Mayor TenHaken’s ties to China

Last night at the Sioux Falls City Council regular (FF: 1:42:00) meeting a citizen brought up during public input the curious nature of Paul’s trip to China in November(?) 2019. Remember this was before Smithfield’s disastrous approach to keeping workers safe during Covid, and probably the reason why Covid spread so rapidly in Sioux Falls. Smithfield is owned by Communist Chinese investors that ship most of the product from our location to China. Think of it like the XL Keystone pipeline that would ship Canadian tar sands crude across our state to the Gulf Coast so it can be shipped to China.

Paul said this at the time of the trip;

“These relationships are critical first steps in establishing both trust and economic partnerships between our communities. One of our largest employers — Smithfield Foods — is owned by a Chinese parent company, and my office has had several other discussions with business development opportunities that have Chinese ownership ties. The Sioux Falls economy would strengthen via stronger cultural and business relations with key Chinese partners.”

If I was a guessing man, I can almost guarantee Paul met with Smithfield investors while in China. Remember how no one in his administration OR in Noem’s wanted to hold Smithfield accountable? How ironic that Noem just called a couple of newly elected Senators ‘communists’ while she bowed to the real communists whose ignorance of safety procedures helped spread the virus rapidly thru our city and region and essentially cost lives while Noem and TenHaken blamed immigrants for lacking proper hygiene. They virtually did nothing to stop the impending doom at Smithfield and even the CDC drug their feet.

Sorry Paul, I have ZERO interest in doing business with the Communist Chinese who are actively using 5G technology (antennas made in China) to spy on us and their meat-packing stink-hole plants to destroy our environment with little fines or punishment and providing unsafe working conditions that helped spread Covid through our community. The Chinese don’t care about our community, and the feeling should be mutual. This is about lining their pockets and little else.

CITY HOUSING AND PLANNING OFFICE CONTINUES WHACK-A-MOLE APPROACH TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING

During the City Council Informational meeting yesterday, there were a couple of presentations;

The first was about how the city plans to rebuild Hayward Park with a private/public partnership. I guess Steve Hildebrand and Matt Paulson are in charge of the fundraising. During the presentation, councilor Soehl asked why concrete and pipes (for the proposed spray park) cost $1 million. I told him during my public input at the end of the meeting it is because the city normally pays 2 to 3 times more for contractor work then what private industry does.

The Planning/Housing department did a presentation on how they plan to still build houses for a handful of families and sell them at a discounted price. In fact, Planning Director Eckhoff admitted something I have known for a long time, that contractors won’t do this work unless they can make some money. As I have known all along, this is has nothing to do with affordable housing, it has to do with certain developers and contractors making a buck on these Federal housing projects, this is a great program about it. While I understand they have to make a profit on these projects, I think they are and than some;

During public input, I told them about my idea of providing property tax rebates (small TIFs) to homeowners and small duplex and apartment owners in the core neighborhoods to fix up properties much faster for affordable housing. I told the city council it was time to invest in the ‘people’ of the city.

I ended my public input by scolding them about moving the regular council meeting to 6 PM, essentially shortening the informational and causing issues with the amount of time presentations can be done.