SF City Council

Legacy was being deceptive about connections to Hultgren Construction

The good folks over at the Argus Leader got the paperwork proving Legacy had over a 50% ownership in Hultgren Construction. Good Job.

I figured all along that was the case. I mean really, the writing was on the wall. 1) Aaron could not have financed this business by himself 2) A development company having it’s own construction company it could manipulate and break rules for them is a smart business move, unethical, but smart.

The public warned the city council before approving the Downtown parking ramp that this was likely the case, but they had this O’Shucks attitude that Norm Drake from Legacy was just stuck in a bad business situation while moving LLC’s around like it was a Chinese checkers board. Give me a break!

The sad part is there is probably little the city council can do now after signing the paperwork and breaking ground, they are stuck with their very, very, very, bad decision. To say they have mud on their faces is an understatement. They are chin deep in the hoopla, and it’s going to be entertaining to watch them spin this.

This was a bad deal for the taxpayers and it’s too bad we can’t pool our money and get a big city attorney to sue the city for misappropriation of bonds. Sadly, it would only cost us even more.

It’s hard to pinpoint if this is just government corruption or worse – blatant ignorance but when I watch our city council do things like this, I wonder why I even bother making a stink about it. It’s almost like we enjoy bad local government.

The train traffic and noise DTSF needs to go

After the presentation of the new development downtown I addressed the council at the informational meeting (at end of meeting). I basically told them as long as the train noise and increased traffic exists it will be detrimental to further development downtown. I also said it was time for our Washington delegation to get off their duffs and have a conversation with BNSF about moving the switching and storage of cars out of DTSF.

UPDATE: Sioux Falls City Council has another ‘hypocritical’ alcohol license vote

Amazing, in a 7-1 vote, (Stehly opposed) the city council approved axe throwing at a bar. I will agree, that would be okay, but I will get to that in a moment.

The hypocrisy of this is that they denied a beer license to a mom & pop affordable movie theater because they were concerned about the safety of the minors, but apparently drinking beers and throwing axes doesn’t concern them.

Why? I will tell you why. Because ‘mom and pop’ who own West Mall 7 don’t own one of the largest home realty agencies in Sioux Falls. The owners of Escape 605 do. They have connections.

But the irony of this is you could have had your cake and ate it too. While they can’t put a condition on the license itself, they can put conditions on the safety plan. In other words the council could have deferred this and asked them to change their safety plan to ONLY allow drinking AFTER their axe throwing session was finished, than came back with a NEW license request.

UPDATE: One of the arguments from the owner of the bar to allow axe throwing around alcohol was that dart leagues use steel tip darts. I thought that was odd, so I asked some people who throw in Sioux Falls dart bar leagues. They told me they were unaware of a steel tip league in Sioux Falls since all the leagues use electronic boards who only accept plastic tip darts.

Not only was the vote tonight childish, hypocritical and wreaked of elitism, it was completely ignorant. You could have allowed them to have the axe range and alcohol, and done it safely, but instead they just ramrodded it through because there seems to be some immediate need to open an axe throwing bar in a building that has sat empty for several years.

I hear individual councilors say individual stupid things at meetings, but I have never seen a group of them act so idiotic before. WOW.