Moving Sale?
5/17/2018 (c) southdacola.com
5/17/2018 (c) southdacola.com
Full Video working now.
If I was outside looking in, I would say the bond will fail, big time at the polls. Why?
• $180 million dollar price tag (some on the task force suggested a lower price tag of $150 to build 3 immediate needed schools.
• A stand alone election in September (some on the task force said this will certainly doom the bond) but Maher maintains it needs to be done before November so the construction can begin ASAP. Another task force member testified that when West central(?) had a stand alone bond election it failed and continued to fail until they tied it in with another election.
• It needs a 60% passage. That will be virtually impossible. The EC, which wasn’t even a legal bond vote didn’t even get that, AND NO TAX INCREASE WAS ATTACHED TO THE Events Center.
• It would be a $100 a year tax increase for every $100K home valuation.
They really need to scale this back even more. My suggestion would to build TWO new schools (leave out the HS) and get the number under $100 million. What I can’t understand is how an elementary school would cost $17 million but a new HS would cost $84 million?
I would also find other resources to pay down the bonds besides property taxes. I think if they get that $100 increase to under $50 a year they may have a better chance.
Hold the election with the General in November.
I wasn’t able to watch the whole meeting, so please feel free to correct me if I got any of this information wrong or left anything out.
As everyone and their brother has complained about the decorum of public input I have often maintained that many of us (most of us) stick to city topics. I rarely repeat myself (except when it is about those f’ing trains). Some of it can sound like complaining, but as long as we are redressing out grievances about city issues it is well within our rights.
I don’t approve of cussing people out, and when people do that, I have suggested they are gaveled and thrown out. I have also encouraged the chair and certain councilors should stop making smart ass remarks (those two fellars are gone).
But one guy, comes week, after week, after week, to accuse the city of trying to murder him and wonders why he can’t get assistance (FF: 29:00). First off, his assistance should come from the VA. His needs and wants are their responsibility, NOT the city government. Many employees from the city and county have tried to help Steve, so have several city councilors, but once they make a suggestion Steve refuses to follow through, so we are back to square one, coming to the council meeting each week to bitch and complain.
It is time that the Mayor (chair of the meeting) and the council put an end to STEVE. They need to send him an immediate letter saying he is no longer welcome to speak at the city council meetings, and if he tries he should be escorted out by security.
I know he may suffer from mental illness (his words, not mine) but he is wrecking public input for the entire community that want to find solutions to problems in our community not whether or not the VA should assist Steve.
Please, put an end to this. TODAY!
While I found this letter on the internets facebooks, I guess several business people in town got the letter. I found it interesting that FMCL&O would use city resources to thank possible donors to his next campaign. That’s called ‘Franking’ – and frowned upon, but no surprise coming from a guy who takes $500K from taxpayers for a tennis center that he puts his name on.
So the city wants your input, well really not YOUR input;
People of low and moderate income, people who are homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, people of limited English proficiency, people with disabilities, and entities that provide services to these populations are specifically encouraged to attend.
Yet, they don’t want these people showing up to public input at the regular council meetings? What gives?
We don’t have an affordable housing issue in Sioux Falls, we have a wage issue.
I have often said our affordable housing program needs an entirely different approach. Instead of tearing down houses (that we could fix up for much less) and building new structures (that we take a hit on when we sell them) we could be using the money to re-fab older homes and apartments. The city gets about $2.1 million in Federal funds a year. You could fix up between 60-80 homes for that money instead of just building 20 homes at a loss. You could also set up financing, etc. which could triple that number easily.
Mayor TenHaken needs to clean house in community development and affordable housing and take a new approach that is committed to providing more core neighborhood cleanup than just a couple houses here and there and setup a program that focuses on entire neighborhoods instead looking for poor people to fill their quota.