Maybe we could use Levee fine monies to pay for the indoor pool? (Image: KSFY)
Understanding the city budget isn’t easy, and definitely not my forte, but understanding the city budget under the leadership of a subprime credit card salesman is even harder. Huether is good at playing the marketing game of deceptive language when he wants to spend our (borrowed) money. Just look at the Events Center, he is constantly telling us it will be built under budget (without mentioning most of the utility hookup and parking lot improvements are coming from the CIP and enterprise funds NOT from the EC bonds). This is ‘how’ you build an Events Center, ‘under budget’.
He is pulling a similar word game with the indoor pool, last night at the city council meeting his finance director, Tracy Turbak, took center stage and told us this about the indoor pool funding;
“. . . without the use of any further debt.â€
What Tracy didn’t tell us is that they are currently using the Levee debt to pay for the indoor pool. Confused yet? I will explain. A few years back when King Dave was running our little village on the Big Poo, FEMA came in and said that a whole lot of people (retailers) were in the flood plain by the Mall, and they would need flood insurance if we didn’t raise the levees. Okay, no problem, that’s the job of the CORPS, right? Yup, but they were not going to give us the money, yet, so we took out a bond to pay for the levees, in hopes the Feds would pay us back, eventually. Well imagine my surprise when the Fed’s sent us a check for the levee work last year. Great. What would a logical and prudent city government do with a repayment for a bond debt? Pay back the bond? Not so fast says Turbak, we cannot pay back the bond in full until 2018(?). Okay, well why don’t we do one of two things then, either put the money in a savings account until the repayment date, or spend the money on similar infrastructure projects, like drainage, or sewer or even roads?
Then comes Mr. Money burning a hole in his pocket, Mike ‘Rack up the Debt’ Huether. He decides that we can now build an indoor pool with the levee debt that we have incurred. Who on the council would have thought the night they approved the levee bond they would take the repayment to build an indoor pool?
Now that’s real ‘vision’.
The moral of the story? Turbak and the administration are half-lying when they say there will be NO debt associated with building an indoor pool. We eventually will have to pay off the levee debt. I wonder how the swim teams and parks & rec department plan to pay off that debt? It might become suddenly very expensive to swim at an indoor public pool, but hey, we all have to sacrifice something to keep our town safe from floods and childhood obesity/diabetes.
Now I’m confused.
But the funding isn’t the only issue with this grand scheme, Tracy and Mike have some partners in crime, literally.
The city clerk and city attorney have also chimed in with their assessments of the latest pool petition;
“They would need approximately 5,200 valid signatures. So that will require in the range of 7,000 to 7,500 signatures for us to take a look and go through and verify,” said Hogstad.
Lori says 7,000 to 7,500 signers needed. Already planning a 20% petition signature rejection?
David Pfeifle, Sioux Falls city attorney, says the group would have to get the required signatures within the next month to impact the pool’s progress.
Impact the pool’s progress? I wonder what secret rule book he is reading from? Seems the dog ate Fiddle-Faddle’s homework quite a bit in law school. The city could issue contracts, who cares. The city could start all the maneuvers to start the project and it all comes to a stop upon submission and certification of petitions.
The pool construction could be stopped even at the site preparation, foundations or at any stage once the completed petitions are filed. It does not matter what the city does. They could even tear apart the current pool. Does this concern you?
This is an Initiative. The group is proposing something. No formal city council votes have been taken prior to the filing, so the 180 day rule is in force. Upon submission, the signatures less than or equal to 180 days are valid for counting toward the goal.
If they had started the petition process after next week’s official vote, it becomes a Referral and the 20 day signature collection rule is in force.
The indoor pool advocates, the city officials, VA and the “anywhere but Spellerberg†folks need to hammer out a solution before the city is in big time legal butt hurt. Imagine issuing contracts with an indoor pool architect or contractor and the company starts work only to be stopped because the petition drive is successful. Can you imagine the court costs the city will face when this hits the fan? They are going to need more than a therapy pool to fix what ails them.
This could easily be dealt with. Subprime Mike could bring the sides together and use the new petition as blueprint for the indoor pool project. Or he could choose to not work with them, like he did with SON, (which will be tied up in court until Walmart submits) and watch the city scramble to move the pool, approve new funding, locate to a different site just because the indoor proponents didn’t do anything more than coerce their friends in the parks department or on the council.
One thing is for sure, the petition gatherers are well known for getting the signatures they need. Why doesn’t the mayor and the city administration understand this?  Once again it is the city government screwing up and spreading ‘SMOKE’. Real leaders would bring everyone together and find a workable compromise. What is MMM afraid of?
Let’s get an indoor pool built that the voters have already told us they want. But let’s do it by abiding by the petition/election laws, partnering with private entities so we don’t have to take money from a debt repayment fund and by working with all parties.
But see, that isn’t the way bullies operate.
UPDATE (another theory sent to me by a reader):
Consider Tracy Turbak has tried to go get bonding for the indoor pool. Could it be the city could not get bonding for the pool?
Now imagine this, Tracy went to get bonds and because of the Quit Claim deed or other ownership issues, the city’s bonding plans had been rejected.
What if bonding agencies, firms or individuals performing due diligence asked what guarantees are in place if the VA seized the property?
Now two days after the election, Tracy has a miracle funding source of unobligated refund cash because he could not get it anywhere else?
The cash has been burning a hole in the mayor’s back pocket and many of us expected something unusual after the voting but…
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With all the problems with the site, why does our mayor and parks department continue to compound it?
