Yesterday the Soukup family proposed a donated park that will have fishing ponds
See the full presentation here
It still has to be approved by council and we must also realize it won’t be cheap to maintain, but will be something nice within our city limits. I’m kinda on the fence about it, but the Soukup family is very generous, so I see this as a good thing (even though there is a million places to fish in the region).
When I was a kid, we used to ride our bikes the few miles along 12th street to poach fish from the stocked pond directly south of the proposed park. We’d dress in camo and hide our bikes back by the dump to sneak across the fields so we wouldn’t get caught trespassing. One of my friends ironically pulled a “Proud Angler” large mouth bass out of there within eyesight of a T.I.P (Turn In Poachers) sign.
On a side note, we should have SouthDacola fishing expeditions.
Sounds good to me. I haven’t fished since we used to net bullheads from the Jim.
SouthDacola camping could be a riot too…
I could see that ending with one of us getting wet, arrested or both.
I’d bring Angry Tot to help keep it in check…
good, he’ll be the first in the drink
I’m all for this proposed expidition. I even have most of the gear we need.
Yeah, we should test it out before the city takes it over, we could submit a powerpoint presentation to the council about our exploints, should we invite Jodi?
I’m thinking more like a Lake Herman invasion. It has nice facilities, easy access to water, and is close enough that I can drive home when I forget diapers or the dog… Plus, if we go late enough in the summer, the Pike are super aggressive in Herman Pond. Early morning combat fishing with a sixer stuffed in your waders…. If that isn’t a PBR commercial in the making, I don’t know what is.
I’ve wondered what the future plans are for that site for several years as they have been hauling in top soil fill as if they were about done with the place. The truck traffic has deceased quite a bit and it appears a certain amount of cleanup has already started.
I do sort of wonder what the point of having all those separate ponds is though. There are three of them on the East side of the road that could easily be transformed into one large pond – but I suppose the fire department doesn’t want to share their training pond with fisherman.
I also notice there is a connection across (or likely under) Tea-Ellis road for a future residential area, and I imagine those will be high dollar lake lots. Having a fishing pond and wildlife preserve area nearby makes those lots even more valuable.
It will be neat to see how all of this plays out over the next few years.
Costner- The city has not accepted the gift yet. Everything that has been done so far has been done privately by the Soukup family. This is what I assume will happen;
– The city council will probably accept the gift. Councilors Costello, Knudson and Brown PRAISED the Soukup family for the ‘proposed’ gift. Costello even went on to talk about being invited to hunt out there in the past.
– The reality is I find it funny that after the family has used it privately for fishing and hunting for so long they now want to ‘gift it’ to the city. Which in reality means they want to stop paying property taxes on it. Not even sure if they could sell the land since it has pretty much become a wildlife preserve for waterfowl and fish. Who would want to buy that? Gifting it to the city makes sense as a business and charitable decision. I don’t want to sound like I am dissing the gift, but I do have my suspicians because of some of the things that were said in the meeting. The Parks the Department wanted the decision made and the paperwork signed before June because it was the end of the fiscal year for Soukup. In other words they could get their charitable write-offs in and avoid there property tax payment for the second half of the year, that was my assumption.
– Another factor is that SF taxpayers will have to pickup most of the finishing landscaping, and safety and ADA work that will need to be done to the park before it can be opened to the public. That could run in the millions. SD GF & P has vowed to donate about $400,000 which will mostly be for stocking the ponds with different kinds of fish, etc. I think the reason the ponds are separate is because the Soukups did that on purpose because they have different fish habitats in each pond. Trust me, they have already put a lot of work into it, and it would be a much better gift then when the Paisley family gave the city a sleauth.
– Lastly, I can’t imagine the thousands and thousands of dollars a year it will cost to maintain.
Solution?
I suggest that the city accepts the gift then gifts the park to the housing association that will be next door so they can maintain it.
A new public park should be welcomed. Especially if it has fishing ponds. Yes, there are area lakes but they’re to far for kids on bikes or citizens without transportation. Presently, fishing in the city is the Sioux River or Covell Lake. Either is polluted with few fish. The city could fund maintainance with revenue from contract concessons such as snack bar, paddle boats, or frisby golf. At times, the park could be leased for private picnics and family reunions.
Could setup a few miniature golf courses to. I agree the park is a nice addition, but I think the city should get creative for once with the upkeep.