I was amazed to hear this;
A judge told them to fix, tear down, or move their controversial McKennan Park house; now a husband and wife want the South Dakota Supreme Court to decide.
To tell you the truth, I would be surprised if the SDSC even agrees to hear the case. I thought the original hearing was pretty cut and dry, and so did judge Pekas. After losing the initial case, I would have looked at my options to move the house.
UPDATE: Even though there was 28 citiations worth $100k handed over to Hultgren, it seems Legacy is probably off the hook due to being a LLC. It doesn’t mean there still couldn’t be civil suits against Legacy or even the city for that matter (for having knowledge of what was going on). Either way, IMO, the city should not allow Legacy anywhere near a public partnership with the city. Just by showing bad judgment in allowing such an unsafe construction company to work on it’s projects (several of them) tells me we need to send Legacy packing on the parking ramp and all future projects. We will see if the council has the cojones to see the same thing.
ELLIS & SNEVE from the ARGUS discuss the fines.
While this is under way (I heard there was about 50 subpoenas handed out) Stehly is fighting for the identity of investors of the DT parking ramp;
City Councilor Theresa Stehly wants to know who stands to profit from a city-backed, mixed-use development in downtown Sioux Falls.
Yet the giant secrecy of MMM’s Iron Curtain exists;
It’s not the first time a city councilor has called for greater transparency in the city’s public-private partnerships. In 2014, then City Councilor Greg Jamison unsuccessfully pressed for an ordinancerequiring investor disclosure in developments that receive tax increment financing from the city.
Jamison’s request followed an Argus Leader Media investigation that revealed Mayor Mike Huether and his wife had invested in real estate deals that required city approval.
And what would make us think anything has changed since?
It’s nice to see someone cares after South Dakota taxpayers dumped over $25 million into an industrial park with ZERO tenants and ZERO prospects;
Eight Sioux Falls banks have come together to create a $16 million financing package to help get land ready for new businesses at Foundation Park in northwest Sioux Falls.
“This financing package allows us to react to infrastructure needs required by our prospects,†said Slater Barr, president of the Sioux Falls Development Foundation. “With the unique size and scope of Foundation Park, it’s not feasible to make every site in the 820-acre park completely build-ready. But with the participation of the banking consortium, we can move fast to add streets, water, sewer — even rail connections — to meet the needs of any company that is ready to build on a Foundation Park site.â€
Well, well, well, it’s about time the private sector of the community decided to invest (our private) money into this project.
While I applaud the effort, like the public investment of infrastructure, all of these ducks SHOULD have been in a row before we annexed the land, and better yet, we should have had at least 2-3 purchase agreements also signed before the annexation, not a plan on a torn bar napkin. FLOPdation Park looks more and more like Amateur Hour over at the Development Foundation, and the rest of us are paying for it.
While there is only 6 employees in the Economic Development office, salaries add up to over $500K. Even the lowest paid employee of the department, the administrative assistant, makes over $49K a year. The department seems management heavy.
What surprises me about the department is how slim it is on office staff. I think the department has become very ‘tight’ or should I say ‘tight-lipped’ since Huether has become mayor. I guess the fewer people in the department, the less likely there are leaks.
Here is the full doc: 2017-Wages
UPDATE: KELO and KSFY both did stories today on the Annexation meetings. Surprise, Surprise, residents didn’t know about the meetings, and guess what else, they are not to happy the meetings are on a Tuesday, in the middle of the afternoon (2 PM) at a library that charges parking meters.
Stehly passed out flyers at her own expense. According to her, city officials said it would be too expensive to mail out notifications.
The city’s annexation task force will meet Tuesday at 2 p.m. in the downtown library. However, many affected homeowners are not happy with the scheduled time. They say it’s not convenient for people who work during the day.
The meetings could easily been held after 5 PM, and least of all, they could have been held at another venue (library) that doesn’t have metered parking (Caille). It was intentional to NOT notify residents and to make the meetings at difficult times.
I put together a flyer for councilor Stehly to alert citizens about possible annexation. Stehly paid for these out of her own pocket. Pocket change really. The city told her they could not afford to mail a notification to the homeowners. (I posted an image of the flyer below) She got the city’s legal team to approve the language.
Below is a video of Inside Town Hall talking about the annexation;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6hmJ0Pdn6c
