Sioux Falls Mayoral Candidate Mike Huether uses animation in his first TV commercial . . .
l3wis . . . ah, I mean, his former employer
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCJHi-b0rhw&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]
2010
My favorite person of 2009; Rachel Maddow
I could go on and on, but let’s watch this great video instead.
I love how Rachel combines real reporting and journalism with sarcasm. She is funny, smart, unapologetic and gay (what pisses neo-cons off the most). I look forward to her 2010 appearances.
Rush didn’t have a heart attack but he was taking Prednisone
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oglQ3RP2PkA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
- increased blood sugar for diabetics
- weight gain
- facial swelling
- depression, mania, psychosis or other psychiatric symptoms
- unusual fatigue or weakness
- mental confusion / indecisiveness
- blurred vision
- abdominal pain
- peptic ulcer
- infections
- painful hips or shoulders
- Steroid-induced osteoporosis
- Long term migraines
- insomnia
- severe joint pain
- cataracts
- anxiety
- black stool
- stomach pain or bloating
- severe swelling
- mouth sores or dry mouth
- avascular necrosis
- hepatic steatosis
[edit]Minor
- stretch marks
- nervousness
- acne
- rash
- increased appetite
- hyperactivity
- frequent urination
- diarrhea
- removes intestinal flora
- leg pain
- sensitive teeth
I’m no doctor but I am assuming that the painkiller fuck face was taking is probably what caused the chest pain. Didn’t this hypocrite have a problem with painkillers in the past?
Guest Post: Event Center Proposal
By Carter Christensen
The one key word of the current Events Center plan: Big mistake. I think it is ridiculous that the current Task Force filled by mostly conservative older folk thinks that they are planning the most ‘profitable’, most ‘ economically responsible’ Events Center that they can. It is so sad that the tax vote is going down in November if the legislature lets it pass to a vote. It is obvious that this ‘temporary tax’ that they want will not stay temporary and will easily be forgotten about in the coming years. There are a lot of people who just want the thing to be built, and there are also a lot of people who don’t want it to be built. But why don’t they want it built? Because either they don’t think Howard Wood should be torn down, they don’t want to be taxed another penny, or they just think it is an absolute waste of money to pay for it and we could easily find something else more meaningful to spend $200 Million Dollars on. It’s true! We could easily find something to shove $200 million dollars towards that would help the homeless or help the schools or something like that, but it just doesn’t make sense at least to me that Sioux Falls, the Heart of America with two Target’s (Munson in the LA Times), should lack in anything besides any other city in the region. Why should we have that image put on Sioux Falls?
As much as I love having event goers come into town to go to the Arena and Convention Center and drive down historic Russell Street with its industrial warehouses and patchy divided highway, it’s just that I think it is absolute crap that the Task Force and our out of clue City Council who works “SO DAMN HARD†to make sure that we have nice parks and make sure we leave Downtown as the last to plow for snow, that they think we should build a brand new 15,000 seat Events Center out by the current Arena. The only reason the plan is for out there is because the Big Mistake Convention Center that was built out there, which we all know should have been Downtown in the first place. The Task Force thinks by building a center out there we can add more convention space not only with the Events Center, but also by converting the current Arena into Convention space, and adding even more convention space onto that. WE DO NOT NEED ALL THAT CONVENTION SPACE. The Convention Center people say that we will get more events if we expand our Convention Center because we need more room to compete with Omaha and Minneapolis. Sorry, that’s bull, you know why? Because when convention’s look at cities, they look at where their Convention Center is, and what is around it for the event goers to do, and the hotel’s by it and the experience they will get by going to the Center. Call me out on it, but that’s even what Teri Ellis-Schmidt said at a meeting. She said that a convention was going to come to Sioux Falls but decided not to because there was nothing around our current Convention Center to do, not enough hotel space on site, and just a lack of entertainment in general up there. Is that not sending a message to the Task Force?
Here is my proposal, and call me out on anything you want and I will defend it: Build the EVENTS CENTER Downtown. By building the Events Center Downtown we don’t need to waste $15-30 Million Dollars just tearing down Howard Wood Field and moving it, which will probably cost even more. The funds are already in place for moving the rail road tracks, and by putting the plan to build it next to Cherapa, it will get that plan going and move the railroad tracks up by Rice Street which will benefit the railroad center in Sioux Falls. By building it in Downtown, we can use Private funding and sponsorship to pay for half of it. By building it downtown it will be cheaper, why? Because your only building the Events Center and surface parking, it will only cost about $120 Million to build it downtown which is $75 Million dollars cheaper than the current plan. If you sell sponsorship on everything, and I mean everything at this Events Center, you could easily pay for half of it right there. For the rest of the $60 Million use a Bed & Booze Tax, it is a very simple way to bring money in for the city because of the increase in hotel use not only Downtown but down by the mall to when people come in just for the mall. There are so many cities that use that.. I also believe that we should charge for parking in the first few years.. And last but not least, use a TIF. Tax Incremental Financing. By using a TIF only the businesses, BUSINESSES, that benefit from the center will get taxed, now it might not be a happy thing for some of the stores and restaurants Downtown, with the added business that they would get from this, they could easily help pay for it, since it will benefit them. Any other option would most likely have to go to a Bond. Now if anybody is still complaining about traffic and parking. STFU. There is over 1,000 more spaces downtown then there is out by the Arena, plus the extra 1500 spaces of surface parking they would build right next to it with the open land Downtown. Traffic is easy, not everyone is parked in the same place like the current Convention Center spot right now. People are parking on streets, in parking garages, in different surface lots, at hotels. And by being centered in the city, you have so many options of leaving Downtown. People will be going north, people will be going south, east, west, not everybody is leaving at the same time or same direction.
