I guess the city was going to drop that little bomb during the informational meeting today;
The rumor was the bonds were going to be around $70-$80 million.
If you read the entire financial report, you will see the city’s sales tax collection isn’t really great, and they budgeted for a 6% increase.
Why on earth during a mild recession and record inflation you would budget like that is beyond me. Looks like sales tax collections this year will be around 3-4%.
The Aquatics Center is built on VA property originally designated for a park. The premise was that it could be for veterans rehab but also public use. Gone are provisions for veterans. There was to be walkway and a bridge from the VA hospital. Never happened and cut off. Once it fails, it’ll revert to the federal government with Sioux Falls still paying the bonds. Sioux Falls paid 80 million to BNRR for the yards off 8th Street. It’s federal property permanently designated as right-of-way. Easements prevent building on it. The toxic cleanup would take years and be cost prohibitive. Now, the city wants to take over the asylum land north from 12th between Cliff & I-29. Per the General Land Act of the late 1800’s, it’s permanently set aside for state health services.
I’ve said it before so I’ll say it again; STAY OUT OF THE REAL ESTATE BUSINESS. You suck at it.
The next mayor will be like Captain of the Titanic. All he can do is hold his breath and listen to ‘Nearer My God to Thee’. What a shame, a 3/4 billion budget and nothing to show for it.
everything the city builds in the last decade was too small and insignificant for our growing population size and disgarded the actual trends and citizen needs and I put, and same will happen with the city’s plans for this bond, too little for our city’s size and the amount of visitors we get a year
no innovative ideas here sorry folks, welcome to Sioux falls
Oh, that’s sales tax and bonding, huh? At first, I thought those were the projections for the average winter temperature for the foreseeable future. It looked like low-60s by 2030…. But do the future budget “forecasters” have prairie fire engulfment on their list and how much will that cost us by the end of the decade?
Perhaps, we should sell Great Bear while we can under a lease-back program. You know, Jankow once wanted to do that with the State Capitol Building. The suckers who would have bought it would have gotten a tax write-off, while the State would have leased the Capitol building back at $1 a year….. But who in the hell would buy Great Bear during a drought and pending climate change….. The Chinese? They’re obviously into hams and baseball, so why not a downhill investment as well?
“….mild recession and record inflation….” This is an erroneous assessment of the current US economy overall. It may be accurate for your personal economic experience.
Ruf, proof is in the pudding, watch the meeting. Our sales tax collections have been well below average, that means the economy is actually slow in SF, or people are sitting on their money (myself).