Services including but not limited to Strategic Planning, Mentoring and Coaching, Intersections Consulting (more training, not sure what for????)

Sub Item #29, Belbas Theater Projection System Upgrade; $68K+ (I may be mistaken, but I thought this was just upgraded a few years ago?)

Sub Item #32, Engagement Agreement for Foundation Park TIF Provide legal services relating to Foundation Park TIF Project, Davenport, Evans, Hurwitz & Smith, L.L.P. $6k (So why are taxpayers paying for a TIF agreement? I have a feeling this TIF is going to cost us quite a bit . . .)

Item #18, 2nd Reading, Mask Mandate extension.

Item #23, 1st Reading, Re-Zone, (I guess the neighborhood is opposed to this because it was zoned office just a couple of years ago and when the developer couldn’t move it for that he changed his mind and wants to put up apartments. Here is a comment from a neighbor that was emailed to the council;

I am writing this letter with the concerns of the proposed rezoning of the corner of 22nd and S. MARY Beth Ave. I purchased my home a little over a year ago, 1604 S. Mary Beth, before I purchased the home the corner was zoned O and west of Mary Beth single family homes. With that taken in to consideration we made the purchase of our new home. I would have never bought this home with the understanding that there would be an apartment complex going on that parcel of ground. With apartments come more traffic and with the main entrance onto MaryBeth our once quite street will have traffic none stop. The value of our homes will decrease and crime will go up. These are proven facts. We will have a towering apartment complex with renters peering in our back yards, all for only the good of the City, MORE TAXES THAT the City will collect from the Developer. It is so unfortunate that the City does not realize this and NOT Approve the rezoning of this ground.

I always find these rezones interesting. I will just warn the neighborhood, you will probably lose this one, the developer in Sioux Falls usually wins 99.999% of the time (unless they are immigrant or a minority). Good Luck.

Item #24, 1st Reading. You can only get Papa John’s Pizza at the Aquatic Center, maybe that is why attendance is down?

Item #27, Resolution, City Council Legislative Priorities, looks like they are still pushing TIF’s;

The Sioux Falls City Council supports tax increment financing (TIF), an economic development tool that has led to millions of dollars in increased property value, benefitting both the state as a whole and the local entities sponsoring the districts, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the process.

This statement is the biggest line of B.S. I have ever heard. It says nothing about good paying jobs or benefits to the community as a whole, that’s because TIFs are just a ruse. The last line made me laugh. What does that even mean? Integrity would be doing a study showing us the benefits of TIFs, there have been none. And when it is brought up, all you hear is cricketts.

Item #28, A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, OUTLINING THE EXPECTATIONS FOR THE PEOPLE OF SIOUX FALLS TO TAKE ACTION TO SLOW THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS THAT CAUSES COVID-19. (ONE SIOUX FALLS COVID-19 ACTION PLAN.) – Wonder if they are going to tack this plan to all the telephone posts in town so people can read it?

Brad Goodroad Mayor TenHaken SFFD Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Fire Chief retires after a short stint

l3wis 8Comments

So Mr. Goodroad works his way to the top of the pay scale and after putting in a couple of years retires;

Sioux Falls Fire Rescue Chief Brad Goodroad announced his plan to retire in February 2021 after a 27-year career.

Goodroad has been chief since 2017 and will retire on February 12.

Goodroad began his career with SFFR in 1994 and progressed to captain, battalion chief, and eventually division chief.

While I admit he has put in his 27 years and (legally) deserves his retirement, you would have thought this was brought up when he took the job? Usually when you appoint someone to be chief you can get at least 8-10 years out of them or longer. I would be curious if Brad bothered to tell the last administration he planned to only serve until he was eligible? I also wonder what cushy golden parachute job he is moving into while collecting bank from top of the pay scale retirement?

I have seen this before with city management before retirement, they lock themselves in a couple of years at the top of the scale then bail (I fixed the spelling of this word due to a grammar Nazi, thanks grammar Nazi). This is another reason I oppose the bump-back, these folks already get amazing benefits.

This is why the city needs to find a younger replacement willing to put in more than 4 years and have an attitude of building the Fire Department into a better institution. I would implore our part-time mayor to do a national search for someone who has worked with a public ambulance service and have them spearhead that program for us.

Speaking of that, many have asked me if our for-profit ambulance service has been billing rides our SFFR has been giving? We have a pilot program where we are leasing the ambulances for $1 to handle the surge. So when SFFR gives the rides are we reimbursed as taxpayers? It would be nice to hear the answer to that question, but as a guessing man, I bet we are NOT.

