Lincoln County now posting meetings
l3wis If you go to our YouTube page you can watch past meetings.
2021
Breaking Down proposed Sioux Falls TIF 23
During public input today at the Sioux Falls City Council informational meeting (FF: 1:39:00) I touched on the morality and ethics of tax incentives and rebates for citizens and local contractors and business owners opposed to International Companies. What I did not touch on is what this TIF is really about, a select group of investors making a buttload of money while using the city as collateral.
Before reading anymore, I encourage you to first watch the presentation of TIF 23 than consider what I think I saw;
• The real beneficiary of the TIF would be the Development Foundation, not the businesses coming in or the citizens of the city.
• Basically the DF is using the TIF as a slush fund (for about 15 years) to make the land more appealing by spending the money on upgrades and infrastructure instead of putting it back into the existing city infrastructure for street improvements, public education or judicial/public safety expenses. In other words they are robbing from the other governmental entities (that benefit us all with their services) to build an industrial park we never needed to begin with (seriously folks, it was much better as farmland).
• Do you think this slush fund will just sit in a metal box down at the executive offices of the Foundation? Nope, now we bring in the banksters and bond salesmen to get their cut while they use the city (taxpayers) as collateral if any of these deals fall thru.
I ask a simple question; If you had two choices as the Mayor and City Council where you could spend $94 million in tax incentives/rebates over the next 15 years? Would you . . .
• Spend it on upgrading existing infrastructure in our city which would improve neighborhoods, reduce crime, create much needed affordable housing, employ local contractors and enrich local small multi-housing property owners or would you . . .
• Spend it on building NEW infrastructure (that we will eventually have to maintain) that will house International and National businesses (which pay substandard wages and little in local taxes while shipping profits overseas) attracting more people to our city who will be looking for housing, public education and creating more social headaches.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have an issue with attracting good employers to our city, but why do we always have to dangle the TIF carrot? If our economy was truly strong in Sioux Falls (I think a certain sector of it is) why would we have to offer property tax breaks? If a business truly has a good business model, they should have no problem paying for land upgrades, infrastructure upgrades, living wages and 100 percent of their property taxes on day one. Isn’t that what Free Enterprise and Capitalism is founded on? Not to sound like Ayn Rand, but Cheese & Rice!
But like I said, TIF 23 isn’t about investing in any of these things it is clearly about a handful of bloodsuckers who want to scrape up the fat drippings from the bottom of the broiler pan while our council and city administration is either too blind, too dumb* or too paid off to see it.
*During the Q & A session Councilor Marshall Selberg (who was actually awake for a meeting for once) asked if he could build a Burger King out there. Remember, Marshall is NOT a self-employed piano teacher, he has worked in commercial real estate for a very long time. After asking his question of the DF director, Bob responded, “It’s an industrial park, you can’t build a Burger King out there.” Think about that the next time you hire Marsh as your realtor. Whopper’s are on me!!!!
South Dakota State Legislature, House Bill 1026; Authorizes the State to build a National Guard Readiness Center in Sioux Falls
What makes this even more odd is that it is declared an Emergency?!
Am I missing something here?!
