[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4wUdt692Ac[/youtube]
Looking for information on the railroads in Sioux Falls we found this jewel from November 8, 2010 City Council Informational.
When we listened to this talk it helped fill in several points in history but it also misses several others. Our town’s rail yard relocation project has missing details in this interesting talk. For some reason we are not allowed to see the entire set of details prior to the City Council meeting Resolution being voted on August 4, 2015.
There are a few issues not adding up to let us know why this is so important to jam down our collective throats so quickly before we can get all the data required. To start with land ownership issues not making sense. Plus there are still people thinking we are going to have less trains going through Sioux Falls when in fact will are getting ready to have more. If there is nothing to hide, what difference will it make to wait a couple of weeks so we can research the pieces not making sense.
This is similar to buying a house or any other building. We are not receiving clear title to this property. A Quit Claim Deed is not clear title. (Document resolution:Â Rail-Resolution)
The Council should not be voting to pass this resolution until a full list and audit of the parcels being transferred in this Quit Claim Deed is done. We need a list of the actual parcels with the history since first platting in the mid-1800’s. Why shouldn’t we know the actual ownership chain now, before money changes hands. Also, there are areas of the rail yard where service operations were done many years ago, where is the study showing these areas were tested? Are we getting another Pitts brownfield to deal with? There are Sioux Falls people who remember the contaminations of the past and wonder what was done to remediate them.
We already know how our city legal department deals with Quit Claim Deeds. Think about the subtle differences in 2 types of deeds (from Wikipedia):
“A warranty deed is a type of deed where the grantor (seller) guarantees that he or she holds clear title to a piece of real estate and has a right to sell it to the grantee (buyer). This is in contrast to a quitclaim deed, where the seller does not guarantee that he or she holds title to a piece of real estate.”
In a sense the attorneys for the city are giving the Council another Quit Claim deed property deal because the ownership of the property is actually in question. The Ellis & Eastern and BNFS railroads probably were given Quit Claim Deeds as the land transferred to them, so they could take over the property and use it after the several railroads went out of business. Do we have copies of these papers attached to this resolution? Of course not.
Even Governor Janklow in 1980 and after was not sure, so it was understood the state bought the Milwaukee Road track equipment and assumed the land easements during the abandonment process to be able to continue to operate on the rail beds. The rail right of ways were important to takeover in the early 1980’s to keep operational. Many researchers are still not clear as to what land is owned or just controlled by easement to this day. Reason? No one wants to actually see what is buried in the original papers or they would be attached.
Why shouldn’t we citizens get a warranty deed for this property before we waste any more time on it? Why is it when we see these proposals, some of us only see the things NOT making sense like who actually owns the land?