Donita Trump Noem Kristi Noem South Dakotans Trump

Governor Noem’s communications office spreads ‘Fake News’

l3wis 11Comments

There are a few things that irk me, okay, there are quite a few, but hypocrites in government really takes the cake. As an elected official doing this kind of stuff, I kind of just say it is SOP, but when taxpayer funded employees do it, it really chaps my hide.

How can you say ‘fake news’ when you are the ones spreading it?

I will admit, I was a little taken back when Noem admitted that indeed Biden will be president in her speech yesterday. I thought maybe she saw the light. We of course have known this truth to be self-evident, heck, I knew this all the way back in 2016. Trump lost by 3 million popular votes back then and I knew he would lose by more this time around. He is a two-time loser and has always been a loser. He has never won at anything in his life. He has always lost. How could you possibly imagine he was going to win this time around? It was logistically impossible. I almost encourage the Biden campaign to bring lawsuits in the states he lost in just to prove how wide of a margin it was.

Either way, we get this from our Governor who I think has lost her mind, let’s break it down;

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) said today that she “expects the road could be a little bit rough under the Biden administration with some of the policies that they’ve embraced.”

I agree 100% in her statement, but not because I think Biden is a raging liberal (he is far, far, far from it) it is because Noem parading around the United States campaigning for Trump is going to come back to bite us in the ass in South Dakota. I have a feeling the Biden administration is going to be giving a very cold shoulder to South Dakota. If Noem had any screws left in her head she would congratulate Biden personally and beg for forgiveness. That’s not going to happen, so we will be left in the cold.

“We can expect that they may try to raise taxes, they have said that,” Noem said. Noem also said Biden would try and eliminate fossil fuels by passing the Green New Deal.

Yes. Biden has said he would raise taxes, but you have to be in an income bracket that about 90% of South Dakotans or more are not. And I agree, the super rich in this country have gotten away with tax dodging for way to long. As for fossil fuels, it’s just good old fashioned science that tells us we must move away from them, but that is not going to happen overnight. Ironically, the State of South Dakota is in a very good position to go all green. We could easily supply our state with enough green energy to eliminate all fossil fuels with wind, hydro and solar, it just takes the will to do it.

“And whatever else the administration might do, it would certainly give us a lot more regulation,” Noem said.

This is actually something we have needed in SD for a long time, we have some of the worst worker safety laws in the nation. Just look at what happened at Smithfield recently with Covid and the numerous fines filed against them environmentally.

But Noem decided to have her staff play some games with what she actually said and what she sent out after the speech;

Noem’s verbal presentation differs from a copy of her written speech provided to media. Noem replaced the word “a” with word “the” twice today when she referred to Biden and an administration twice.

A copy of Noem’s speech refers to “Frankly, I expect the road could be rough under a Biden administration” and not “the Biden administration” as Noem said in her speech. Also, “whatever else a Biden administration might do…,” and not “whatever else the administration might do” as Noem said in her speech.

Pretty slimy. Actually very slimy.

You can’t stand on the street corner every 20 minutes yelling ‘Fake News’ Kristi when you are the creator of this fake news. And your staffers who participated in this sloppy game? Pathetic sycophants that don’t deserve one penny of my tax dollars for their salaries.

But the news gets even better, even though South Dakotans voted for Trump, we somehow hitched our horse to this;

The State of South Dakota believes in free and fair elections.  Our office has received thousands of calls and emails from concerned citizens and we have listened to our constituents and voters.  That is why South Dakota has, today, joined the Amicus Brief of the State of Missouri in support of State of Texas v Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin.

What were South Dakotans mad about? HE WON HERE! Our election in South Dakota went pretty smoothly. What are we protesting?

I would also like to see these ‘thousands’ of emails. Give me a break. Never happened. More ‘fake news’ from a ‘fake governor’.

The one thing I have learned about the average voter is that while they may be upset for a few months (or more like a couple of hours) if their candidate lost, they really don’t make much of a fuss and move on. It’s time for us to stop playing word games and filing useless lawsuits (at our expense) and move on.

Trump lost! Twice! And that’s FACTUAL News.

Kristi Noem Larry Rhoden State Funding State Legislature Steve Haugaard

Is Lt. Governor Rhoden getting out of the ranching business?

l3wis 8Comments

Don’t quote me on this, it’s what Larry said on a hot microphone to state legislator, Steve Haugaard before Noem’s budget address just moments ago.

I have often warned elected officials across the state and locally to watch what you ramble in proximity of a microphone before a public meeting, it could be recording.

The conversation between Steve and Larry started out dry, literally, Steve asked if he needed to fill a glass of water for Kristi, which made me laugh, because it is further proof that all these guys do is carry water for her 🙂 Larry told Steve not to worry about it because Maggie will take care of it, and as we both know, she carries a lot of water for Kristi in attacking the fake news.