What Mike wants Mike gets. That’s how a dictatorship works. Everyone else is just noise to make him seem legal. A full audit of the finance department would be an interesting cookbook with thousands of artificial recipes.
I’m convinced that with all manner of checks and balances removed there’s no method to stop a city default. Petitions should work. Mike ignores them proving there’s no way to stop him.
Along with mmm and fiddle faddle, there are a couple of other names that set a lot of this crap in place to occur for Lloyd and developers. Mike cooper and Jeff Schmitt. Who sat last year at city meetings on the annexation only go have cooper state we will try harder next time. They have directed enough crap toss mmm in the fray with a city attorney and you have none of them understanding they work for the taxpayers. Not just one named Lloyd The debt is exploding. Not much integrity left developers in control. I’m waiting for mmm to clear out engineering and planning Not needed Do you think infrastructure is at Minimal code. Wait till more water mains break and under sized storm and waste systems crap out.
Stuckee, I guess that is what is so frustrating about the funding. Why in the HELL would we use bond repayment monies for a drainage project for a recreation project? The mayor talks about prudence with our taxdollars, but it is all smoke when he pulls something like this. The council is also negligent, when they got this money LAST YEAR they should earmarked immediately for an infrastructure project but instead they just let it sit in the bank so the mayor can swoop it up. Some would say it is wise to spend it on the pool instead of taking out another bond, but the way I look at it is there should be at least 25% private funding for the project.
When the mayor appointed ethics continues to sand bag us and the state laws don’t mean anything or compliance is nil, mmm and his buddies will be filling their pockets. He created a perfect storm one that kelo and al have sucked into to fool a lot of people. The big issue is that we used to believe that our govt was honest and took care of tax dollars. We never had to worry about city officials wreaking havoc on tax payers and playing to groups to create wealth for the
Mayor
They act like Washington
I agree l3wis that the swimmers need to pony up as use of the facility will be controlled by them until mmm is out of office. Bonds should be paid back and new bond done as it’s recreational and not safety infrastructure unless lightning hits. Lol
So did someone expect a gentlemanly quid pro quo to use the federally owned park as the site of the pool in exchange for the odious cost of the levee work? Can’t see how the site is such a done deal?
More conspiracy theories!
I didn’t know the Levee money from the CORPS was a conspiracy. There was a bunch of news stories about it.
Real leaders would bring people from both sides together and look at potential solutions as a team. Seriously, why can’t we put the fire out and take our time in building this?? I know people want an indoor aquatic facility (that includes me) and I say it should happen soon, but citizens want honest input into where it should be. Why in the world can’t we have that rational conversation?The poll results citing Spellerberg as the preferred location for the pool are the result of a well organized phone/texting tree: voting and voting and voting as many times as you please.
Who else is interested in having such a discussion?
Petitions shouldn’t be the only way to solve problems!
As usual, I’d highly suggest you get your legal interpretations from lawyers before you start attempting to offer commentary on what you think the legal process is and how you think the courts handle these sorts of matters. Your track record isn’t so hot.
First, as I understand it, an initiative campaign could theoretically go on forever in South Dakota – the only limit is that the signatures counted can’t be more than 180 days old. Genius planning there, founders!
So are cities effectively supposed to negotiate with anyone who might try to hold them hostage by starting a petition? I mean, he could take out a petition demanding that the city stop operation of the pool. He could submit it years from now. Oh, maybe then they’ll negotiate the hours? Or maybe a petition that only blue cars can park in the lot?
You do see how stupid this is, right? How these eager beavers and their clipboards are going to eff up your city’s governance? I get that you hate your mayor and most of your city council, and that really you get off on this stuff because you like dissonance and chaos, but when you step back, you do see how this model of governance eventually makes it nearly impossible to get anything done, right?
Second, putting the toothpaste back in the tube is a messy, messy prospect. We’ll see if you can find a court that’s willing to allow voters to single-handedly nullify dozens of contracts. It’s one thing to change policy. But at some point, this isn’t policy anymore. It’s a construction project. Voters don’t get to cast ballots on what kind of concrete is used, or how high the diving board is, or what color the lifeguard suits are.
Enjoy your pool at Spellerberg Park. Also, wasn’t the point of you coming back to make your blog more constructive and solution-oriented? I must have missed the change in tone. 🙂
The Initiative and Referendum are direct democracy. In very undemocratic situations, as we have in Sioux Falls and South Dakota, the impassioned can cause an otherwise ignored discussion.
Limit the discussion on any number of subjects you might be interested in, like this mayor or state government have done, and see how fast you get off your lazy butt to collect signatures.
Maybe someone wants to change the horn section in a symphony, collect the signatures to force the discussion.
I hear there’s anew religion sprouting up out on the lone prairie – it centers around a “Petition Fetish.” The alter is shaped like a giant clipboard.
A Right Not Exercised Is A Right That Is Lost.
ruf has clipboard envy
hornguy’s 100% correct. It was the original rec center haters that torpedoed that project and the end result is Sanford’s complex and the new EC, both of which came online years later than needed and both poorly located where real economic benefits from collateral development will be a long time coming if at all.
There was a time when leaders led and did the right thing, even at their own political peril. If we try to make everyone happy, nothing get done and the town suffers because of it. Face it, this act has worn thin. Other Cities see opportunity and they act on it. Rapid City can add 10K seats onto their arena, spend $70 million and they don’t even need to vote on it. Fargo added a basketball arena to the Dome with the stroke of a pen. Wonder why citizens in those places aren’t up in arms? I don’t.