HB-1018
 Introduced by: The Committee on Appropriations at the request of the Department of the Military Catchlines are not law. (§ 2-16-13.1) Underscores indicate new language. Overstrikes indicate deleted language.Â
1 An Act to authorize the construction of a National Guard Readiness Center in Sioux 2 Falls, to make an appropriation therefor, and to declare an emergency. 3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA: 4 Section 1. The Department of the Military may contract for the planning, site preparation, 5 construction, furnishing, and equipping of the construction of a National Guard Readiness 6 Center, together with furnishings and equipment, including heating, air conditioning, 7 plumbing, water, sewer, electric facilities, sidewalks, parking, landscaping, architectural and 8 engineering services, and such other services or actions as may be required to accomplish 9 the project, for an estimated cost of twenty million dollars, subject to permitted adjustments 10 pursuant to section 3 of this Act. 11 Section 2. There is hereby appropriated from the general fund the sum of $500,000, and 12 the sum of $1,500,000 in federal fund expenditure authority to the Department of the Military, 13 for purposes of design and construction of a National Guard Readiness Center in Sioux Falls. 14 Section 3. The Department of the Military may adjust the cost estimates to reflect inflation 15 as measured by the Building Cost Index reported by the Engineering News Record, additional 16 expenditures required to comply with regulations adopted after the effective date of this Act, 17 or additional sums received pursuant to section 4 of this Act. However, any adjustments to 18 construction cost estimates for the project may not exceed one hundred twenty-five percent 19 of the estimated project construction cost stated in section 1 of this Act. 20 Section 4. In addition to the amounts appropriated in section 2 of this Act, the Department 21 of the Military may accept and expend for the purpose of this Act any funds obtained from 22 gifts, contributions, or any other source if the acceptance and expenditure is approved in 23 accordance with § 4-8B-10. 21.297.13 2 400 Catchlines are not law. (§ 2-16-13.1) Underscores indicate new language. Overstrikes indicate deleted language. 1 Section 5. The design and construction of this project shall be under the general charge and 2 supervision of the Department of the Military. The adjutant general of the Department of the 3 Military or the state engineer shall approve vouchers and the state auditor shall draw warrants 4 to pay expenditures authorized by this Act. 5 Section 6. Any amounts appropriated in this Act not lawfully expended or obligated shall 6 revert in accordance with the procedures prescribed in chapter 4-8. 7 Section 7. Whereas, this Act is necessary for the support of the state government and its 8 existing public institutions, an emergency is hereby declared to exist, and this Act shall be in 9 full force and effect from and after its passage and approval. Â
UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council Informational Meeting Agenda, Jan 26, 2021; Millions in infrastructure and tax rebate giveaways to Corporate America
UPDATE:Â The rumor swirling around is that this TIF could have a value of over $91 million+ and a certain bank with a certain councilor working at this bank wants to finance projects at Flopdation Park with the caveat that this TIF can be used as collateral. So guess who is on the hook if the Development Foundation defaults . . . you guessed it. I’m hearing that many of the councilors are very uncomfortable with the TIF and they may have the 5 votes to kill it and send it back to the drawing table. Of course this is all speculation until we hear more tomorrow, stay tuned, they are going to have to clean out Carnegie with skid steers after this meeting.
To say I was a little disgusted when reading the agenda of the meeting is an understatement. Of course I knew this was coming;
• TIF 23 – Foundation Park North Update by Bob Mundt, President, Sioux Falls Development Foundation; and Jeff Eckhoff, Director of Planning and Development Services (No supporting documents in SIRE)
• Marion Road Improvements at Foundation Park by Mark Cotter, Director of Public Works (there are supporting documents and maps in SIRE)
The State, County and City has already given millions towards Foundation Park in infrastructure, and we are set to give more with the road improvements. I can’t imagine if we spent the same amount of money on our core, fixing up the infrastructure we already own?
But that is the least of our problems. The city is proposing for the first time an open-ended TIF. While I am opposed to millions in tax rebates to even local developers, I am even more weary of international companies that pay little to no Federal taxes and make billions paying less than a living wage. But what makes this TIF even more egregious is that it will give the Development Foundation carte blanche to have an open ended TIF that can use for however long they want to. One of the reasons the docs are not yet posted on SIRE is because this will be the largest scam in property taxes in the history of our city. Large corporations will come into Foundation Park, pay little in property taxes, little in Federal income taxes, pay low wages and send all the profits straight out of town while us worker bees pick up the slack in higher property taxes and infrastructure costs.
In other words, for the hardworking folks in Sioux Falls like you and me, IT’S A BAD DEAL!
Anybody promoting this on Tuesday and tells you this is a good thing for our community is FULL OF SH!T!
Is Sioux Falls population estimate pre-mature?
