January 2017

The Denny has about $20 million in sales last year and ONLY nets $2.1 million?

No matter how you look at it, the EC did not finish in the black. Even if you add the $2.1 million with the tax revenue, you still come about $6 million short on the mortgage, that gets sucked out of our 2nd penny (meant for roads and infrastructure, not mortgage payments on play things).

Net operating income, which is revenue minus expenses, came in at $2,145,904 for the venue.  Attendance increased by about 25,000 over the previous year to 671,098.

Besides the fact that the center can’t even cover a 3rd of the mortgage each year, I found this little tidbit a bit alarming;

The venue also wrote a check for almost $1.9 million for sales tax from the entire complex and Orpheum Theater Center. Of that amount, $1.5 million came from the Premier Center.

Now let’s assume that is total taxes (state + city + entertainment, 7.5%), that means the EC had about $20 million in sales last year! $20 million! and they only had $2.1 million left over after paying for operations? Where the F’CK is the money going? How big of a cut is the promoters, SMG and Ovations taking? And is that money staying in our community? Most likely NOT!

I told people before the vote, this venue is being built to make promoters, contractors and SMG a lot of money while we are stuck with the mortgage payment.

The irony of all this is that the mayor announced today he would not sign the Glory House resolution, and made some absurd statement about the city giving to non-profits.

Giving away a very valuable and useful City asset to any organization, even a nonprofit organization, is setting a very bad precedent for Sioux Falls City government, and I will not support it.

I wonder if that means we will get our $500K back from the Huether Tennis Center, or $2 million back from the Development Foundation, or monies back from Children’s Inn, Compass Center and Bishop Dudley house?

Mayor Veto’s recording meetings. Calls transparency a ‘slippery slope’

Yup, like a grumpy old man, our mayor of all he sees says, “stay away”. Keep off the grass. Wash behind your ears. Don’t park there. Shut up when I enter the room. Bow before me. I am in charge, do not question me. Like a President of 40 years ago, Yup, like a grumpy old man, our mayor of all he sees stay away. Keep off the grass. Wash behind your ears. Don’t park there. Shut up when I enter the room. Bow before me. I am in charge, do not question me or my authority.

We now have a Sioux Falls City Council able to question everything and does with regularity. There are things happening in city government the people want to see. The citizens have for quite a while. Due to the way our city charter is set up, we have little choice but accept the authoritarian “take or leave it” way of the leader.

His veto of the publication rules for Park and Recreation Board meetings is another slap in the face of all citizens. He is saying, “things are going well for me, keep out”. These fine citizens have done what Don Kearney and I want so leave them alone.

Nowhere in the discussion have we citizens said the board members have done anything wrong. We just want to be able to see their deliberations. Cameraman Bruce has been to several meetings and seen how it works. Like the other board meetings he has been to, not much happens there not controlled by the department “advisors”.

Maybe the January 24, 2017 veto decision by the mayor was more to protect the advisors than the members?

Sioux Falls City Council Public Input (Jan 17, 2017)

Let’s take a close look at Sioux Falls Ambulance service options because REMSA didn’t. Med Star owner let us see inside their service on January 17, 2017 during the City Council meeting. The mayor was not feeling charitable with timing during the first one and then other presentations so Gary got to finish. By the way, compliment Gary on his fish. What’s wrong with hearing and seeing things you don’t want to?

The City Council “Leadership” wants to shut down the public’s right to share their knowledge with its members. There are rumblings and we catch snippets. There are members of this board and others who do not want to hear anything not put in their scripts. It’s a great thing we citizens elected a new direction for the Council in 2016. The problem is some of the leftover members do not believe in the citizen’s right to be involved in any public discussion because the public cannot be corralled. There are days we say, the 2018 election cannot get here fast enough.

Mayor Huether uses the power of veto to finally prove once and for all he is vehemently against transparency in government

I have been beating this drum for 7 years. Huether is extremely anti-transparent, he has proven it time and time again. He used the power of the VETO pen today to prove it. He had a very weak argument that these committees are volunteers and didn’t sign up for this? First off, you do have to sign up to get on these boards and committees. You have to fill out an application, you have to submit a resume, then you have to be vetted not only by the mayor but the board itself. So there is a process. If you WANT to be on these boards, you have to do a little work to get there. And secondly, I only want honest and open people serving on these advisory boards, not secretive.

He also calls recording these meetings a ‘slippery slope’. It’s a slippery slope to prohibit recording board meetings.

Anybody who argues against recording these meetings, are what they are, fascists.