Search Results: Downtown Parking Ramp

It seems some things will never change at city hall, no matter who is at the helm; Developers Run our city and have the keys to the cookie jar.

The assumption is that in tomorrow’s press conference we will be told everything is hunky-dory with the downtown parking ramp because Lamont has now taken control. While I don’t have an issue with Lamont building a hotel or that Journey is building that hotel and parking ramp, it doesn’t change how we got here and how the plan in itself is a bad one.

First off, the plan. We are only getting a handful of parking spots for the $20 million we are spending, and the 100 year lease is unheard of.

Now, let’s look at the players. Legacy is the developer who concocted this plan, they are forever tied to it. We can throw out all the accolades we want about Journey or Lamont, doesn’t matter. The taxpayers of Sioux Falls shouldn’t be giving one red cent to a poorly planned project with players that are being investigated for safety violations and a wrongful death.

Mayor TenHaken should have TERMINATED this project, paid whatever penalties and when asked why, he should say, “Why don’t you ask Daren Ketchum, Tracy Turbak and Mike Huether.” Mic drop.

It is hardly a secret that the city council was probably told about what would be presented in the press conference tomorrow in the executive session today. I talked to someone who attended the session. They were very clear with me that they couldn’t tell me what happened or what was said under penalty of law, or even what the topic of conversation was, but they did tell me this, “It didn’t go well.”

It is pretty evident to us local government nerds that there are way to many hold overs from the past administration that need to be given their walking papers, and until that happens, we will continue down the same path; Developers hold the key to the city.

This Legacy Parking ramp / hotel scheme is not like a new thing for most Sioux Falls citizens to comprehend. Many knew this was a scam based on fraud and many people in positions of power decided to look the other way just to get promises fulfilled before they left office. If they took others with in the process, they are collateral damage I guess.

There may be legal liabilities. The six Council members who voted for this project and the previous mayor could be on the hook criminally. They had been told in open City Council testimony (it is recorded and can’t be taken down) there was a connection between the four owners of Legacy and the four owners of Hultgren Construction and the four owners of Boomerang and the parking ramp group. It may not have been on paper, but there was plenty of public testimony to back it up.

Construction manager at risk (CMAR) and guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and RFP and RFQ possible rigging may be examined for years to come. To claim they didn’t know or were unaware, is a poor excuse not holding water. If they did not want to look at the situations because a scheming happy warrior was telling all was OK, then they might be wearing stripes together.

There may have been wire fraud, mail fraud and more involved areas which they are all liable. Look at Daren Ketchum moving over to Legacy after he worked so hard to get this project done before Huether left office. Unspoken quid pro quo is screaming at us, the fix was in. There could still be the asbestos problem and the decision to close down one LLC and give all the assets to another just when the asbestos questions were being raised. Now were talking real criminal conspiracy with real behind bars time to consider.

To now claim this is a Lamont project instead of the cosigners of the guarantees may be just another scam. This will forever be a Legacy project. Does Lamont Co. have signed documents turned over to the City right now saying they are now the sole guarantors?

The threat of lying on bankruptcy filings causing criminal charges made the guarantors come partially clean is little consolation to a dead man’s family or to a city bleeding money on schemes of a past mayoral term.

How can a new mayor who has not fired the “mistake makers” of the past administration now go back to these same individuals (the “mistake makers”) to get a new solution or legal justification everything was done correctly without jeopardizing their pensions and employment?

Mayor TenHaken said it in the KELO.com piece, “As a citizen, I did not like how the previous administration pushed this project so hard with disregard to transparency.” As citizens, we don’t like it either. Anyone who allows this project to move forward could join the others in unpleasant federal criminal conspiracy ramifications.

Will our new mayor do the right thing and kill this project? Kill this project and wash our city hands of it. Take the $1,000,000 guarantee and use it to pay off the bondholder early repayment penalties and the other city costs. We don’t need this parking lot the way it is being proposed or possibly where it is being proposed. Most of  Sioux Falls know this was a bad deal from the start. We need to let Mayor TenHanken know the project is now in his hands and he should kill it before it gets way out of control. A man died for the sins of greed, what’s next? Is this our Legacy to never forget?