I will have to admit, I hear a lot of funny (and sad) things at city council meetings, but this has to be one of the biggest LOL moments ever. Tonight the city council approved more zoning and neighborhood destruction for Sanford hospital. But before the vote, an elderly lady who has lived in the neighborhood almost her whole life came to testify against it. Besides the above comment in the title of the post, she had some other things to say (paraphrasing).
“I may be a lone wolf in the wilderness, but I need to say this stuff (about Sanford).”
“I know Sioux Valley hospital, but I don’t know this octopus eating up our neighborhoods, Sanford.”
But when she said the title of this post, I almost pissed my pants. She prefaced the comment by saying she has vivid dreams and she was giving kids a historic tour of the hood in the dream, and that is what happened.
Don’t get me wrong, Sanford needs to expand, that is obvious, but they do not need to expand their specialty clinics, etc in the middle of the city, and they know it. Citizens need to rise up and stop this expansion.
Councilors Staggers was the only one who voted against the expansion. Go figure.
Sanford should dissapate with Obama nationalized health care. However, the eminent domain monster cannot be tamed before many people are displaced. That is a good neighborhood. I/we are not from there but I (at least) am sympathetic. Progress is one thing. The monster that takes property rights without reimbursement from individuals is the worst kind of villain.
They aren’t taking anything without compensation. That would be.. Wait for it, genius.. Stealing. Sanford will and should expand. It is necessary and inevitable. Saying Sanford will dissipate with Obamacare is dumb. They will survive, and will find a way to cut other costs to make their existence profitable. They’ll have to. What it will do is stifle research and progress in treatment of disease. What motivation will tomorrow’s nerds have to do study medicine if they will end up making less than common brick salesmen?
I’m all for them expanding, but it seems to make more sense to build down in the research/office park where I29/229 meet.
AG’s right. Intelligent people need good motivation to go into difficult fields like medicine. Why would any intelligent person go into medicine and spend all those years and dollars on education when he could be a bricklayer and make the same money? Not smart.
I don’t know enough about the Sanford situation to comment intelligently…
But I gotta tellya – that lady’s a POET, man!
She was pretty funny, I encourage people to watch that part of the video.
Angry Guy:
“What motivation will tomorrow’s nerds have to do study medicine if they will end up making less than common brick salesmen?”
Excellent point AG, profit isn’t a dirty word, whether it’s at a personal or corporate level.
STFU, Sy. Who asked you? 🙂
I wouldn’t want to live anywhere near either hospital because of the constant construction. Sanford could build in other parts of town. They don’t need to have everything all together. You can bet they aren’t doing it to save money or to be more efficient. They just plain want to take over that part of town.
It isn’t about them wanting to take over a part of town. Sanford’s immediate campus houses services that NEED to be close to one another. It DOES save money and is WAY MORE EFFICIENT from a logistics point of view. More buildings means more employees and patients on campus at any given time, which means more parking will be needed, which brings us to the inevitable sprawl we are seeing. Your entire comment is flawed, and you should feel stupid for ever posting it.
I partially agree AG, with advances in information technology you don’t need all facilities in the same place. Yes, there expansion is inevitable in that area of town, but they could be more creative about it. During the last planning commission meeting a resident of the neighborhood asked why the new hospital being planned changed from 12 stories to 5? Why not build up instead of out? I have noticed that most of Sanford’s new buildings are not very tall.
What do I look like, an engineer? I’m betting it’s cheaper to build two 5 story buildings than it is to build one 12 stories tall.
Anyone out there know/care?
It is cheaper, because the land for horizontal expansion is cheaper than the added construction costs of building a taller (and much heavier) building.
If land was astronomically expensive like it is in many actual urban areas, we’d see them either build taller, or in the burbs.
I hate the assertion that people are being screwed when Sanford buys their home from them, especially in today’s market. If you live in their sprawl footprint, and you have an appraisal done, Sanford pretty much just cuts you a check for the appraised amount. Not listing/realtor/negotiations needed. These houses aren’t historical. They are $60k-$100k POS houses within spitting distance of Munson Slums.
I agree that Sanford does give a fair price, but do people have a choice? No. And secondly, the biggest problem is that these people won’t be able to buy another decent home for what they get for their POS houses, that is their biggest complaint. Many of these people have lived in their homes for years and made them very comfortable, I can kind of understand where they are coming from.
They have a choice, go check out the house on West Ave & 18th. Their friends never want for parking when they come over.
With the fair money they get for their POS house, they should (if they aren’t fucking idiots) be able to make a nice downpayment on another property and finance the remaining portion (stimulating the economy/generates taxes). Its an inconvenience, but you can’t tell me these people lived in the shadow of Sanford and didn’t see this giant glowing blue turd rolling toward them for the last ten years.
Sure, but a man’s house is his castle, and they don’t expect a real castle to be built next to them. My house is modest, but I love it, I can’t imagine living in a crackerjack ranch with a 4 foot elm in my backyard. I’d go piss on the Sanford statue if I didn’t know there was 20 cameras on me.
Sure, I’d be pissed if Sanford pushed me out, but I’d get over it about the time I realized how much $ I just pocketed for not having to list my house and deal with fuckwad realtors, even if I wasn’t planning on selling.
I disagree. Anyone living within 6 blocks of Sanford knew damn well coming into it that the money machine wasn’t going to stop eating the neighborhoods around it.
So if Avera sprawled in your direction, you’d resist?
Ever drive down Cliff Ave. and see that one little house surrounded by Avera’s parking lot?
I chuckle every time I do.
No, I would not resist Avera’s offer, but I am in a different situation. I am single and have only lived in my home for 6 years, my property is also already zoned commercial, I cannot expand unless an act of God. You have to understand some of these people have lived there for 30-50 years and have invested a lot into their homes, I would be pissed to.
How can Sanford continue to make large gifts to the community and still maintain that they are a not-for-profit organization? If Sanford would start paying taxes like the rest of us, we wouldn’t have to worry about money to run the city of Sioux Falls.