It looks like we are going to get some more smoke blown up our butts tonight on Metli-Land TV (are they still calling it that, hard to keep track);
“A lot of the on sales we do, we have some of the highest grossing, out-of-the-gate sale of just about any building around the country of our size,” Torkildson said.
Ever notice when we ever hear anything about the EC it’s always about breaking records, but we never hear how all that record breaking is benefitting the community, in the form of revenue coming back into the town.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are some positive numbers somewhere, but why are we not seeing them?
As a tax paying resident of Sioux Falls, sorry to say, I just don’t see much sense on paying the mortgage on a building that I will never use because I still have to pay another $100 dollars for a ticket just to walk through it’s doors. From my perspective, I have to take VALUE in the Events Center in how much it’s existence benefits my community as a whole, and that means in dollars and cents.
We do know some things. The EC’s mortgage is around $9 million a year. The EC operations are covered and then some, a net of over $2 million this past year. We also know that we paid (mostly the state) $1.5 million in taxes.
But here is what we don’t know or only speculate on. Where does the net revenue go? Back to the city to help pay the mortgage or in a secret SMG fund they get to play with for promotions, etc.
If the EC had approximately $20 million in sales last year, how much got redistributed in the community, and how much went straight out of town?
When will the CVB give us an educated estimate of how much money is spent in Sioux Falls by out of town concert goers? And how much tax revenue is generated?
While there are some positive things going on at the EC, I just don’t see how the city is benefitting financially from building the facility? Some would say ‘quality of life’. Sorry, but my life hasn’t gotten any better in respect to entertainment due to the EC, just more expensive.
I think it is time the city and SMG show the citizens just how much we are getting reamed while SMG and it’s associates are raking in the dough which never get’s redistributed in our community.