Retraining of Some City Government Employees Required [OPINION]

Two proposals coming from Sioux Falls City Government need to disappear.

Some bureaucrat thinks people who want to protest a parking ticket should have to pay a $25 fee for the privilege.

Most protests come during the first couple of snow storms. Occasionally people who file a protest don't show up for the hearing. Bureaucrats have trouble with that reality. They are asking the Council to approve the fee, so the person arguing against the ticket has "some skin in the game."

The arrogance and rudeness of that thinking is something we might expect at the federal level. If enacted, most folks will not bother to protest, wisely thinking the money, time, and effort is not worth it.

Exactly what the bureaucrats want.

So tickets can be written with little fear of protest. The city coffers grow, and government employees will not have to justify even egregious mistakes.

How wonderful for them. How horrible for us.

This proposal belongs in the wastebasket, and the people pushing the idea need to be retrained. Local government is about service, not hassle.

The next bureaucratic idea is forcing all local cab companies to operate 24 hours a day and have an office.

Apparently somebody inside city hall doesn't like start up businesses and dealing with one owner, one cab, operating out of home, apartment, or garage,  is not worth their time.

Thank God, these folks were not around when Henry Ford started building cars, or Harley and Davidson were building motorcycles in a garage in Milwaukee. Wonder how a young Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would have done in Sioux Falls if they had to start with an official business office and  24 hour service?

South Dakota wins praise for being a state with laws, rules, and policies which invite the creation of small business. The proposed cab company rules are the antithesis of our long standing goals.

Retraining of some city government employees should be required.