Mayor Hubris

Events Center plan will be dumped into our laps this week

“Yeah, because, I want to take your attention away from turds in our streets and budget cuts to essential services.” – Mayor Hubris (Republican sidenote; this is meant to be satire. Mike Huether is not a staffer of a US Senator. He did not ‘really’ say this, but it would be ‘funny’ if he did).

Huether is going to present us with another (failing) Events Center plan this week. Chalk it up;

Sioux Falls city councilors will get the specifics of Mayor Mike Huether’s plan for a new events center this week, including what it will look like, where it will go, its size and how the city will pay for it.

Speaking Saturday at his weekly listening and learning session at the Whisk & Chop Cafe, Huether called his plan “a prudent proposal that will make us proud for generations to come.”

So, in other words, you found a donor and you are going to build it downtown without raising taxes? Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!

The Gargoyle Leader’s ED board supports city dictatorship

No surprise that the ED board supports Home Rule and the dictatorship of the mayor when it comes to money transfers;

The fiscal committee plans to bring a recommendation about a proposed ordinance revision to the full council after its September meeting. We’d urge the council to exercise some restraint. It’s simply too early in Huether’s administration to determine whether there’s a legitimate concern about money transfers.

This isn’t about the relationship between Huether and the current council, this is about future mayors and councils. Did we learn anything from the Munson administration? The council should be a check against the mayor’s spending. One person shouldn’t have that kind of power.

Mayor Huether did something Munson rarely attempted. He informed the public.

Mark Cotter and Mayor Huether spreading the word (Image; KDLT)

Holy Moly! You mean when you are transparent with the public you get results and cooperation?! Who knew? Instead of trying to sweep the shit (literally) under the rug, Huether chose to inform the public and ask for their help, and in return offers city assistance to the affected. If there was one thing that stuck in my craw about Munson, he was a ‘secrets’ man. I know I rarely hand out kudos to Mayor Hubris, but this time he deserves them (KDLT);

Mayor Mike Huether is still asking residents on the west side of Sioux Falls to limit their use of water Thursday morning, however, the city averted in his words “a major crisis” Up to a million gallons of wastewater had backed up beneath the city of Sioux Falls. Eventually it would have made it’s way back into homes. However city crews were able to find the blockage. They relieved the pressure on the sanitary sewer system and began pumping the wastewater into the storm sewer system. Mayor Mike Huether says, “when this started, we had projected thousands and thousands of homes in Sioux Falls were going to have sewage back up in their basements, right now we’ve got less than 10 that have been reported.” Public Works Director, Mark Cotter says the blockage occurred in a 36-inch sewer line near the South Dakota State Penitentiary. This line serves the west side of Sioux Falls, and that’s why residents are still being urged to limit their use of water this morning. Mark Cotter public works director says- “our next steps, we are mobilizing a professional bypass company. They will physically bypass the wastewater around this segment of pipe between two manholes, once the bypass is done we’ll be able to look inside the pipe, see what’s caused this and then design the right improvements.” City officials say wastewater is going directly to the Big Sioux River, so they are warning people to stay out of the water until further notice.

Mayor Hubris makes a bold statement

Rome wasn’t built in a day

Mike has kept a lot of his campaign promises so far, so it is a good possibility he could pull this off, but I have some questions, assumptions and predictions (and I am sure Sy will chime in 🙂

“We don’t know what the plan is,” City Councilor Vernon Brown said. “We don’t know the size. We don’t know how it would be paid for.”

This is the biggest problem, how will you pay for it. If I was a guessing man, and I am, I think the city will use the Pavilion subsidy that runs out in 2014 to subsidize the place and pay down bonds;

The city issued a bond in the 1990s to help finance the conversion of the old Washington High School into the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science. That bond issue has been paid through the city’s entertainment tax. It’s scheduled to be paid off in 2014, which would free up about $3.8 million a year in additional revenue. But there might be competition for that money, since it could be used as a future revenue source for other projects.

Why do I think bonds? During Huether’s budget address he ranted and raved about how well the city has ‘managed debt’ and thanked everyone from Munson to meter maids for doing such a good job. He will just take out bonds for whatever private investors won’t pony up.

He also said there are private investors in Sioux Falls willing to help with the events center and that a key goal is to identify them to partner with such a project.

What worries me though is that he is trying to steer away from the public vote.

Though Huether declined to comment on details of the plan, he said a public vote on the project will be considered.

If he thinks he can just convince people to go along with his funding plan without a public vote, he is NUTS. Whether is it bonds, private investors or selling his bullshit platitudes, doesn’t matter, the voters better get to approve it or he will find out really quick how fast 2014 will come and go without an events center.