Loopholes, Lies and Apathy
That is the best description I can give to the lastest from Sioux Falls city hall. I helped break this story, I first pressured Stormland TV news to do a story about it and they did their usual 5 minutes of digging. I want to applaud Ellis for taking a few months on this story to get it right;
Almost a year into the deal, developers had paid $301,000 in fees through November, or only 5 percent of what officials estimated they would pay into the arterial streets program this year. Through November, taxpayers had contributed $2.5 million to the program.
Oh, but it gets better;
What happened? Bad timing played a part. On Sept. 15, 2008, the same day the council voted on the tax and fee increases, Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, sending the nation’s financial system barreling off a cliff. Banks clamped down on lending, and development screeched to a halt.
Ironically, Lehman’s bankruptcy was brought up the night of the vote by a citizen, but apparently the 4 councilors and mayor that voted for the tax increase were too busy watching TV to listen (councilor Quen Be De Knudson, who consistently brags about how hard she works was busted watching the Olympics during public testimony).
“The developers,” City Finance Director Eugene Rowenhorst said, “are not doing that much nowadays.”
Thanks for the observation, short-timer.
But officials say there are other reasons for the big drop-off in development fees. Builders rushed to get land platted or replatted ahead of Jan. 1, 2009, when the new fees kicked in.
Imagine that, they promoted the new plan, then gamed the system. Maybe I should have bought all of my groceries for 2009 on December 31, 2008. Golly, I feel really stupid now.
But behind the scenes, some builders were upset with the city. Sioux Falls, they argued, was not moving fast enough to upgrade roads and utilities in areas primed for development. The lack of basic infrastructure was slowing growth.
Then pony up. If the city isn’t building a new road to your new development, build it yourself, or STFU. It’s not the ‘City’s money’ that builds new roads, it’s ‘My money’ that builds new roads.
Throughout much of 2007 and part of 2008, a group of developers met regularly with city officials to hash out a plan that would allow the city to spend more money on arterial roads and basic infrastructure.
This is news to me, but no surprise. As usual, joe-six-pack doesn’t have a say in the matter.
The first attempt at raising the sales tax failed in May 2008 on a 5-3 vote. Undeterred, city officials brought the package back a few months later. This time the council split 4-4, allowing Munson to cast the deciding vote.
Munson just couldn’t let it die, he just had to have that extra .08%. I betcha he lost sleep over the fact that he wasn’t charging the citizens of this city the maximum amount he could.
Munson said he would do it again. The tax increase and platting fees are in place and will begin generating more revenue when the economy picks up.
“You make decisions with the best information you have,” he said. “You don’t look at that vote of raising the second penny as immediate. It really was presented as a long-term solution.”
Where’s my f’ing shovel? The information you had was this; Major financial institutions were failing, development was down, the economy was down. This had nothing to do with roads, this had to do with your GREED!
Scott Ehrisman, a Sioux Falls resident who opposed the tax increase, said he’s not surprised the deal hasn’t worked as advertised. The city put up a Web site promoting the idea that taxpayers and developers would work together to pay for growth. Ehrisman calls that a ruse by city officials who wanted to raise taxes to their maximum.
Ehrisman notes that the city tried to raise the same tax in 2005 to pay for a recreation center, but the voters said no. This time, the voters didn’t have a say.
“I don’t believe the tax increase had anything to do with arterial roads,” he said. “They were planning on building those arterial roads with or without that tax increase.”
Ehrisman said the .08 percent increase should be rescinded until the development community has recovered enough to begin paying what the city promised it would pay.
“Developers have a choice,” he said. “They don’t have to build. They don’t have to pay the fees. But we have to pay the taxes.”
I also told Ellis that I believe someone ‘lied’ along the way. Don’t know who, but this was a freaking boondoggle from the beginning.
“I believe eventually we’ll get back to those historical growth rates that we had estimated to make this 60-40 split work,” Munson said.
Yeah, Dave, and Vernon Brown will be mayor, and the Unicorn Rainbow park will be built, the calendar will turn back to 1955 and monkeys will fly out of my ass. Do you really think people believe your bullshit? I know you are a self processed tea-toddler but I’m starting to wonder.
Long term, when the industry recovers, the split between taxpayers and developers will even out, predicts Chuck Point, a vice president with Ronning Cos.
“The market goes up and down,” he said. “The estimates of what the city might pay and what the developers might pay were just that – estimates. They were brought forth by the city, not the developers.”
Yeah, Chuck, because everything the developers have presented so far has been rock solid . . . . and BTW, if these were just ‘estimates’ can I tell a store clerk the next time I buy something, “I know I owe you an extra 8 cents, but I don’t have it, so let’s consider this close enough, because, yah know, this tax increase was just based on ‘estimates’.”
Some developers have tried to avoid the fees by claiming their changes are “minor plats,” which are not subject to the new fees.
“We’re trying to redefine our definition more clearly of what is a minor plat,” Huwe said. “Now, everybody comes in and says, ‘Here’s my minor plat.’ And we say, ‘No, it’s not.’ “
You tell em’ Huwe. “Because, like, we have to start cracking down on you fellas since this story is in the newspaper and all.”