I missed the vote because once again the city can’t get their online streaming program to work, I guess they have just resolved to not fix it. The entire debate over the TIF is missing from replay (that’s convenient) and the mask mandate and public input is also missing. Is it just coincidence that when controversial items come in front of the city the video system fails . . . sure.
As for the media, only one story was done about the TIF around the same time the city council was voting on it. Good job media, way to stay on top of this.
Starr I think opposed it for the same reason I opposed it;
“What’s really happening is the development foundation is going to have an additional tool to recruit businesses to town that maybe pay a living wage,†Sioux Falls City Councilor Pat Starr said. “The negative side is we are in a boom-type of economy right now and the real question is, do we need to incentivize additional growth? We already have a housing shortage.â€
Five years from now when housing shortages are in dire straits and crime and taxes are through the roof, we’ll be asking why we did this because the people who are making money from this will be long gone while we have to clean up the mess with higher taxes and a crumbling infrastructure in our core. It was a very sad day in Sioux Falls for our local government and their utter failure to not have the vision to do things differently. What a pathetic group of individuals.
We could have had a successful industrial park without incentives and we could have used the $94 million to clean up the infrastructure we already have. Greed wins the day once again.
Thank you Pat Starr for remembering you are there for the people of Sioux Falls and not the big money developers. All of our taxes will increase and wages will be lower because of this wastefulness of our taxes.
Foundation Park is a get rich quick scheme for certain people in Sioux Falls and will only benefit them.
When TIF’s are concerned, this group of Councilors have evolved into bobbleheads who only know how to say yes. And most times, they can’t say yes fast enough. Thank you Councilor Starr for thinking of the working class with your vote.
Food For Thought…ever wonder who really owns the Villages, Townships, Cities?
LAND OWNERS have always had a say in how to create States, Territories, Municipalities due to well, much of the land being “homesteaded” where each real property owner of land held the “Land Patent”.
Keep in mind much of South Dakota was made up of Americans who bought land under the 1862 Homestead Act where they could gain the PATENT RIGHTS to 80, 120, 160 acres. Meaning they truly own the land, and the ability to charge a rental fee, or any fee for the use of that land and all the natural resources.
For example, when or if a Municipality is to be shutdown or dissolutioned…
S.D.C.L – 9-6-1 Whenever a municipality shall have less than two hundred fifty population, the owners of a majority of the real property therein, both in area and assessed valuation, may petition the circuit court of the county in which such municipality or any part thereof is situated for the dissolution of the municipality.
Evidence of this is the surrounding “Townships” such as Split Rock Township which is a group of land owners whom have formed a township in order to manage the total area, raise money for private roads, parks, volunteered fire departments, pay for a ambulance service, combined infrastructure. If they were to annex themselves into the City of Sioux Falls, a petition must be done showing a majority of Land Owners (real property holders) agree to become part of Sioux Falls.
SIOUX FALLS is nothing more than a collection of Land Owners, Real Property Holders, who have pooled their assets together act not only collectively to raise monies for roads, utilities, water-sewer, public parks, etc; they now ‘rent’ out their land to citizens of the State whom now act as “residents’ of the territory (township), of whom now as part of creating a Municipality, for the value of acting “commercially’ to attract businesses to the territory, to build the sufficient public infrastructure needed for the residency, the Land Owners now hire or contract “developers” to expand upon and help shape their land to help attract more commercial assets, attributes to help provide for the residents, provide jobs. IF the Municipality is to now lose population, to below 250, the LAND OWNERS (real property holders) can not petition to vote to dissolve the Municipality cause of the fact the residents A) either moved away, or B) there is no longer any need to act as a Municipality.
Realistically, the LAND OWNERS always have the final say in how they wish to develop their area into a blossoming Municipality, how they wish to construct their roads, infrastructure, raise capital, to provide sufficient housing, jobs, and ammunities for the ‘residents’ whom now pay to use their land, for residential use, commercial use, agricultural use, etc.
Is Sioux Falls a collection of previous “Townships” that have incorporated themselves by annexing their land or real property as one municipality in order to help usher in commercial development in order to collectively bring in a residency, with the goal of providing that residency ‘jobs’ in one isolated, commercial distrist?
Because of the human nature of how ‘humans’ or Americans for that matter moved westward during the Homestead Act – settling on land, getting the land patent rights to build on, live on, prosper from the land, it sometimes led to those same human nature of “humans” of sometimes harming the land, causing the top soil to become blighted, to worse, cause the combine territory of said ‘area’ to lose its residency, asset value, to collect revenues from;
That we now as Citizens of the State or Country, passed a law giving said Land Owners (real property holders) the incentive to repair their land, invest in that land, in order to bring back Commercial Assets, Public Infrastructure, Restore the land back to its natural state, of which the goal is to Provide for the Residents of that Municipality.
So, we agreed, thru our elected governing bodies, or by petition of the land owners (property holders) to provide that incentive thru Tax Increment Financing, allowing them to become reimbursed from future property taxes (land taxes) assessed on the future value of the land itself, so long as they invest those dollars in public roads, infrastructure, repairing the land, connect the land to our public utilities.
Who ultimately gaines thru this investment?
A) Land Owners Now have increased value for their land, which becomes an asset to them to attract new business, residency, and communal attributes.
B) The Residents now gain a few extra jobs, affordable housing, accessibility to those communal attributes.
And…while ‘we’ do not actually raise the ‘tax rate’ on that land, the increased value of the land due to the new buildings, increased commercial activity, gives the ‘land area’ greater value to the over all Municipality.
It attracts New Residents, who pay sales taxes, entertainment taxes; it attracts new businesses whom then provide more jobs, of which provides economic relief to the very residents whom pay the taxes;
How do you really place a value on the net gain or loss to utilizing TIFS.
But the same common denominator still remains – it is really the LAND OWNERS (Real Property Holders) whom gain the most for their land thru out this process, always has been, always be.
IF we were to ever shutdown, or dissolve the Municipality, meaning if all those residents were to pack up and leave, leaving us to less than 250, those Land Owners ultimately would be left to voting to dissolve the city, thus sectioning off their land back to the actual “land owners” or real property holders of the ‘territorial area’.
So I would imagine, these Land Owners share a common interest to make their land’s more attractive in order to attract the most residents in order to collectively benefit from each other.
– Mike Zitterich
Statesman Zitterich,
Point B is simply not true.
There is not affordable housing which results from TIFs in Sioux Falls.
Also, most residents don’t want ‘a few extra jobs’, they simply want one good job!