Railroads

Mayor Huether is starting to sound like Lyndon LaRouche

l3wis March 2, 2012 16Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6zCNzwd4M[/youtube]

If you didn’t have a chance to hear yesterday’s press conference, you can view it on the non-free online newspaper, if you have a subscription. Ahem.

Anyhoo, during the press conference Huether kinda sounded like he wanted to star in the movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

First he said he would fly to Fort Worth, TX to talk to officials. Then he talked about how there is talk of a high speed train to be built across the country, because lastly, people will not be driving cars in the future. Okay, LaRouche.

The highlight of the press conference was when Ellis, from the AL asked Huether if this was a project that ‘That benefits a few, at the expense of many.’

Well, Mike didn’t like that question and he took about half the press conference to explain why, glaring at Ellis the entire time.

Things are getting weirder everyday at City Hall.

Important Press Conference today on the RR Relocation project?

l3wis March 1, 2012 0Comments

Mayor Mike Huether and Mark Cotter, Director of Public Works, will conduct a press conference at 1:30 p.m. today, March 1, 2012, to discuss the recent public meetings held on the Railroad Relocation Project and provide a summary of the next steps in the environmental assessment process.

The press conference will be held in the Commission Room at City Hall, 224 West Ninth Street. The public is welcome and encouraged to attend.

The railroad relocation meeting at the Orpheum will be broadcast on Channel 16 this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm.  Also at 10:30 am on Sunday.

They will repeat this same schedule next week on March 9, 10, and 11.

It should be the 30 minute formal presentation and the Q & A session.

A more thorough presentation of this project is available on siouxfalls.org. at City Council Informational meeting,  February 27, 2012.  All of the documents that were part of the presentation are also available on the meeting’s agenda.

Rail Relocation in DTSF? F’ck Em!

l3wis February 20, 2012 55Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsuVuw5JO4[/youtube]

Ellis wrote his weekly rant about giving the money back to the FED’s and betting bottles of my favorite gin;

And to get the negotiators in the right spirit, I’m personally willing to put up a case of Bombay Sapphire gin and some vermouth. Martinis have a way of facilitating the free exchange of ideas.

For the longest time, I have often been for the project, and wondered why it has taken so long to get to this point (or wherever we are now?). But there is also a part of me that thinks if we don’t remove the tracks 100%, what’s the point? It just kinda seems to me that taxpayers (Federal and Local) will be footing the bill to help a private company (The Railroads) get a better switching yard and developers an opportunity to develop some cheap land. In other words, what is the benefit to citizens? Once again, we are left writing the checks with nothing in return. F’ck Em!

And J.E. may be onto something;

Sioux Falls has been no more money-grubbing for federal handouts than other cities. In fact, the city paid the federal government’s share for building a stronger levee system. The city has an agreement that the feds can pay back the money, but don’t count on it.

Why not just take that $35 million set aside for the RR relocation project and use it to pay the city back for the levees and say the Hell with the project. Seems fair to me. If private developers and RR companies want action, they need to get their checkbooks out for once and stop bilking us.