l3wis

My prediction was correct. ONLY ONE PERSON DESIRED Jacobson Plaza; Mr. Jacobson

l3wis April 16, 2025 1Comments

I have been saying all along the $4M Ice Ribbon that has ballooned to $16M was NOT the idea of constituents. I haven’t heard a single person say they wanted that Plaza or needed it. There has been talk in the past of putting in a ‘temporary’ refrigerated ice ribbon at a park, but no permanent structures. A lot of this talk ended when they built the Scheels Ice Complex. So I have been saying all along, this was the idea of ONE person who was looking for a tax write-off after selling their Electrical Supply Company. (I’m all for private gifts to our parks, but that money needs to go into the Parks’ general fund and let the citizens decide how that money is being spent.)

Now don’t take my word on it, during Poops State of the City address he told the audience how the ice ribbon came about. Mr. Jacobson called the Mayor, took him to lunch and told him he wanted this. As I figured. No constituent polling. No advice from the city council. No consultant proposals. Just a rich guy buying the mayor lunch.

So this is how we make $16 million dollars in parks programming decisions, we let some rich dude looking for a tax write-off to take the mayor to lunch, while the skatepark folks had to scrape for years to get the city to pony up ‘something’.

If you want to know what the citizens want for Parks Programming, just ask them. Duh. Because as I have said, money can’t buy you class, purpose, style, taste or culture, so why do we let the rich determine our parks programming? Because they buy the mayor lunch. Unfcknbelievable.

Ethics Sioux Falls

Mayor TenHaken appoints former city clerk to ethics commission

l3wis April 16, 2025 1Comments

Board Appointments (Item #36)

Lori Hogstad was a good city clerk. She stepped in when they fired Debra Owen, leaving licensing and taking over a whole new department. While I disagreed with how Owen was let go, that had nothing to do with Hogstad, she was just stepping up. I also have NO doubt that she would be a fair juror on the ethics commission, but the conflicts with former employees could be an issue in which she would have to recuse herself.

But the conflicts are NOT the major issue here. We are a city of 200K+, why do we always pick the same people and former public officials for these positions? LAZINESS. The mayor and his staff don’t encourage board application and they don’t VET all the applicants, instead the mayor goes trolling for friends or friends of friends. A horrible way to govern, but no surprise from a guy who has NO leadership skills.

Downtown Sioux Falls Sioux Falls Washington Pavilion

UPDATE: The Pavilion roof may be in trouble?

l3wis April 15, 2025 4Comments

UPDATE: So I recruited some ‘needlers’ to see what they can find out. And oh boy, it is radio silence at the attorney’s office, the Pav and TenPoopen’s communication office. It has actually been a great laugh with those who shared with me the responses. I think I said to one of them, “Maybe you should remind Vanessa she works in the ‘Communications Department’. Accent on the Communications part. I wish I could change this font to brown, but our color blind mayor wouldn’t get it.

I told you a few weeks ago that I found out another contractor was putting the city in a bind. The city owns the Pavilion so we are responsible financially for any building upgrades, and the Pavilion takes millions each year in maintenance costs from the entertainment tax. Replacing the thingies on the roof cost us, ALOT! So the ‘rumor’ is that while replacing the ‘thingies’ they tore up the rubber roof (you really should not walk on them, let alone carry equipment and materials across it.) Not sure what the city is doing to get relief, but if they had a half a brain they would threaten a lawsuit to get the money. I was told that the repairs will cost over $1 Million. Another city project, another bad contractor. I thought we did RFP’s so we could select the best contractor? And where were the city building inspectors during this process? Were they not checking on the progress? And if so, couldn’t they see the roof damage? Someone told me once, “The city building inspectors are afraid of ladders . . . and the outdoors.”

Affordable Housing Sioux Falls

Bank suing Tzadik

l3wis April 15, 2025 5Comments

Dakotanews reported about this about a month ago;

Now, tenants of several Tzadik properties in Sioux Falls and Rapid City are facing another concern; foreclosure.

I was able to see the cover letter of the case;

Notice that the State and County are listed in title, why not the city? I think with all the code enforcement violations the city could have contributed to this suit. But also notice a certain company that has gleaned millions in tax rebates and TIFs from the taxpayers of Sioux Falls is also listed as a defendant. Yeah, would have been a bad look for the city to get involved in a case against a massive city campaign donor. Wouldn’t it?

I have told residents of TZADIK that the mayor doesn’t give two rips about your living situation, if he did, he would have came down on them hard, a long, long, long time ago. Instead he just whines and schedules another chiropractor appointment.

Uncategorized

TenPoopen doesn’t know what fiscal restraint is

l3wis April 15, 2025 2Comments

During his state of the city, which seemed more like having coffee with your pastor in a hotel lobby then an official meeting (it was in a hotel lobby, no lies) he talked about all the ‘crap’ nobody cares about (he bragged about the new sewer plant). Then he started whining, and that is his new thing, whining how everyone treats him unfairly. He cried about the legislature taking property tax revenue from the city and made up some statistic* about how we were going to lose money, then he said, “You have two choices when faced with this, you can either 1) find new revenue sources OR 2) increase the current taxes.” WOW! Or NUMBER 3 – CUT SPENDING! I was blown away that he didn’t even mention this as an option. It amazes me that an elected official is either that arrogant, naive or stupid (probably a combination of all) that he wouldn’t mention budget cuts. And I am not supporting what Sally and Tesler are doing in DC I’m just saying, when less tax revenue is coming in, you adjust. Is there something I am missing? I also found it funny you could only live stream the event on YouTube and not in the city’s stream service or citylink livestream. YouTube is only used when it is convenient for their warped agenda. Maybe next they will give the lead janitor the authority to charge a TP surcharge to fund his kid’s college fund.

*Paul said the city would lose $25 million over the next decade. So yeah, he is whining about losing $2.5 million in tax revenue per year with a city that has a $700M yearly budget. (.0036% of budget). We also have around $70 million in reserves. The city NOT hurting from the property tax cut.

I also noticed the mayor is trying to rip off my old man mohawk. NO dice Bruh. No dice.

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