I noticed if you look at the below Build it Now mailer they show the economic impact of a new Events Center, but if you look at the debt repayment schedule, the city omits the 3 zeros and shows that in the thousands. Of course both are misleading. At least the city gave us a KEY to understand there dropage of the 3 zeros. Build it Now gives us no reference.
Why let the truth stop us from spending $200,000,000 of taxpayer dollars?
I get a kick out of the 40M economic impact. Wonder if the used the same consultants who said that the Paviliion was going to be a cash cow.
They’re trying to use this as a promo for the expansion at the arena site: http://www.siouxfallscc.com/pressbox/archive/51.asp
Shows that there was a meeting with the Pheasants Forever Special Events director Brad Heidel. I can attest that’s all that is because at the Pheasant Fest last year in Omaha I talked to Brad with the general manager of Cambell Supply about this very issue hoping to give me resolve that the EC would be a good idea.
You know what he said?? “It would be very doubtful that we could convince vendors to use Sioux Falls for a convention site for one simple reason. Most the Pheasant vendors are located in South Dakota and have expressed they would never buy booth space if the event was held in the state because they use Pheasant Fest to promote their business to customers in other regions.”
Pheasant fest travels every other year to a major city in the Midwest from Indianapolis to Omaha to bring traffic into the area.
So the 40 million figure is a last minute shot for these scabs to try to convince the “fill in the blank”.
I had someone from Build it Now call me at home last night. Wanted to make sure that I was going to vote for the EC at the special election. She went on and on about the thousands of construction jobs it would create, as well as the hundreds of full time jobs it would provide… Yeah right, mopping bathroom floors or handing out hot dogs.
I told the lady that I would vote, but not for the EC. I also added that when you have arrogant people involved like Councilman Entenman who should have recused himself from ALL discussions. It makes the whole EC project smell worse than the city’s dump.
I found the 40M amount I think. It’s actually 36.9M and it’s on the last page of the AECOM addendum report on siouxfalls.org. They rounded up by 3,000,000+
They also said ‘hundreds of permanent jobs’. It’s actually 187. That’s not honest either. Par for the Mayor’s course.
I don’t usually answer my landline unless I know the person calling, but after seeing the same number for the last 5 days I finally did a few minutes ago. The person reading the script was definitely not a local, which makes me wonder if they’re outsourcing to the same phone bank company that Dell uses. Yep, the EC is already NOT creating South Dakota jobs!
Scott – you can do a reverse lookup on that number ad end your wondering. You will get the name and address of the owner/operator of that line/number.
HH – The amount that is usually thrown around about the Pavilion is $13 million a year impact. I have asked several times where this number comes from and get the same answer everytime, “We use a formula.”
Scooter – Glad you responded that way, I wonder how many people have answered in that way. I am starting to lean to failure, but I don’t think I will make my final prediction until Nov 7. Ironically the same night I will be enjoying this fine event;
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=223535901034583
“Yep, the EC is already NOT creating South Dakota jobs!”
BAHAHAHA!
“Why let the truth stop us from spending $200,000,000 of taxpayer dollars?”
C’mon Andy, you know the real number is $200,000! Didn’t you see the handy key the city provided above?
This whole campaign, from the Mayor’s presentations to these BIN flyers and phone calls, is a classic case of “how stupid do they think we are?”. I guess we will find out on November 8!
I see the Argus and Ellis did another front page promo for this thing. Even thought we all should see their billboard. Lot’s of commentary by huether, yet none by Barclay? Thanks Ellis. Someday you’ll wonder why.
They also said ‘hundreds of permanent jobs’. It’s actually 187. That’s not honest either. Par for the Mayor’s course.
Par for the mayors course indeed. Most of those 187 ‘permanent’ jobs will be fulltime parttime, much like the 30% of city workers. Over 400 city workers each year work a maximum of 27 hours a week to keep them off the benefits register. Those 187 jobs will look much like this.
http://m.startribune.com/local/?id=131924448
What Build It Now’s and the Mayor’s propaganda should say is the EC will provide:
1100 temporary construction jobs
**which BTW are not guaranteed to go to SF workers
184 permanent jobs
**most of which will be low-paying jobs in the hospitality industry (per Mike Cooper@EC Roadshow)
AND, this is the part that they are leaving out of their PR material………..****
MOST IMPORTANTLY………since Kelby and his “team” have had great difficulty attracting top talent to Sanford (think: South Dakota…a state with less than a million people….Sioux Falls….a city of 160,000…with notorious winters vs. living and working on either Coast)….
NOW, if you were a top-flight doctor which would you choose for yourself and your family!!??
It’s been interesting to watch as BIN and Mike and his “team” have presented this to the public. SEEMS they prefer to only give part of the picture…….
The part that will try to convince you to vote “YES” to a 22 year commitment of 173m for capital costs and…
don’t believe what they are telling you when it comes to the operating costs……we will end up subsidizing this with tax dollars just like every other community has…………
More evidence of money pits even for mega cities.
St. Paul gets a good amount of convention activity compared to Minneapolis. I’ve worked in their Excel River Centre but even that started loosing money right off the bat and is plagued with all sorts of problems. Here’s the quote St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman used to swindle voters to go forward with it: “If you build it, they will come.” The message is that he was willing to sacrifice public dollars for the benefit of private enterprise.
http://www.citypages.com/2002-01-23/news/trouble-in-rivercentre/
More on the Excel Centre: “Even if that money is paid back (which is doubtful since $17 million of that loan has already been forgiven, and the team is now asking for the remaining $39 million to be forgiven) it represents a $65 million hole in the budget at the time of the loan, that’s money somebody somewhere else could have used.”
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2011/may/sports-subsidies-dont-add-taxpayers-analysis-minnesota-stadiumarena-subsidies
Here’s one much closer in size and scope to what we’re attempting, plus it’s run by the same band of idiots we have vying to run ours:
“City officials expected the arena to be in the red last year because SMG last January forecasted a loss of $141,000 in 2010. But the deficits are a constant concern as the city continues to set aside money in its annual capital budget fund to cover the losses. That money could be used to help pay for improvements to city streets, facilities and other capital projects.
“We have to keep setting aside funds in order to cover the losses and that’s not a place where we want to stay,” said Ben Wolters, city economic and community development director, in an interview after the board meeting. “That’s not part of the vision for the building. We need to think of ways to get to the positive side of the ledger.”
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/ken/news/114838584.html
MMM – The last paragraph in your link caught my attention: naming rights are only netting $300,000 per year for 10 years. That’s substantially less than the figure being floated here by the Mayor and by BIN.
The only thing floating in the Mayor’s proposal are turds in the cesspool of half-truths.