Historic 8th Street Bridge almost complete
l3wis On a Sunday afternoon walk I saw that the deck on the bridge is complete and they started installing the parapet that are solid concrete.
Augustana to do another Housing Study
I can’t believe it has been 4 years since Augie put out their study. Once the study is completed in 2021 I have no doubt that the actual numbers of people needing housing will have gone up, but I also believe the percentages will have gone up also. I still don’t know what our community has done in the past 4 years that encouraged more and better affordable housing. I may be proven wrong, but I don’t think this report is going to be any rosier. Now, I don’t want to get all negative nancy about it. There are sectors of our community that or doing well, but like the last study pointed out, there is a significant wealth gap, and I think it will be even wider.
There is something else I am going to call the ‘Amazon’ factor. I have NO doubt that they will have to draw in workers not only from the region but from across the country to get enough. Some have been curious why our local elected officials haven’t been standing on soap boxes bragging about it. I will tell you why, because they know about the low wages Amazon pays and what kind of worker this will attract. Hard to brag about bringing business to Sioux Falls when that business pays the same as fast food. I actually believe that bringing Amazon here will create more social ills for our community. I don’t think our local or state officials had a choice in the matter, let’s face it, it’s Amazon, they will do what they want to. There was no carrot on the end of a stick leading them here, it was logistics.
I am also curious if the city is the only entity funding this study? Any non-profits? The counties? The school district?
Sioux Falls CountCilor Alex Jensen thinks the city council isn’t a legislative body
Madeline Shields asks a pretty basic question, “People are always intimidated about running for public office . . . what is it that you hope to learn more about?”
Jensen’s answer, “The legislature compared to the city council are two very, very different things.”
Well, they are not. But we will get to that in moment.
Ironically Jensen ran on his ‘legislative experience.’ He told voters that as many times as he could. Also, the city council is the ‘legislative body’ they are the ones that (should) be making the ordinances, creating the yearly budget, etc. That duty has been robbed by the Mayor’s office (starting with Munson) and has gotten progressively worse. In fact, by charter (which I’m sure Jensen has never read) the city council specific duties is legislating, while the mayor’s duties are running the city as the city manager. By not legislating on the city council, you are effectively derelict in your duties.
Somebody asked me once if the council is not legislating, what are they doing? Well besides approving some beer licenses, they show up every Tuesday to Rubberstamp the Mayor’s agenda and Mayor’s budget while raising taxes and fees on the rest of us and handing out goodies to the banksters, contractors and welfare queen developers in town. That’s not legislating, that’s rewarding the folks who fund your campaigns. Don’t believe me, it cost Jensen $117,000.000 to beat Stehly by less than a 100 votes. Do you think this money came from his pocket? I can almost guarantee you that 99.9999% of city voters have NEVER given a penny to a council or mayoral race. So where does this money come from? The people who show up every week to rob the cookie jar, and after Tuesday’s meeting, they will now be at the front of the line.
Jensen is right, the council isn’t a legislative body anymore and they should be brought up on ethics violations for not following their duties as prescribed by the charter. Folks, that may just happen. As John Lee Hooker said in a song once, “Pot’s on, gas on high, we are cooking.” The council isn’t going to like what’s for dinner when we are done.
Sioux Falls City Council Informational meeting on Tuesday has some curious items
It used to be when you saw the agenda on Friday afternoon before the Tuesday informational meeting you could click on agenda items and have linked documents so you could see what was being discussed. Mayor Bucktooth and Bowlcut moved away from this, and our current jellyfish, transparency hater Mayor Stoneless won’t even give us a hint until a couple of minutes before the meeting starts.
Either way, these two items have me curious;
• Update on Downtown Development, AND
• Land Use Ordinance Updates
My guess is we will hear some watered down B.S. about the Sioux Steel project, but I’m not sure what the land use ordinances are about, but I am guessing they are going to make it easier for developers to side skirt neighbors concerns, or give less rights to neighbors, or both. I honestly don’t know. But I think presenting these two items on the day of the most important election in our lifetime has me a bit concerned they don’t want a huge audience. The steamrolling is coming folks, and it is not going to be pretty, and will mostly be done in the dark.
This should never happen in the World’s greatest democracy
This was the scene about 4:30 yesterday at the election center in Downtown Sioux Falls (photos by Theresa Stehly) the line was several blocks long.
This of course could have been avoided a couple of different ways;
• Do what I have done for almost a decade, vote as soon as early voting starts. I believe I voted about a week after it started and there was about 3 people voting when I walked in. I have done this for a long time because I got tired of the musical precincts in every local election (something else that should end, another form of vote suppression).
• We should mail every registered voter a ballot, NOT an application, in at least state and national elections.
• We should have dozens of drop boxes available throughout the county at city and county properties (this of course would be possible if we didn’t have a political hack as the mayor of Sioux Falls who belongs to a party that promotes voter suppression).
What is crazy is that while we hand out $20 million dollar TIF’s and build $26 million dollar mural substrates, we can surely afford to make voting easier.
We live in a great country that allows us to choose our officials, but we make it really f’ing hard, even right here in South Dakota. I never thought I would see the day that people had to stand in this long of a line in Sioux Falls to vote. These pictures made me very sad.
****Note; if you have not mailed your ballot in yet DO NOT! I won’t make it to the election center by Tuesday. Drop it off in person or have a friend do it for you!