So this is what the city of Sioux Falls does, they make bad decisions in the past and instead of trying to correct them, they just pile it on with more bad spending decisions.*
While the new public safety center is needed, no doubt, they are playing a game with bonds and re-financing prior bad decisions;
Also included in the potential bonding package would be about $3 million for a new fire station in southeastern Sioux Falls and between $7 and $10 million for the third phase of the River Greenway project downtown.Â
The two bonds being considered for refinancing were taken out by the city in 2009 for quality of life improvements, along with the flood levy project completed in 2015. Those bonds have $11.85 million and $19.7 million remaining on them, respectively.
That’s right, besides the public safety needs we want to continue to fund the river Greenway Project expansion (that is NOT needed – and likely will continue to flood due to global warming) and let’s not forget the fancy footwork the previous mayor played with Federal Funds that would have paid off the levy bonds but instead used the money to pay for the MAC that we didn’t need and continues to lose money each year.
If I was on the council, I would have NO issue with the re-finance and funding the public safety facilities, BUT, I would nix the expansion of the river greenway and just do inexpensive bike trail upgrades, etc, and stop building Roman like structures. We need to work on flood control of the Big Sioux, not build more monuments to nothing.
*There is a rumor I heard from another local media person that the city may need more money for another failed over budget project in town. I have no idea what that would be, or the cost – but I have my guesses. I guess the cat may be let out of the bag as soon as this week. Oh, brother.