Presentations on golf course contract updates, landscape agreements, triage center, and election updates.
The golf course contract update has taken an interesting twist (FULL DOC);
Good Afternoon City Councilors,
We wanted to share a summary of what we plan to present to you at the informational meeting next Tuesday, January 28th regarding golf course operations. We have received an inquiry from the Argus Leader asking for golf course data in advance of the informational, therefore, we are sharing this with you in advance of the Argus story that is likely to run this week.
So what is the big news story? Oh, it’s good (but really bad);
So our private contractor in charge of managing and promoting our city courses is exploring an RFP to run the Brandon Golf Course. If this course was in Elkpoint, Sioux City or even Mitchell, I wouldn’t see an issue with it, but this is in a community RIGHT NEXT TO SIOUX FALLS! This is a major conflict. I’m not a golfer, but I do know a lot of golf fanatics, they shop regionally, in other words they will play courses all over the region.
This is just another reason why we should have just renewed the contract with Dakota Golf. They would have NEVER explored running another course that is basically in a suburb of Sioux Falls.
Ironically, I am not surprised. As I have said several times about local government, it is predictable, and the scams run amok like clockwork.
It’s a question I get almost daily, and I don’t know the answer to it. I did have a conversation with Theresa this morning, and she did confirm to me that she has still not decided, but told me to share this message,
“I have been praying about the decision and have been praying for our mayor.”
I hope Theresa can make a decision soon, so if she does decide to NOT run someone other candidates can get in the race. I told her personally that I would respect either decision, I know the toll the council position has taken on her, yes, some of it self-inflicted, but no one can deny that she has worked harder to inform citizens than any councilor since the home rule charter was instituted.
I also want to say that this may be a dismal election. There are 4 city council seats up for grabs and 1 school board position, so far there is only one city council race that has a challenger and that is the race for the NW district between incumbent Neitzert and Julian Beaudion. Even if Theresa decides to not run against Jensen, I think he will have at least one challenger. That being said, there may only be two races on the ballot with only one of those seats being city wide, the current seat held by Stehly. If there is only one city wide race on the ballot come April, I expect the voter turnout to be extremely low. There is still time though, and other councilors and Mickelson (school board) could get challengers. We will see.
It was no surprise to hear our esteemed mayor complain about campaign finance rules and how he had money left over;
“It created a lot of unnecessary paperwork for me. It’s a huge pain in the you know what,” he said recently of why he opted to create a PAC instead of giving it away. “And I don’t want to give it away because I may run again.”
Remember, this is coming from the guy who skirted fundraising rules by taking money from toddlers, was doxxing people who were critical of Marion Mike Rounds’ campaign, and played musical servers for Pitty Patt when he was trying to hide from unethical behavior. If you are so concerned about all this left over money, maybe you should spend it, or raise less.
I have helped with many successful local campaigns that have literally ran on fumes and were in debt at the end. If you have money in your campaign chest, you spend every last penny up until the day of the election. That’s good planning, strategy and the responsible thing to do towards your donors. They give you the money to SPEND, not to sit on it for 4 years. I would think a communications guy who helped with marketing for many campaigns would know this.
There is a great quote by car culture artist, Von Dutch that I actually framed and hangs on a wall in my house;
I make a point of staying right at the edge of poverty. I don’t have a pair of pants without a hole in them, and the only pair of boots I have are on my feet. I don’t mess around with unnecessary stuff, so I don’t need much money.  I believe it’s meant to be that way.  There’s a ‘struggle’ you have to go through, and if you make a lot of money it doesn’t make the ‘struggle’ go away.  It just makes it more complicated. If you keep poor, the struggle is simple“.Â
I love this quote, because Dutch is essentially saying, Money is bad and stay modest. I find it frustrating and comical that the mayor who just got back from a mission trip is complaining he has too much campaign money left over. Oh, the irony, Selfie Paul.
I also think that when this comes to a 2nd reading there will be some amendments thrown in to help certain people running for city council this time around. I recommend to avoid the appearance of benefitting certain candidates in this city election cycle, they defer the implementation of this ordinance until July 1st. The fireworks and debate on this item is going to be fun to watch.
There have been some rumors swirling around down at city hall that Neitzert wants the position. My sources, which are reliable city hall moles have said that he has been ‘sniffing around’ and now even has an office in the basement of Carnegie Hall because he suddenly is the self-appointed personnel manager of city council employees and audit employees.
I guess I missed that memo.
Greg is running for re-election right now, and how would that work? Well, he could take the job before the election which would make him ineligible for council, or he could run, win, then resign so that the remaining councilors could appoint a rubber stamper. That would be very sneaky and stinky.
Either way, it will be interesting to hear if he denies the rumors. I hope he does. If he doesn’t, we know the outcome.
Last night at the Sioux Falls City Council meeting it was the first reading of the Sioux Steel TIF proposal (2nd reading is on February 3rd). I spoke for my whopping 3 minutes about why it is a bad idea, I was able to run thru these points (FF video to 1:30)
• Planning Staff (Public employees) SHOULD not be recommending tax cuts or rebates to publicly elected officials (city councilors). While it is their job to lay out the pros and cons and basic criteria, employee salaries funded by our tax dollars should not be cheerleaders for private business. It goes against our free enterprise system and frankly is unethical.
• The property does not provide affordable housing OR clean up blight (The blight that does exist on the property is from the current property owner who is going to redevelop the property). We have known about environmental issues with this kind of manufacturing since the 1960’s. We were not born yesterday, you blighted this land, it is your responsibility to clean it up.
• Very little new economic growth will be produced, it will only be diverting development from other parts of the city, as well as diverting lodging from other parts of downtown. We know that over the past 5-6 years the city has seen a decrease in lodging taxes and stays do to a popularity in Air BNB, and the fact that people are not spending the night in Sioux Falls. The Events Center is a great example of how NEW economic growth and taxes will not come rolling in due to this project. In fact it competes with our current taxpayer subsidized convention center. Since the EC has been in existence, sales tax revenue has been at it’s normal snail pace until last year.
• We really don’t need more parking ramps downtown. We already have one waiting for a hotel to be built on top of it. Why are we not focusing on fixing that fiasco?
• The 20 year TIF will only produce $1.1 million in property taxes. If we forgo the tax and the project is scaled back, we would bring in around $10 million in the same time period. And if we also forgo the river greenway improvements of $10 million and just gift the development the property, it would be a $20 million dollar windfall for taxpayers instead of $1.1 million. I actually believe the development is bluffing about scaling it back, they would find the financing elsewhere, and even if they canceled the whole project (which I think they won’t) it wouldn’t harm us one bit.
• Most of the jobs created by the project will be hospitality, most of which are part-time and with few benefits.
• THERE HAS NEVER BEEN AN ACTUAL TIF ECONOMIC IMPACT STUDY IN SIOUX FALLS. This is one of the main reasons why this should be voted down. A comprehensive study would show us that there has been very little economic impact to citizens, in fact, it has probably forced individual property owners to pay higher taxes.
TIFs that don’t address real blight and affordable housing are really only a handout. It is unfortunate that the public is very ignorant about TIFs and the effect it has on their personal taxes while providing very little benefits. I can’t blame the developers for asking for this. What if your banker said to you one day, “There is this tax incentive program that will refund your property taxes for 20 years so you can improve your personal property.” Wouldn’t you jump at it? I would. Damn right I would. This is why I have argued to any city official that would listen for well over a decade that TIFs should be used to cleanup personal properties in low income working class neighborhoods instead, this would be real economic impact to the residents of Sioux Falls. But, hey, shiny things are fun to look at when the business elite are laughing all the way to the bank.
l3wis 
