Remarks by Laura Armstrong
39 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
Welcome, we have Jamison Mallon-Eccles here, President Brian Tandy, Coach Charlie Flohr, as well as David Crum, all from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. So let me explain why they are here. A car was on fire, a teenager was trapped inside, and Jamison Mallon-Eccles ran toward it. On June 11, Jamison, our South Dakota Mines football captain, was driving to a friend's house in Houston when he saw a car lose control, cross the median, and crash. He stopped, called 911, and ran toward the wreck. Three teenagers were inside. Jameson helped two of them out, then turned his…
Thank you. May I direct some questions to Director Gilbert, please?
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If I can just clarify. So you brought this forward. My understanding is it's the first step for a much more robust action later?
One more quick question. Are there any consequences for not passing this evening?
so director gilbert and director cushman you would feel comfortable recommending the council give you better direction on what to do next should we not pass this this evening correct okay thank you i yield council roberts
Thank you. May I direct some questions to Director Fischer, community development, as well as our safety. That would be Chief Culberson and Scott Sitz. Absolutely.
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If we could go to the police, and then I believe Director Fischer back again. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.
Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on my colleague's comments. I think it's great that we are recognizing the, as she calls it, the who's who of Rapid City. I think that's phenomenal. But if we're going to be completely transparent on how this happened, they did not put their name forward. They were selected. The mayor's office reached out to these people. A couple of them actually reached out to me, said, what is this about? I did not know. In addition to being fully transparent, I talked with Black Hills Area Community Foundation, who I hold in high regard. I think they do a stellar job,…
Thank you. I'd like to make a motion to table this item. If I could get a second and I'll explain why. I'll second. Great, thank you.
I can't explain why? Nope, not under tabling.
Okay, thank you. I was hoping to put pause on this action, not because I want to give Sadiq any kind of grace. I've followed the history. What they're doing up in Star Village, I think, is completely wrong. But I really feel that there's been a lot of finger pointing at Sadiq And I think that we should look at the city and ask ourselves how this happened. I can't seem to find an actual cost of how much this has grown to, but it's exorbitant and I don't understand why this was not addressed a year or two ago or before it got into the six digits. I would like to have some sort of working…
Yes. Thank you. I just want to refresh everybody's memory at the Public Works meeting. I think it's important that these committees come before our council to give us updates, much like the Disability Committee, to let us know what they're doing. I think that's really important. And I have talked with Director Fischer about Having this group come before us, should I direct anything to Director Fischer? We are bringing a presentation in December that could give us an update. I think that would help us have a better rapport with our city committees and also encourage people to join these city…
Thank you. I just want to dovetail off of Councilman Stroman's comments. I, too, was caught off guard. I thought, oh, gosh, here we go. Amendments straight out the gate. But what sold me, and I would be remiss in not saying, by eliminating the need for an outside representative, this arrangement will save the city $659,000 compared to the previous standard agreements. So I wanted to make sure that all the taxpayers out there knew that and commend you for doing this. So thank you. I yield.
Thank you. I just want to clarify this is for the police station and want to defer to Chief Hedrick if there's any comments he would like to make. If not.
Okay. Well, I had the opportunity to take a tour of the facility. Hopefully, I know all of the other council members were invited. So I want to thank... Scott sits and Amanda Lee for giving me an in-depth tour. I see their vision. I think it's smart I love that it is visible. It's in the heart of that area and that's a great way of taking an empty building and putting it to good use and investing taxpayer diet dollars wisely Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Jason, for the additional clarification that you sent this to us today. I still am a little, I'm questioning the organizational structure because what HR gave me as our org chart, it has four different positions reporting directly to your chief of staff. So I don't know if I'm reading that right, or maybe it's changed, it's labeled June, so maybe some changes have happened.
Okay, but more importantly, remember I'm only back here for 63 days. And in that time, and especially within these last couple of weeks, I have seen how reliant you are on this position in order to fulfill your duties. And I want to support you and our mayor. So I guess we'll change our mind and take a vote on it. But we want to be able to make sure that you can do your jobs. And if you feel that you need this chief of staff in order to fulfill what you were elected to do, that's what we need to do for the benefit of the community. Thank you.
Thank you. Last week I sent a email to the council about some potential budget considerations. I'm assuming all of you received that. Head nod would be great. Okay, great. I would like for the council to consider and look at this. and make some well for example we can go line by line if you want the fire department is looking for future scba replacement we don't have a firm number but it's anywhere from 800 000 to a million dollars for 2028 so these are things let me clarify that we could consider for the 2027 budget, or at least have on the radar for 2028. Is there anybody that would like to…
Great. And to give other people some insight to what I did is I reached out to the directors just to see if we were missing anything, to get things on the radar for either 2027 or 2028. And these are not in any particular order other than the fire department. Human Resources was asking for approximately 22,000 in additional funding. for some professional services. It looks like 3938 and 18500 for training and education. I do think we have somebody from the human resources department here that can speak on that as well.
Is that what you're requesting? Does the council need some further clarification on that or some questions? The point of this exercise is basically to flush out anything that we might need to do. I believe it's really important that we fund our departments. $23,000 doesn't seem like it's a lot of money, and if it can give our staff some more training and education, I just think it's worth a discussion.
I just want to direct a question to Director Dame and just clarify the motion. So will 125 suffice for a professional project manager who is going to be able to oversee the terminal project, the runway project and then I believe the parking project?
Thank you, Mayor. Permission to ask the Community Development Director some questions?
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