Jolene Loetscher stumbles a bit in Lalley interview

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Know your hot button issues especially when running for mayor.

Jolene was on the Good Ship Lalley Pop (podcast has yet to post) show today, and she did pretty good, but she stumbled a bit when asked about the Downtown Parking Ramp. She said she supported the project and that it was good for downtown development. She went on to say that councilor Neitzert did a good job of ‘crunching numbers’ and explaining why we are paying double the national average for stalls. (Because we tax payers are taking on a 100% of the ‘soft costs’ which are about $6 million, and IMO should be SHARED with the developers like the ramp wrap, architectural and engineering designs, utility upgrades and reinforced foundation that is needed to support the PRIVATE hotel).

When Jolene was asked if the private investors should be released, she said YES. A good answer on it’s face . . . but.

What Jolene must not know, or has missed is that you can support this project all you want, but if you don’t support the investors staying secret you can’t support the project, it’s part of the convoluted plan. You can’t have your cake and eat it to.

The city doesn’t want us to know and says that NO public officials (or family members) are investing. Even if we trust them on that verbal only promise, there is NOTHING preventing public officials from investing in other NON-PUBLIC partnerships with the same secret investors, something I think is happening and is a conflict of interest IMO and probably the #1 reason these investors are being kept secret. It is NO secret that the mayor and some of the other councilors do invest in local development projects. But do these lines get a little blurred when you are helping your fellow investors out on a public project? You know, that whole back scratching thingy.

While the city has NO intentions of releasing the names of the private investors, only the guarantors, which includes Aaron Hultgren whose construction company has been fined thousands of dollars for OSHA safety violations for the Copper Lounge building collapse. Hultgren’s name alone attached to this project is another reason why the public should know most of the private investors.

I will give credit to Jolene for sticking up for transparency, but you can’t have it both ways as mayor. Private developers will fight you tooth and nail before releasing those names. So would Jolene cave to secrecy or would she forgo public/private development for transparency? Good question.

I have argued all along the best way to have transparency with development in Sioux Falls is by creating or eliminating regulation legislation that supports growth instead of handouts like TIF’s and taxpayer partnerships. These tax incentives NEVER trickle down to the common citizen taxpayer in this town. It hasn’t worked since Reagan introduced this asinine way of governing and it never will. Let FREE enterprise and development in Sioux Falls sink or swim on it’s own and let our tax dollars provide the services that truly trickle down to us all instead blowing millions on developer welfare projects.

So please Jolene, keep fighting for transparency, just don’t expect developers to get on board.

Sioux Falls City Councilors Starr & Stehly on FORUM

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Pat and Theresa talk about the Downtown Parking Ramp Boondoggle, LISTEN HERE.

Replay of Belfrage’s interview this morning, LISTEN HERE and citizens reaction to the parking ramp, LISTEN HERE.

Pat and Theresa will also be at Democratic Forum talking about the project on Friday (noon at the VFW).

Theresa wrote a letter to the editor about the ramp, READ IT HERE.

Pat will also be on my Podcast on Monday talking about the Ramp.

And the Mayor thinks public input is a waste?

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At least when citizens come and speak at public input, it isn’t costing us anything.

I wasn’t going to post about the below press conference until I had a flood of people asking me, WTH?

As I understand it, Lloyd had to remediate more dirt for the Cascade project than they thought they would so they have leftover. So instead of blowing money to dispose of it or transport it elsewhere they are going to dump it across the street for the Levitt Pavilion.

Seems like a common sense thing to do.

So why is this press conference worthy? I have no f’king clue. I feel just as embarrassed as the journalists in town that had to cover this by posting this.

A parking ramp or an excuse to build an expensive foundation?

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Guest Post by Bruce Danielson
Questions not gaining any discussion in the new proposed Sioux Falls downtown parking ramp is who is paying for the foundation, why and how much. The construction of any building requires a foundation to anchor it to the ground. The much touted 2014 Walker Parking Study reported a parking ramp in downtown on the very same “fractured” quartzite stone would cost about $9 million. Why does this building all of a sudden have fractured stone problems?
According to city parking staff and studies, parking ramps have a 50 year life. What will happen to this ramp in 50 years with an 80 year building lease on top of it? 
 
How do we pay for upkeep when our reserve funds are all used up? We will be using all our reserve funds to build this ramp. The more we put our numbers together, the harder it is to see how it can pay for itself.
 
A $1million dollars for 80 years lease? No inflation factoring? No future value of money put into a formula? Using history (I know dangerous) as a guide, $1,000,000.00 in 1937 had the same buying power as $17,245,142.86 in 2017, the annual inflation over this period was about 3.62%. An example from savings.org tells us a conservative inflation rate of 3% over the next 80 years would be $10,640,890.56.
 
What’s a million bucks going to be worth in 2097? We know our mayor’s version of bucks is not likely to be the same as ours but we must consider real money and not the funny money of a subprime credit card salesman. 
 
What will the future residents of Sioux Falls accuse us of when the lease ends? How are these residents suppose to fund the implosion of this building when the lease ends? Why is there no discussion of this in the grand plans for the parking ramp? Every longterm rental agreement has inflation adjustments and site cleanup, why not this one?
So many questions and no consistent answers. The story changes every time there is another question not fitting the city narrative.