Welcome to My Personal Blog
– Joe
It’s Not Too Early to Be Thinking of 2026
Sioux Falls and South Dakota have a big election coming up, and I don’t mean the 2024 presidential election. In 2026 we will elect new city and state leaders. While that will undoubtedly be entertaining, it may not actually change much. But before then we have...
Downtown’s Popularity Creates Challenges
Downtown Sioux Falls has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. Once struggling to attract shoppers and visitors, it is now bustling with activity and has become a popular destination for locals and tourists alike. However, as more and more people...
Should Sioux Falls Have a City Manager?
For nearly 30 years Sioux Falls has had a mayor-council form of city government. It has generally worked well. But someday community leaders may want to consider switching to the more popular council-manager system. City Commission Had to Go In the 1980s and early...
Sioux Falls Needs a Plan
Organizations benefit from planning. Governments too. Good strategic plans encourage people to work together toward common goals. Planning also promises to increase our chances of a better future. Unfortunately, our city council hasn’t created a long-range plan for...
Election Reform Makes Sense
The powers that be in sports do a good job of keeping their games up to date and entertaining. Professional baseball periodically tweaks the rules to improve the game. So do NFL team owners. And tennis and golf rules officials. The games are better for it....
Approval Voting in Fargo
Sometimes you can learn a lot by checking out what the neighbors are up to. They might have found a way to get a greener lawn. Or bigger tomatoes. Maybe they have a reliable handyman you can borrow. Or maybe they have even found a better way to run their elections....
The Problem With Sioux Falls Elections
There is a time bomb ticking in the Sioux Falls city election system that could frustrate the intent of the voters at least every eight years. We would be wise to defuse it. The 2010 Sioux Falls mayoral election demonstrated a flaw in our municipal election system....
The Artist in the South Dakota Penitentiary
Frederick Henry Morse was an artist who made a career in the late 1800s painting portraits of politicians and local notables in several Midwestern states and cities. Long after putting away his brushes, he found himself in serious legal trouble in South Dakota. Which...
Better County Government
South Dakota counties are structured and operate in accordance with state law. But it’s a one size fits all model that doesn’t fit our county well. With roughly a quarter of the state’s population, Minnehaha County would be better served by a more flexible approach....
Sioux Falls is Not a Factory Town
The recently exposed plan to bring one or more additional slaughterhouses to Sioux Falls disappointed many in the community. Apparently, our hopes and aspirations for our city are very different than the elected officials and development officers who encouraged this...
Too Many Governments in South Dakota
We like to think our state is a great example of small, conservative government at its best, with minimal wasteful spending. But I suspect we may be fooling ourselves. By historical accident, we now have too many governments in South Dakota. And they aren’t laid out...
Thoughtful Growth for Sioux Falls
Governor Noem likes to say that we are “open for business” in South Dakota. I generally like and agree with that sentiment. But recent history suggests we might also want limits. Two Big Surprises Not long ago two surprising bits of news hit Sioux Falls. A group...
One Party Dominance in South Dakota
As a lifelong Republican and casual observer of South Dakota politics, I have had a nagging feeling for several years that something just wasn’t working right. Then I heard reports from this year’s Republican convention and it started to sink in. Our 20th century...
Effective City Government Arrives in Sioux Falls
“You can’t fight City Hall.” It’s one of those sayings that sum up recognized truths. It generally suggests that you can’t win when challenging a bureaucratic system like the government. But in the early 1990s a bunch of us in Sioux Falls did just that. We convinced...
The Western Surety Kirbys
Over a period of many decades and four generations of one family’s leadership, a South Dakota business quietly dominated its industry. The company was Western Surety Company. The family was the Kirbys. And the industry was the small, miscellaneous fidelity and surety...
One of the Strangest Episodes in Supreme Court History
It began with a call from a friend working at the downtown Sioux Falls public library. She had received an information request from someone on the east coast about a long-dead local attorney, my great grandfather, Joe Kirby. She wondered if I would be interested in...