City of Sioux Falls Gets Served over New Office Space

Potential construction of a new City Administration Building has been occupying a lot of time for the Sioux Falls City Council. The legal process will now run its course.

City Councilors were notified Monday that the Stop the Funding group which circulated petitions to set the project before the voters, but had the signatures invalidated because the wrong form was used has officially sued the City. Councilor Pat Starr says City Clerk Tom Greco made the right decision based on the facts.

“(Greco) followed the law and did exactly what he was supposed to do as a bureaucrat. He said, “That’s not the (correct) form.” He got advice from the Secretary of State and the City Attorney and basically said they weren’t valid signatures.”

Starr goes on to say that a project like this needs support from all stakeholders to proceed.

“The City Administration has done a good job convincing themselves that we needed this. They did a decent job of giving us the information we needed as a Council as part of the due diligence and going through that process. What we forgot is that third leg of the stool. We didn’t convince the citizens of Sioux Falls.”

As evidence of the people’s interest in the project, Starr says collecting over 6,400 signatures in over three weeks was a monumental achievement.

A specific date for a court hearing has not been set, but a general time frame would be the last week in September.