Curtist the Blurtist is at it again, defending parking. Yesterday during the informational where the city turned a regular old ice rink into a $16 Million Dollar entertainment facility (for no reason and for something NO ONE in the community was asking for) Curt didn’t question the extravagant transformation and being $12 million over budget instead he cried about parking.
The rink can take up to 250 peeps at a time and the parking lot holds 45 cars. Now there is on-street parking, a parking ramp next door and plenty of parking at Falls Park. Here’s the other thing, you are going to go ice skate, that is physical activity similar to walking, so why not park a few blocks away and walk there?! There is plenty of parking. When the Levitt has over 5,000 people attend a concert, I never see issues with parking. Where do all those people park?! Also, let’s state the obvious, besides the grand opening, this place will be dead most of the time. The only time you will see people there is if it is decent temps on a Saturday. Great Bear has proven people are winter wimps in Sioux Falls. And if it is below 20 degrees, good luck getting people on the ice especially since we have plenty of options for indoor skating in Sioux Falls at private facilities. I know people who live in SF and work DT and had no clue the place was even being built. I think if the parking lot only had 5 stalls, it would be enough. This place will be bleeding taxpayers for decades! But at least we have another wedding barn in town!!! And that’s the other thing. What if you have 200 people attending a wedding on a Saturday Night during the open skating season? Then you will have a parking issue. I can’t understand why we just didn’t build a simple warming shed and leave it at that? The things we let rich donors cook up with our tax dollars in Sioux Falls is getting ridiculous.
The Romans referred to this as ‘Bread and Circuses’;
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace, by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses). Juvenal originally used it to decry the “selfishness” of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.
Taxdollars should never be spent on entertainment. Once Poops bankrupts this city with his Convention Center proposal maybe people will finally come to terms with having all these play palaces while driving over 6 inches of packed ice and potholes like a pimples on a teenagers ass. And if you think the Feds will be kicking anything in over the next 4 years that ain’t happening.