Did Hultgren Construction ever pay city back for rescue and security services?

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It’s around the 1st anniversary of the Copper Lounge building collapse. Is it just me, or do I faintly remember the city talking about the rescue and cleanup efforts and who was going to pay for them.

Obviously, the construction company would have to cleanup their own demolished mess. But I do remember someone from the city saying that Hultgren would be billed for the extra effort in rescue and security from the city’s first responders.

Just curious if that bill was ever sent? How much it was? And if it was ever paid by the now defunct Hultgren Construction.

Oh the irony and hypocrisy of Mr. Hultgren signing as a guarantor for the Downtown Parking Ramp Village project corporate welfare handout if he never paid the city for the hundreds of hours of rescue and security efforts. And who can forget the 24/7 CityLink film crew.

It will be interesting to see how Mr. Turbak explains this one to us.

If I were to compromise on the Downtown Parking Ramp

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Let’s face it, the Downtown Parking Ramp probably has the 4 votes (plus mayor) to pass. But let’s pretend for a moment you or I were on the council. What would it take to change our minds?

I’m totally against the project personally, but let’s say I was sitting on the council and my fellow peers asked me what it would take to get my vote. Here is a list of things I think needs to change in the agreement before I would consider supporting it.

#1) Cut the parking ramp construction costs by $1 million. I think there is plenty of room to tweak the current plan. For instance, why does a bare concrete structure need a sprinkler system?

#2) Share the $6 million in soft costs with developer. I think the developer should have to pay $3 million of those costs which include upgraded utilities and a reinforced foundation.

#3) Change the lease to a 5 year lease with an opportunity for automatic renewal in 5 years. Base that lease on actual appraisals of similar leases. Right now the lease comes to $1,000 a month. That is highway robbery by the developers. It is ridiculous to sign a 80 year, one time payment lease with the developer.

#4) Take Aaron Hultgren’s name OFF of the contract guarantors and off the investor list. Legal counsel should know better signing a contract with a construction company owner who has been fined thousands of dollars for safety violations by OSHA for a building collapse just feet away from the new development. Until Mr. Hultgren clears his name (he is contesting the fines) NO city money should benefit him. If anything he probably owes us for all the issues he has caused for our city’s first responders and private downtown business owners. He is the LAST person that should be involved.

Like I said, personally I am against the project, but if I was on the council I would propose these amendments.

What happened to Slater Barr?

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Maybe he went to pursue his dancing career?

I’m guessing that wasn’t in his cards. Announced suddenly out of nowhere yesterday;

Sioux Falls Development Foundation president Slater Barr resigned suddenly Tuesday, following almost a decade at the economic development organization.

Of course the rumors are out there. Did he get a sudden great job opportunity? Was he just fed up and walked? Was he fired? Heck, I don’t know, really don’t care. We all know we will never hear the real story. We know how it works in the tiny little corporate world in Sioux Falls.

I did hear though behind the scenes Slater may have been pro state income tax. Like most logical people in this state we know that the sales tax model is NOT sustainable and will only continue to keep our state and city in the hole. With the continuing gap between rich and poor in our city, state and country and the disintegration of the middle class, people are spending less and less and trying to get the best deals online. A state income tax on corporations and the upper class is the only solution to pulling South Dakota out of this mess we have created by having greedy Republicans run our state. Tax cuts and incentives to the rich do not trickle down to the rest of us. That is a myth.

Publicly, I have heard Slater talk about higher wages and bringing higher wage companies to Sioux Falls, this also may have contributed to his demise. As we know the status quo is plenty happy with the wage collusion going on in our city. The irony is if we pay workers a living wage we would be less dependent on food banks and homeless shelters. They would also spend more money which would boost the local economy. I have always said, we don’t have an affordable housing problem in Sioux Falls we have a wage problem in Sioux Falls. Maybe Slater just got tired of the fight and said SeeYah!

City admits they are covering $6 million in ‘soft costs’ for developer of DT hotel

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Okay, I get it. The actual cost of the parking ramp is around $14 million. But here is where it gets sticky, We are covering $6 million in ‘soft costs’ that should be shared or totally the developers responsibility.

That has been my ASSUMPTION all along. I never thought the ramp itself would cost too much, I just felt we were subsidizing the developer’s project which the city announced tonight. BUT WHY?

But the real zinger tonight was the announcement of the four guarantors that will be signing this contract; Larry Canfield, Paul Cink, Norm Drake and Aaron Hultgren.

Yes, Hultgren. The same person who’s construction company was fined thousands of dollars by OSHA (and still pending) for the safety violations due to the collapse of Copper Lounge. Why would the city sign a contract with this person? Seriously?

1st reading passed tonight 5-1 (Stehly NO, Rolfing and Erickson absent)

Our city council has gone stark raving mad.

Reducing Rail Traffic was part of Munson’s 2005 RR redevelopment plan

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There seems to be some detractors when it comes to what I have been saying about reducing the rail traffic downtown after we took possession of the RR redevelopment land. I will apologize on one level where I was wrong. First off, I was unaware that two tracks would remain under Munson’s plan and secondly that this was mostly about the redevelopment. Those two items did not change under Huether’s plan. But Munson did want the rail traffic to reduce, substantially under his 2005 plan;

Sioux Falls Mayor David Munson says, “For any development we want to do moving those tracks is very important.”

Plus, the mayor says moving the tracks is an issue of safety. Traffic wouldn’t be backed up nearly as much anymore. And if a train were to derail while carrying hazardous material, it wouldn’t happen in the center of a growing city.

Munson says, “We’ve seen recently trains that have leaked, they’ve had to evacuate areas so we’re trying to stay ahead of that here.”

Ironically, these hazardous train cars are still parked several days a week next to Nelson Park only hundreds of feet from the Sioux River on the South and a kid’s skate park and swimming pool to the North.

In fact the RR has stated that rail traffic would NOT be reduced under Huether’s plan. They have stated that the trains will become shorter BUT more frequent. They were not kidding. As I have noted they have become a lot more frequent over Cliff Avenue next to Avera Hospital during noon and rush hour times. One of the factors that I can see is instead of using the old switch yard that is gone now, they are re-hooking and switching train cars in the area just North of Avera’s employee/overflow parking lot. They are also parking a lot more train cars in that area.

Also, under Munson’s 2005 plan, Mark Cotter felt that rail traffic and switching would reduce so much they could eventually tear down the 10th street viaduct;

But getting the switching yard moved could dramatically reduce the size of the 10th Street viaduct in years to come. “Twenty-five years down the road, when the viaduct needs to be reconstructed, we can bring in dirt,” Cotter says, because the viaduct no longer would have to span an entire switching yard. “Roads are cheaper to repair than bridges,” Cotter says.

I wonder if that is still the plan to tear down the viaducts in 2030?

As you can see, the original vision did include the redevelopment of the banana land and leaving two RR tracks, BUT it also envisioned reducing rail traffic significantly throughout downtown which apparently was left out of Huether’s plan.