Remember, this was proposed 10 years ago. Many things did NOT happen. Notice they are asking the two parcels be split up into two different payments and that part of the TIF goes toward the purchase (Craig Lloyd’s assumption). He makes a comment that waiting on the EPA could take several years. This is from July 16, 2007 (FF: 13:30).
As I have mentioned before, with Sioux Falls School District recently passing a $50 million dollar opt-out and the plans for a possible $30 million dollar bond for a new HSÂ this is the WRONG time to be handing out property tax discounts in the form of TIF’s to wealthy, successful developers. Not to mention all the issues with open enrollment causing widespread segregation and almost half of Sioux Falls students on FREE or reduced lunches.
Here are a few more reasons;
• The county is struggling to make ends meet with rising crime while building a new jail.
• Developers, especially one of the largest in the city, having been doing very well for a long time, especially with record breaking building permits, do they really need tax discounts or breaks to be successful? Shouldn’t we be focusing tax incentives on affordable and workforce housing and not retail and luxury lofts?
• The state is in the midst of considering some rule changes when it comes to giving so much power to municipalities concerning TIF’s. Expect some legislation in the upcoming 2018 session. Not only does the county and school district want a bigger say in these matters, so does the state.
• There are numerous conflicts of interest on the council. Besides Councilor Marshall Selberg being an independent contractor for Lloyd Companies, the mayor and some of the others have received campaign donations from Lloyd. Starr, Neitzert and Stehly seem to be the only candidates who have not. You can’t hardly vote on a $43 million dollar project with a TIF incentive with only 3 votes.
There are way to many conflicts of interest here for the council to even consider a TIF incentive. I think approving the project is fine, but when it concerns a tax discount, that should be taken off the table.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me_1Jw6kN50
It only took Lloyd companies 13 years to fulfill a promise (13 YEARS!) why wouldn’t they deserve a TIF?
Since the completion of Phillips to the Falls in 2004, significant investment of public and private dollars has occurred in the Uptown area. In recent years the City has made land available, resulting in several million dollars of private investment. This development will be constructed for an estimated cost of $43.5 million and will provide further economic benefits for our community including $400,000 to $500,000 in new property taxes paid each year. The City administration is supporting a Tax Increment Financing District for the project ($4.1 Million proposed).
Besides the fact that the developer drug their feet for 13 years and left the city holding the bag (and the land) the city council has NOT approved this project, and certainly has not approved a TIF. In fact, many on the council had NO CLUE a TIF was being proposed.
As far as I am concerned, since the developer was SUPPOSED to buy and develop this land 13 years ago, as they promised in front of a full council chambers (I was there) any discounts on property tax revenue should have ran out a long, long, long time ago. They were supposed to be paying on this plot of land for the last 13 years, and now they have the nerve to ask for a TIF as the taxpayers held this plot of land for them, for 13 years, at NO COST?
NO WAY!
I said Phillips to the Falls was Munson’s folly, and it continues to not disappoint being a money pit for taxpayers as developers continue to ask for corporate welfare. If the mayor is truly serious about ending subsidies, he can start right now with this project.
One of the promises to the housing neighbors of the new Walmart on the Southside was that there would be a business office buffer between them and Walmart, as you can see with plans for a new Hardee’s that promise went by the wayside, with all the other promises.
Yesterday the Mayor was on the B-N-B show crying about kids swimming for free and riding the city bus. Today on the show, Bad Neighbor Belfrage decided to take calls on it.
I’ve known for a long time the mayor is a gigantic hypocrite, especially when it comes to his faux Christian beliefs and fake crying and emotions.
Now with one foot out the door, he wants to cut subsidies, mostly to little things most of us don’t even think about, but apparently he loses sleep over.
Where were these cuts seven years ago when you rolled into office? You had a prime opportunity to stop the government waste, reduce or even eliminate the debt Munson created, rebuild the infrastructure from the ground up (this means the back streets in some of the middle income areas) and get ahead of the drug and crime wave. You did not. You pulled out the city’s credit card statement, saw you had a credit line from here to Jupiter and started spending like a stripper addicted to meth.
While the mayor seems concerned about programs that cost a couple grand a piece he doesn’t seem very concerned about all the corporate welfare in the city that hasn’t done the one thing we were promised it would; bring in living wage, high quality jobs. In fact the millions we have thrown at ‘job creation’ in Sioux Falls has been a total failure, except for Sanford bringing in a handful of east coast doctors that build pastel yellow mansions in McKennan Park (which are costing taxpayers in the courtroom to with a possible lawsuit against the city’s building services department).
I agree with him, it is not government’s job to teach kids how to sing in our parks, but his concern wreaks of hypocrisy when you think about;
$500K to a tennis center that provides little to no public access, not even to the parking lot
Millions to the Development Foundation for Want Ad Welfare to corporations
Tens of Millions to the Development Foundation for infrastructure to Flopdation Park for about 12 fork lift driver positions
A proposed $18 million dollar parking ramp to a private developer connected to a construction company whose horrible safety record caused the death of a worker.
AÂ $25 million dollar administration building (to fix a $100K lease problem-that wasn’t a problem) that a majority of the council opposed and 6,500 petition signing citizens.
I could continue on about the probably over $100 million the mayor has WASTED subsidizing corporations and developers over the past seven years, but don’t we have more important things to worry about, like those darn poor kids cheating the system by getting to swim for free.
Give me a break!