January 2025

Art Book Club

Okay, Kids, gather round, our first ABC (Art Book Club) meeting is on Sunday January 26 @ 2 PM @ The Book Coop. The first meeting will just be free flowing and figuring out this stuff. But the first meeting requirements will be simple, 1) Bring your favorite art book and be ready to discuss why this is your favorite book 2) bring money to buy beer and other assorted spirits. Mr. Lidster is kind enough to let us use his amazing space, be gratuitous! 

I want to warn peeps, I am not a ‘clubby’ person, so don’t think you have to show up to every meeting and be all serious with dues and laminated badges. This will basically be a group of like minded artsy folks talking about what we love. Show up whenever. I will warn you though, when discussing art we must discuss the artist (I am infatuated with artist’s personalities, BTW, they are ALL crazy) and all the politics, religion, drugs and sex that goes along with it. I guess this isn’t a kid’s art club, but feel free to bring them, they may learn all they need to know about life in one meeting, or be completely confused.

See you soon, no RSVP required

Legislative Update by Cathy

 Bills are still coming. You’ll see here a number are concerning already. Let’s be speaking up.

A. Sales tax.

            Please. Let’s have no sales tax rate changes until we see what happens with the cost of living under the upcoming tariffs, like in all these bills:

            HB1050, to allow cities to add another whole % tax for special projects. This raises the cost of living (food and other basics), makes SD taxes more regressive (harder on lower-income folks), benefits bigger towns more than smaller ones.

            HB1019, to increase the state’s sales tax from 4.2% to 5.0% (besides city 2%), and use funds to reduce property tax. Several unfairnesses: Most of the benefit goes to high-end homes, where “relief” may not be needed. Higher sales tax disproportionately requires more from lower-income households. Worst, it’s highly reliant on renters (31% of SD households), who would get NO benefit. And, replacing property taxes(school tax) is not a proper use of sales tax. HB1019 moves school tax around with no benefit to the schools. Property tax is a concern, but relief needs a different funding source and some focus on need.

            __Expect a bill to make the .3% sales tax cut permanent. Remember that the revenue the state is foregoing for this cut would have been enough to take the state food tax to 0%. So first, let’s see what tariffs do to the cost of living.

B. Property tax. 

            As listed above, HB1019, to cut prop.taxes using higher sales tax. Property tax payers have real concerns about recent increases. (In Minnehaha Co. statements went out this week. To me the increases seem to have stopped skyrockting. What do others think?) See notes above about this bill’s wrong revenue source.

            SB44, to renew the Sales or Property Tax Refund for Senior Citizens and People with Disabilities and make cost-of-living adjustments. This program helps but needs to reach more people. A higher income cut-off would really help, like at least the same cut off as for SNAP(food stamps).

C. School vouchers

            HB1009(educational empowerment accounts) and HB1020(education savings accounts). Both are first decided by House Education committee. They started on 1009 but did not finish. Of course, new programs should not be started when the state is short of funds. The cost to schools is not only the diversion of these millions from public education, but also schools lose the usual state aid for each student. Object to these Rep’s in House Education: Amber.Arlint@sdlegislature.gov, Heather.Baxter@sdlegislature.gov, Roger.DeGroot@sdlegislature.gov, Josephine.Garcia@sdlegislature.gov, Lana.Greenfield@sdlegislature.gov, Jim.Halverson@sdlegislature.gov, Mellissa.Heermann@sdlegislature.gov, Travis.Ismay@sdlegislature.gov, Phil.Jensen@sdlegislature.gov, Dylan.Jordan@sdlegislature.gov, Logan.Manhart@sdlegislature.gov, Kathy.Rice@sdlegislature.gov, Tesa.Schwans@sdlegislature.gov, Mike.Stevens@sdlegislature.gov, Nicole.Uhre-Balk@sdlegislature.gov,

D. Medicaid

            HJR 5001 to make voters re-vote again on our ballot decision to finally have Medicaid expansion. Legislators want us to let the state drop it, if federal funds for it change.  Legislators are messing with our vote again, even before federal fund changes.

E. Citizen rights

            All these are attacks on our citizen rights to amend our State Constitution.

            HJR 5003 to require 60% to pass. It passed the house and goes to Senators.

            HJR 5004 and SJR 504 to make it harder to get the needed signatures.

UPDATE: Why did Sioux Falls taxpayers give $100K to the SD Trade Association?

UPDATE is at bottom of article. Also, as many know by now Luke Lindberg is the son-in-law of John Thune, so no surprise he got the money.

I only agree with Councilor Curtis the Blurtist on occassion, and he is correct when he said at the 1st reading of the grifting agreement;

“This is not our role as a city,” he said at the council’s Jan. 14 meeting, noting that City Hall relies on organizations like Forward Sioux Falls, the Greater Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Sioux Falls Development Foundation to navigate private markets on Sioux Falls businesses’ behalf. “If they’re going to continue funding trade, that’s fine, but … it’s not our lane as the city of Sioux Falls.”

He is correct. These importers and exporters are private capitalistic business owners who generate millions in selling and buying products, they should be funding this organization. And let’s take a look at their tax filings. As you can see this is just pure grift, they didn’t need our money, they should have went to their members if they needed this money. The council’s priorities lately with handouts has been atrocious and needs to end.

UPDATE: Notice in their fiscal year of 2023 they spent very little of their budget on actually helping importers and exporters, most went to salary (LINBERG is going to work for the Trump Administration). There expenses were $407K and they only spent $42,752 on helping their members (10% of total expenses) with half going to travel expenses ($22,477). So I guess it is safe to assume the money we just handed them is going towards salaries and not actually helping trade. I wonder if the council even bothered to research their expenses before giving them their money. Don’t kid yourself.

Sioux Falls Nominated for an arts award

As a supporter of the arts you would think I would be excited about this, and I am. SculptureWalk has really turned into something wonderful, our mayor’s contributions, not so much;

Additionally, the city recently stood in the national spotlight as Mayor Paul Tenhaken supported a young graffiti artist in the area. The pair was featured on CBS’ Beg-Knows America.

Tenhaken, who coined himself as “an art guy who appreciates art” in the CBS article, commissioned the young graffiti artist to create a mural, a print of which now hangs behind his desk.

I think I am going to hurl. Mayor TenHaken is a militant closed government guy who censored a beautiful mural, his art cred is in the toilet. He also tried to cover up the removal of the Delbridge Collection which we could have restored for $850K (ironically we pay $600K a year to keep the lights on in the Arena).

He is an arts embarrassment to the community. You can’t in one sentence say you love art and in the next sentence censor an indigenous themed mural that was later accepted by the Smithsonian. He wouldn’t know art even if someone hit him over the head with Van Gogh painting.