The Sioux Falls city council will be hard at work again tonight voting on things that don’t really matter
Let’s face it. IF four councilors and the mayor choose the Arena location tonight we know that besides the older generation (who votes often) that is opposed to it you will have several other opposition groups. Build it Downtown will oppose it and there is rumors that an actual Events Center opposition group is forming. Take those 3 groups and a bad economy and I don’t see a 51% majority. Maybe that is why the council is split. Think about it. At the end of the day when the vote fails they can blame the mayor who ultimately could have the last vote and say in the location. Which I find ironically different then the last rubber stamp council. IMO, location doesn’t matter even though I lean towards the logical location for economic development, downtown. And the logo I created for them is pretty fucking kickass to. I guess I do my best work for free 🙂
Call me crazy, but I don’t think an events center vote should be yea or nay. There should be 3 questions on the ballot;
• Do you support a new taxpayer subsidized events center?
• If so, do you support it being subsidized by funding source A or B?
• Where would you like to see the EC built? Downtown? Arena location? or other?
Sure, there has been poll after poll over the years on the EC but the ultimate poll is voters at the ballot box.
Let us decide for once.
There should be 3 questions on the ballot;
• Do you support a new taxpayer subsidized events center?
• If so, do you support it being subsidized by funding source A or B?
• Where would you like to see the EC built? Downtown? Arena location? or other?
OOHRAH
OOHRAH
OOHRAH
@ L3wis. There’s only been two polls on the EC, the AL/Argus one from October of ’10 and the Neilson one that just came out. Nielson didn’t give the “other site” option, but if you break the numbers out one thing is very clear right now; support for the Mayor’s “vision” has decreased despite all the contortions made and money spent to try to polish that turd of a plan.
B.
Sy.
Have you watched the May 21st and June 6th Listening and Learning segments? The until now silent majority is gaining momentum. One older gentleman put it best. I’m paraphrasing,
“If you think location was a battle, wait til you lay funding on the table. You ain’t seen nothin yet.”
Nice logo work, stand-out stuff, and yes, the best stuff is always free.
Anyhow, maybe Sioux Falls just needs some better logos and to pay a few artists along the way. 200 million in regional artwork could do way more than a few bricks…
At least with a downtown EC, you can show how it pays for itself over time in multiple facets. At the arena, you are investing, once again, millions into an industrial park where its surroundings are not built for entertainment. It’s like putting your wet finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. All I know is I will be shopping for new representation in the Northwest District and a new Mayor. This is a borderline criminal mistake and I will not support this location or the people that vote for it this evening.
“Borderline criminal mistake”??? Yeah, right.
Please advise contact for the EC opposition group. At this point, I’m there. Huether’s design and bid process is ripe for abuse. Kill the whole thing and wait for city democracy to be restored soon after a new mayor is elected.
Scott – the information that has been fed to us (oh and also paid for by us) is full of misleading information and lies lead by the Mayor. Let’s see – who gave the “experts” all of their information for these reports? – people employed or have a portion of their budget supported by city hall (ie SMG, Global Spectrum etc). The only part that was not was the economic development portion where the difference between downtown and the arena is monumentally greater at the DT location. Keep believing all the garbage coming out of city hall and I guarantee if you are not disappointed already – you will be sooner than later. His drama and speeches on losing sleep over the EC lost credibility with me a long time ago. He signed up for this and put himself on a ridiculous timeline and in the end – he will blame everyone else for this not passing. It’s a poor plan in an industrial park.
Trust me, I’m not a fan of Huether and I do laugh at his drama queen hyperbole. But his desire to put this somewhere other than where you want it is not “borderline criminal”.
Alice.
I don’t think you understand where Scott is coming from on this matter. As far as the mayor and his cronies may be straddling the left field foul line, you and yours are straddling the right field foul line. Believe it or not, guys like Scott, myself, and others, many others, are in dead center field wondering WHO is going to pay for this, and WHY we need the damn thing in the first place.
@Poly. You and Scott have been dead wrong in your characterizations that BID & the Mayor are simply two side of the same coin when it comes to how they characterize the location debate. The Mayor is asking you to ignore history, and moreover has spent your taxpayer dollars on a study that tries (and fails miserably) to rationalize ignoring history.
BID has done nothing remotely close to that, BID is saying: “Been there, tried that, do something else that makes sense this time if we are going to do it at all”
Here’s a great breakdown that shows why location matters and not only that, it will be the difference between a successful facility vs. one that we “just built” that will likely be a drain for decades:
http://cuprogressives.blogspot.com/2011/06/events-center-and-our-schools.html
You think we’re dead wrong. We think you’re dead wrong. Actually, that’s not true. I believe I’m mostly right, and that you’re partially correct. We have differences of opinion, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, these days the vast majority of people firmly believe that their opinion is the only valid one.
BTW, I don’t put a lot of stock in sites where all the contributors are nameless.
I think we have all been right and wrong on this issue several times. But doesn’t matter. The voters will decide. I know some people are worried about the ‘details’ of the reports, etc, etc. being misleading. Let me clear something up for everyone, that I think we all can agree on. Some facts to keep in focus;
– Build it at the Arena site and you WON’T see any economic development in that area.
– It WILL cost more then $100 million, and the taxpayer’s will have to foot the bill for the construction and subsidize the place, no and, if’s or butts about it.
– We don’t need a New Events center to prosper. We have been talking about the Events center for 10 years, and guess what has happened over those 10 years? We have grown tremendously and have had record sales tax revenue. Without a new EC.
I hope when the voters finally shut this down at the ballot box they demand that we don’t bring this up again for several years.
I know several people that regularly attend concerts at the Pavillion and they don’t bother having a drink and/or dinner downtown. Either before or after the concert they head to Applebees, Chilis, Outback, etc. I don’t know that a downtown event center would bring any more actual business to the downtown area.
I would rather not go down this road, BUT, I will say this. When the Pavilion opened there was only 3 ‘REAL’ restaurants DT. Minervas, Tina’s and Touch of Europe. There business exploded and I can honestly say, being personal friend’s with Natasha who owns TOE, it saved her business. They get a TON of business from PAV shows. Imagine what a DT EC would bring in. But I don’t want to confuse. While I support DT, I think we could build it by Dawley Farms close to the Casino and it would do well, I just think the Arena location is soooooo bad.
Meh, the Arena is just a couple of miles from downtown. Maybe if downtown business would stay open past 10 on weeknights, they’d see more after-event dollars. When I used to go to Skyforce games (which is another issue altogether), I stopped attempting to hit downtown after the game after a handful of surprise “early closings” by bars and breweries that are no longer open.
C’mon Scott, didn’t you stop leaving the house after 1994? 🙂
You know, it was around that time when I became bored with the Skyforce. A few years later, so did the rest of this city.
I got bored with them after they named themselves after a NIKE shoe. GAAAAAAY! The originality of SF!
I did the graphic layout of the program book a couple of years. What a clusterfuck, unprofessional, organization. I dealt with it because I had just started my freelance business. But I look back at it now and laugh my ass off. As I have told people on several occasions; just because you have money in SD, doesn’t mean you are smart.
Which brings us to Phyllis Hennimen (sp?). She is about as clueless as them come.
Um, yeah…as with all the local “pro” teams.
After they get this thing built at the arena site I hope the old Country Kitchen out there can open up again.
Was CK in the Happy Chef location? I had a bad Halloween experience that involved Peter Pan at HC. Don’t ask.
I though KC was off the corner of Russell and Kiwanis. It is probably haunted by now. Happy Chef was ahead of its time. That is why it failed.
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