One of the most frustrating things about our supposed local news isn’t that they are fake news, but that they don’t tell the full story after passing off press releases as a news story;
Sioux Falls grew again, according to the city’s planning and development department.
The new estimated population for 2020 is 195,850. That’s an increase of 5,100 from the 2019 estimate of 190,750. The new number was released Friday afternoon by the city.
The Planning and Development Department calculates its year-end population estimate based from data released by the U.S. Census Bureau annually in July.
While this is all fine and dandy in a year without a census, I find it odd that no one asked the city why they didn’t just wait until the official census is released (hopefully SOON)? I have argued that I think that number is high and fudged so the city has more bonding leverage. I am NOT sure what it is, but I think we need to wait and see once the official Census is released.
“Sioux Falls continues to demonstrate our resiliency and optimism as evidenced by the steady growth of the past year. This confidence, along with our City’s ability to improve and expand infrastructure and manage our land resources has been a proven formula of growth for many years,†Jeff Eckhoff, director of planning and development, said in the news release.
This statement ties into another Stormland TV story about right wing radicals and racism;
“For me to sit here as the mayor and say, ‘Well, that doesn’t exist here in Sioux Falls’ would be naïve, because certainly some of the same racial tensions that we saw bubble up in Washington and some of the slogans we saw on shirts can certainly exist here,†TenHaken said. “What I can do as mayor is just continue to promote a message of unity, of inclusiveness.â€
“Last summer, we’ve had it before, we’ve had KKK fliers distributed around our community, we, people found them in parks and things, and I’ve always wondered, is that just a prank, is that a teen trying to get a rise out of someone, or is it very real,†TenHaken said.
Whatever the intent or the maturity behind such imagery, the Ku Klux Klan stands for real, documented hate.
“I think that’s the sort of thing we just can’t tolerate, there’s just no place for that,†TenHaken said. “There’s no acceptance of that.â€
I have often thought there is a correlation between racism and economics. I’m not sure how Amazon or an egg roll factory will solve our low wage job issues in the community. Studies have shown that Amazon actually drives wages down. Recently I was asked if I thought Noem or TenHaken had anything to do with bringing them here. My answer was simple, “Sure. They got the Hell out of the way.” Only one entity made the decision to come to Sioux Falls, and that was Amazon based on logistics of their operation. I have often chuckled about how politicians like to pat themselves on the back for bringing in business but rarely say anything about trying to prevent harmful businesses from coming. I think trickle down economics doesn’t work. In fact the founder of them, Ronald Reagan and his administration has proven that nothing trickles down to us. The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer and main street is disappearing. I have even predicted that in 10 years or less, large corporate retail stores will be virtually non-existent.
So back to economics and racism. The state and the city can do more to combat racism, they can do it by building up communities starting at the bottom and working up. Besides cute messaging and education they can start investing tax dollars into the core of our city to provide more affordable housing they can also recruit businesses that will be locally owned and provide living wages. I had to cringe a bit last week when Planning Director Eckhoff made an interesting comment about affordable housing. He was referring to the practice of tearing down small houses in the core of our city, essentially saying they were obsolete because people want houses with two-stall garages now. He was basically saying the city’s housing department isn’t interested in rehabilitating smaller affordable houses. I have no doubt in my mind that the city’s housing and planning department (who have merged in recent years under the direction of TenHaken) has been in cahoots with contractors and developers to eventually wipe out existing affordable housing in our core (houses that are smaller with either no garage or a one-stall and one or two bedrooms) that can cheaply be fixed up because developers have seen that multi-housing units are where the money is to be made. I have suggested mini-TIFs to homeowners and small apartment owners to fix up our core neighborhoods essentially investing in people instead of big developers and international low wage corporations that never trickle it down to rest of us. (FF: 1:18:30)
If we are going to combat racism in Sioux Falls, it starts with economics, that means creating living wage jobs and affordable housing in our core. Giving millions in TIFs to egg roll factories isn’t a very good plan.