SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – The 2025 Legislative session is still a month away, but the mayor of South Dakota’s largest city weighed in on what he hopes to see accomplished in Pierre.
Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken held this week’s One Sioux Falls Media Briefing at the newly opened Canopy by Hilton at the Steel District. He said he remembered hearing the vision of the project from Scott Rysdon with the Sioux Steel Company.
“Visions take time,” TenHaken said, adding the project development couldn’t happen without TIFs (tax increment financing).
After “spiking the football” about the accomplishments in the city of Sioux Falls in 2024 – city wastewater expansion, water expansion and 45 miles of road expansion – TenHaken took a few questions.
When responding to a question about one thing the city as the whole would want from the state Legislature in the next upcoming session, TenHaken said he’d like to see state lawmakers stay out of “culture war issues.”
“Focus on the core needs of delivering services to the city and the state,” TenHaken said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of culture wars that we’re going to see. I get why those happen, but it forces us to take our eye off the core job that we have.”
TenHaken said he hopes lawmakers stay focused on the tasks at hand.
“We’re in a divisive time right now. Politics is gross and people are mad,” TenHaken said. “How do we put just put some of that anger aside, culture issues aside, what’s the basic tackling and blocking we have to do to keep up with a city growing 5-6,000 people year. Keeping a couple books out of our library is not high on our priority list.”
TenHaken was referring to a new state law starting in January that “requires that a public school or public library prepare and adopt a policy that makes obscene material off-limits to minors and post it on the website or publish it annually in the local legal newspaper.”
Siouxland Libraries said the new law led them to cancel its Student Success Cards program, which gave library cards to students whose parents wouldn’t come and get them a library card.
TenHaken said “culture war issues” take a lot of time and the return on investment isn’t there to benefit the community.
He also said city leaders met with state lawmakers to discuss the state’s 911 contract after three outages have impacted service in 2024.