Then after a long uncomfortable period Steve asked Larry what he has been up to? Larry said, “I’m getting out of the ranching business . . . selling my cattle next spring.” Then he talked about his plan to sell the herd to a young rancher who has been “renting grass from him.”

While this probably isn’t earth shaking news, it may explain why Rhoden all of sudden became a full-time employee for Kristi.

Kristi and her ilk have been government welfare recipients for decades, and it seems to continue as governor when Rhoden needs to get out of the ranching business. And why not, it’s a lot more lucrative warming a chair in Pierre on the taxpayer’s dime.

UPDATE: It was also interesting to watch Stormland-TV pan the camera across the floor and focusing on those wearing and not wearing masks. My rough estimate is that about 33% of legislators were wearing masks, and it was a good mix of Republicans and Democrats (NO Democrats were unmasked). What surprised me was there was several Republican legislators from the Sioux Falls area not wearing masks.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Dec 8, 2020

l3wis 5Comments

Informational Meeting • 4 PM

• COVID-19 Update by Jill Franken, Director of Public Health (no supporting documents yet in SIRE).

• Engineering Design Standards Updates by Nick Borns, Aaron Fagerness, and Ryan Johnson, Principal Engineers (no supporting documents yet in SIRE).

Regular Meeting • 6 PM (This is the NEW meeting time because of the authoritarians on the council).

Item #7, Approval of Contracts

Sub Item #1, Leasing Police Vehicles. This one actually surprised me, I thought we bought vehicles and once they run their course we auction them. I am not opposed to it, but would be curious what vehicles these are. As I said with the administration building, it made little sense for taxpayers to spend millions in capital and maintenance when we could more economically rent office space, or better yet have many work from home.

Sub Item #8, Affordable Housing Solutions, Neighborhood Revitalization
Program Site Acquisition/Development Agreement. $165K. While I am all for creating more affordable housing, our approach in Sioux Falls is comparable to killing a gnat with a bazooka. I still think my idea of giving small apartment building owners and smaller home rentals and small individual homeowners mini-TIFs to fix up property goes a lot farther and has NO initial costs except collecting less property taxes for a small amount of time. I have suggested the TIF’s should be only 1-3 years at most. Of course this is NOT how we do things in Sioux Falls, we give to big time freeloaders and hope the urine trickles down to us little guys.

Sub Item #11, Training Werks, Agreement to Provide Coaching, Assessments, and Consulting to Employees and Officers of the City. I’m trying to figure out when the city stopped hiring ‘qualified’ people. Wait, don’t answer that question. We seem to be spending a lot of money to coach these folks. I also don’t know if I have much confidence in a place that can’t spell works correctly 🙂

Item #11, Deferred from the meeting of Tuesday, December 1, 2020; A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS AND AMERICAN FEDERATION OF STATE, COUNTY, AND MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES. (I’m not quite sure what will happen, but I guess the council has not been happy about how the Mayor put the budget forward before this contract was finalized).

Item #12, AN EMERGENCY ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, TO REQUIRE FACE COVERING IN AN INDOOR PUBLIC PLACE WHERE 6-FOOT SOCIAL DISTANCING CANNOT BE ACHIEVED. (this is an extension of the mask mandate, but still has no penalties for non-compliance).

Item #14, A RESOLUTION DECLARING CERTAIN REAL PROPERTY OF THE CITY SURPLUS AND AUTHORIZING THE DEMOLITION THEREOF. (This is the Tuthill house demolition proposal. I suspect many people will be coming to testify against this. If I had to make a guess on how the council will vote, I think they will have at least 5 votes to save the house, or at least give it a year to figure it out. I am hoping that the council takes to task the Parks Director, Don Kearney, for letting this property go to Hell).

Item #15, A RESOLUTION APPOINTING MEMBERS OF THE DISTRICTING COMMISSION.

It’s actually a pretty good crew (besides the hospital executive, but I guess he was the only one to apply in that district) I am not sure who all applied, but I do know some ‘rats’ didn’t make the final cut;

Name • Party Affiliation • District
Bob Thimjon • Democrat • Southwest
Joseph Kippley • Republican • Southeast
Mark Millage • Republican • Northwest
Barbara Brooks Johnson • Democrat • Northeast
Tom Hurlbert • Independent • Central

Item #16, A RESOLUTION ESTABLISHING REPORTING STRUCTURES, PAY SCALES, AND EVALUATIONS FOR CITY COUNCIL-APPOINTED STAFF. (It is interesting while they list the pay scales, they don’t tell us what ‘step’ each of the employees are currently at. What you will notice is that the pay range right now varies between $63-108K a year plus benefits. Interesting with such good wages you would think they would be able to figure out how to run meetings, properly record them and provide documentation to the public. Maybe instead of a ‘step’ raise it’s time to give them a kick in the rear.)

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