2018

Ax throwing and alcohol; seems like a GOOD idea

In my haste on Friday I forgot to mention council agenda items 19 & 20. Applications for Wine & Beer licenses for ESCAPE 605 at their new Downtown location in the old Ming Wah space.

They want to have an ‘Ax throwing’ range in the bar. Nope, I didn’t stutter.

So this ought to be an interesting discussion with the council. They refused a beer license to West Mall 7 because they feared it would be too easy for minors to sip on some Bud Lights so what would be the harm in people drinking and throwing axes?

I can’t wait to hear the debate.

Speaking of crazy ideas, besides the god awful white brick paneling that the new Pave rooftop lounge has installed (after getting an historic façade easement) they decided that these nice plastic white trees were a nice touch to our historic downtown. How do these things get past our planning department?

Billion’s to have first RR redevelopment project

Image: siouxfalls.business

The announcement was just made minutes ago;

The first project to redevelop part of the downtown rail yard is envisioned as a mix of commercial and residential that would enhance the area around 8th & Railroad Center.

The development will be owned by Black Iron Railyard, LLC, which is led by David and Erika Billion.

Erika and Dave had told me over a year ago they were going to submit to the RFP and were greatly interested in the property behind the 8th and RR center that they currently own. I am actually glad to see they were awarded(?) the RFP, and for once it wasn’t the same old group of developers.

Obviously, the City Council will still have to approve the project, but like I mentioned last week, the ball is already rolling.

It will be interesting to hear if there will be any controversy over this project. The only thing I would be concerned about is building residential less than 100 feet from an active train track. There has been a promise this area will become ‘whistle free’, something that should have been negotiated to begin with. We will have to wait and see how the turd polishing goes.

Sioux Falls School District has NO PLAN to staff $300 Million in new schools

Maybe Sioux Falls School Board Member, Cynthia Mickelson just didn’t know the answer, but when asked the other day while addressing the League of Women Voters about the school bonds, she was asked where the money will come from to staff the new schools.

Obviously, when you build three new schools and spend $40 million to upgrade other schools, you will need additional staff. When Cynthia was asked the question, she pretty much said, “We will figure it out.”

The $300 million bond is ONLY for capital improvements and will not be used for operating. On top of that, the levy will change so they could change the tax structure for paying off the bonds. In other words LESS money coming in for operating.

So how will they staff the new schools? I expect another small opt-out initiated by the school board. But seriously, shouldn’t the Super and Board explain to the public how they will fund these schools operations? Utilities? Maintenance? Teacher/Admind/support staff salaries?

Good Question.

Sioux Falls City Councilor Kiley is misguided by a supposed ‘rebranding’ effort

During last Tuesday’s council meeting (1:29:50) councilor Kiley seemed concerned that the new flag would interfere with ‘other organizations’ attempts to ‘rebrand’ the city. He went on to say that he was at a Chamber Mixer and asked if the Chamber’s ‘ISSUES’ committee (whatever that is) took on the rebranding issue, and said that they didn’t have any plans to rebrand. As I understand it, the conversation the Chamber had was they were NOT going to rebrand the city, but wished that the city had more consistency in their identity (Logo). But the Chamber is NOT involved at this point from what I understand.

So where did this rumor come from? Ironically, it seems I am the only one who has brought this up publicly.

My suggestion would be that the city DOES pursue a new identity, but instead of hiring an expensive consultant or ad agency, my suggestion would be to have a city wide competition to rebrand the city. And once the winner is picked we hire the proper legal counsel to clean it up and make it official. After that, my only suggestion would be that the city re-letter all of the city vehicles ASAP (we have our own sign/vinyl shop) and change all the appropriate stationery and city signage.

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, July 17, 2018

Informational Meeting – 4 PM

Mike Cooper will do a presentation about ‘WHAT’ the Planning Department does. Let me simplify it for you . . . wait for Sanford or Lloyd Companies to call.

We will get a presentation on what is going in at the RR redevelopment area. Just for the record, I do know that it will NOT be a Dave & Busters.

Regular Council Meeting – 7 PM

Item #1, Approval of Contracts,

Even though we may be running the city on fumes, we seem to have plenty of money to move a head with Phase III of the River Greenway project.

Apparently Stone Group Architects buy the old Fire Station from us, than we give them $54,000 back for a façade. What a deal!

We are replacing a Water Main at Great Bear and it is coming out of the Parks budget? Huh? I thought water pipe replacement is supposed to come out of the enterprise funds? It just goes to show that we can take money out of the CIP for the Water treatment expansion if we want to and NOT raise water rates.

We need to hire a private attorney at $10K to tell us how to fill out a purchase agreement.

We are building a bunch of (un)affordable houses that we will never make our money back on.

Item #2, Change orders, apparently we need another $62K for the Brown bear exhibit.

Item #27, 2nd Reading, Lifescape requesting to tear down affordable housing to build more parking WITHOUT a feasibility study finished. This will be an interesting one to watch. Our ramrod, pass the flaming football planning commission pushed this off to the council.

Item #28/42, 2nd Reading, Funding for USD Discovery Center and Falls Park platforms. I expect some debate on this item. Councilors Stehly and Starr have requested an actual study before moving forward with capital expenses.

Item #29, 2nd Reading, Paramedics Plus gets their automatic fee rate increases, including $21 a mile fuel charge. Not sure who they are getting their fuel from, but that’s steep.

Item #43, Resolution, Gifting some junk signs to the Stockyard experience folks.

Item #47, Resolution, Insurance coverage agreement amendment with Levitt. Not sure what this means, “Liquor liability insurance”, but apparently we will be able to get our drink on at the events. Woot! Woot!

Item #48, Resolution, Appointment to Boards, I see the most wonderful, Sandra Callies is getting appointed to the Visual Arts Commission. Woot! Woot! Woot!

Item #50-51, Motion to approve travel for either 3 OR 4 Councilors to the National League of Cities. I guess they have to debate on how many people get to go. Silly. I have often felt that councilors attending these conferences is much more valuable than hiring consultants. They bring back great ideas from other cities to help form legislation. We pay consultants to tell us what we want to hear.