Sioux Falls City Councilor Pat Starr on MPR
l3wis Sioux Falls SD City Councilman Patrick Starr speaks to Canadian News show As It Happens on April 14, 2020 about the COVID-19 virus ramifications.Â
April 2020
Thinning of the Herd?
When I say this, I’m NOT talking about lives. No matter someone’s age, every life matters in this crisis.
I am talking about certain businesses that will ultimately close, and that’s not such a bad thing. I do however feel bad for the people who will lose their jobs permanently due to bad business planning.
The first victims will be small, privately owned restaurants and bars. I will miss a handful of them, but for the most part, some of them I will not. I have often argued that Sioux Falls has 700 restaurants yet not a decent place to eat. Some of these places will not be missed.
The second victims will be small franchise restaurants. A lot of them will close due to national sales and little to do with what is going on locally. Good riddance.
The third victims will be privately owned clothing boutiques, gift shops, etc. Or as I call them, rich doctor’s wives hobby businesses, I know that is not completely accurate, but a lot of them will not be missed either.
I have a feeling that many small telephone booth casinos will close to. Thank GOD! I wish they would all close.
Further down the road many of these smaller, privately owned car dealerships will shut down as the economy begins to spiral out of control. Also will not be missed. When I was looking for a used car a few months ago, I was amazed at all of the crooked crap they tried to pull over on you. I ended up purchasing a car from a trusted, local, larger dealership.
Many realtors will be also out of work when the housing market begins to go sour. This one is hard to predict though, because it could go in the opposite direction with rock bottom interest rates. This sector will be interesting to watch.
Small landlords will also be going bankrupt when renters can’t pay, and they can’t find tenants. This is sad, because they supply housing to many lower income folks, their options will dry up. Affordable housing will go straight out the window. This may have some positive results with the city looking at rent control legislation.
You may see some small national retailers close and some smaller grocery franchises.
I also suspect some major manufacturers will have some big layoffs or closures. Many have already started including a certain ‘ag’ business and a certain ‘energy’ company.
The good part of all this, thrift stores will be booming, I love thrift stores. I rarely buy anything new unless it is a tomato or apple. LOL. But it may be slim pickings for me 🙁
As I told someone last night, once the virus ends, the real sickness comes, the bottom dropping out of our economy locally and nationally. I am hoping we can recover quickly, I really do, but I also remember what 2008’s recovery was like, I still think some sectors are still in recovery from it. I compare this virus to getting a broken leg, it only takes a split second, but the recovery takes a lot longer. Don’t believe what the POTUS says, we won’t bounce back from this in a couple of months.
It’s going to be a rough couple of years. Enjoy the time you may be spending at home, use this time as I have to self reflect on what is important in your life. More and more the answer to me has been very simple; Friends. I miss them more than even Big Macs.
SD State Rep. Michael SABA Face Mask Donation
PRESS RELEASE
Hearing of the rise in COVID-19 cases in South Dakota, an international business contact of SD Rep Michael Saba (Dist. 9) sent a supply of face masks so Saba could distribute them to people who badly need them in District 9. Rep. Saba has distributed several hundred of the facemask donation around the District 9 region of rural Minnehaha County and the towns of Sioux Falls, Hartford, Humboldt and Crooks as requested, to people who particularly need them.
“This generous donation was unexpected and greatly appreciated at a time of personal protective equipment shortage” said Saba, “I still have facemasks available to distribute to organizations who are struggling to protect their volunteers.”
The donation to Representative Michael Saba came as a response to the assistance he has shown in bringing international trade delegations and various international trade opportunities for South Dakota.
“We are all in this fight for our health and well-being” Saba added, “the international trade group donating the 1000 hospital quality facemasks believe in the people of South Dakota. We are one big world.”
Saba has so far distributed them into Sioux Falls to the Urban Indian Center and to the immigrants primarily who worked for Smithfield who are without face masks. He has also donated them to meals on wheels groups that are getting food to elderly and disabled people and will continue to donate them and to put together packages of face masks for other people in need as the supply remains. Rep. Saba also distributed them to various churches who do community outreach in our District 9 region.
More information can be obtained on how to reserve some of the remaining free facemasks from Representative Saba, contact him at his office phone number 605-526-5000 or his email Michael.Saba@sdlegislature.gov.
Nice Sneakers John
I had to laugh while watching this DTSF Rotary FB video of ThuneHaken,
with his facial hair and ‘sneakers’ (a cross between Bass orthopedic and Airwalk, not laughing, I will need them soon). Seems he has been hanging out with someone for a little to long.
New Sioux Falls Logo . . . meh.
I will first say that I do like it, I think it is festive, and a modern design. But it reminds me more of a mega church logo than something that defines a city and it’s institutions.
To many colors and to bright. As a color blind friend said to me, it is a color scheme nightmare. I would have stuck with two colors like a dark blue and sunflower yellow or black with pinkish red, burnt orange, light green or light blue. Not only does it make it look less ‘busy’ but it saves money in printing and sign making. Not to mention, two color logos are easy to manipulate into one color logos if you need to. It would be almost impossible to convert this logo into something that is one-color, or could be used without gradients with solids, like vinyl lettering on service vehicles.
This was the latest results of a survey on ksfykdltnewsnow;
Like I said about the design, I like the festive nature of it, and if this was a church, daycare or hair salon, it would be a great logo. It’s not. The city is something that is institutional, and should not only be strong, but something that stands the test of time. In other words, this logo will look out of date within 4-5 years, and we will have to go through this process all over again. I have designed hundreds of logos over the past twenty years, so I decided to ‘tweak’ this one a bit. I did this in 10 minutes;
As someone said to me today, “Why would you release the new city logo in the middle of a pandemic?” Beats me.