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SF City Council

Developers Development Janet Brekke Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

The water problem with Wholestone’s packing plant

l3wis 9Comments

Recently Joe Kirby wrote a post about why another slaughterhouse is NOT a good idea for Sioux Falls;

Slaughterhouses are a horrible fit for our community. Affordable housing and workforce availability are already huge concerns. The idea of adding lots of difficult, low-paying, low-skill jobs, the type that have traditionally been a drag on our progress and success, makes no sense to me. And expanding the presence inside our city of an industry which has long caused pollution problems in our river and air makes no sense. I simply don’t understand why we would want more of this in Sioux Falls.

I agree, I don’t want another slaughterhouse built, but I would much more prefer there was an effort to not only STOP Wholestone but to close down Smithfields.

The issue with this entire fiasco has nothing to do with Wholestone vs. the Citizens vs. the City, it has to do with South Dakota voters, including right here in Sioux Falls who vote against their own interests. When the City Council passed Shape Places, several citizens said this was a bad thing and wanted to see some changes to the zoning ordinances, so they referred it to a vote. The development community along with some councilors said nothing to see here, move along, and the voters ultimately passed the original plan.

The argument then is still the argument today, Shape Places took power away from the council to make conditional use decisions, and when you take power from our citizen representatives, you take power from us.

I think if the council still had that power instead giving total control over to the developers Wholestone would have been denied by the Council or scaled way back and it has little to do with water quality or air quality, it has to do with water supply.

Where do you think WF will get their water? The reason WF is building within the city limits has nothing to do with the labor market, it has to do with using city resources, they will be using a lot.

Besides letting the developers take over almost all branches of city government we have also let them plan this city instead of the government and citizens;

Granted, the city does a lot of planning. It has a parks plan, a capital spending plan, a downtown plan and much more. But I am not aware of any sort of comprehensive plan for our city with direct participation of the mayor and council.  In support of that, some council members and candidates have told me they wished they could be involved in that sort of big-picture, strategic planning. If there was such a plan, I doubt it would have included the phrase, “add more slaughterhouses”.

This is something Janet Brekke stressed in her entire 4 years on the council. Her colleagues on the dais ignored her and did nothing. I think if she would have gotten re-elected and we would have changed a couple of other seats, Brekke would have been successful moving it forward.

Once again, in Sioux Falls and the rest of the state we continue to vote against our own best interests, and until that changes, you will see NO change in the status quo; DEVELOPERS RUN OUR CITY.

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Sep 12-13, 2022

l3wis 1Comments

CALENDAR LINK

Homeless Task Force • 4 PM • Carnegie Town Hall • Monday Sep 12

• Understanding & Discussing current operations of the County

• Understanding & Discussing opportunities to support Bishop Dudley Hospitality House

• Understanding role of the Helpline Center’s Network of Care

• Opportunities for Housing Families & Potential Ideas

• Open discussion and public input

(I think this meeting will be a turning point for the homeless task force. They will actually put the meat on the table of what should happen. I had the opportunity to have coffee with chair Merkouris a few weeks ago and told him that I think we know what needs to be done, but the heavy lift will be the council implementing the policy and getting taxpayer buy in. Most people want to see homelessness reduced and the panhandling to be under control, but I think people think this will come only thru policy. It will take a lot of taxpayer capital to make the policies effective. Are people who live in the extreme NW, NE, SE, SW willing to put up tax dollars to fix a problem that only effects the central neighborhoods and downtown business owners? We will see how much the ‘good Christians’ in these districts are willing to sacrifice.)

Informational Meeting • 4 PM • Tuesday Sep 13

• Commission report; Audit Committee: Thursday, August 25, 2022 (Council Members: Jensen (Chair), Barranco, Merkouris, Neitzert) (We will see if we finally get an admission that the Internal Audit Manager has left the city council staff and went to work for the administration. When I talk about transparency in city government I am NOT just talking about the Mayor’s office or his departments, I also speak of the council. This is a gross failure of leadership by council vice-chair Jensen who is in charge of the council’s staff. When a manager leaves a position, whether transferring or leaving for the private sector, the public should be made aware immediately via a press release. She was appointed publicly and her departure should be made public. There hasn’t been sh!t! When were they going to spring this chicken?)

• Main Street Business Improvement District Growth Plan by Joe Batcheller, President of Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. (I had a very productive phone convo with Joe on Monday. He explained to me that this proposal will end the million dollar property cap. As of right now whether your property is worth $1 million or $30 million in the district you pay the same bid tax, it is a sliding scale on those under $1 million. In other words it is a regressive tax under $1 million valuation and a pretty good deal over $1 million. This is what they want to change. There are also a lot of other details he will touch on during the presentation.)

Regular Council Meeting • 6 PM • Tuesday Sep 13

• Item #7, Change orders, highways and streets, Full Depth and On-Call Concrete Repairs; Unknown conditions, Dakota Contracting, $26,651 (I don’t have a issue with change orders, things happen, but saying ‘unknown conditions’ just doesn’t cut it for transparency for me.)

• Items #13-20, Deferred from the meeting of Tuesday, August 16, 2022; New 2022-23 Retail Malt Beverage License for Deuces Casino 13, 6010 South Cliff Avenue, Suite 101, with Conditional Use Permit (016569-2022) being approved on July 6, 2022. Pending final inspections per Health and Building Services. (this is in the former Bonus Round bar on Cliff. It is total BS that they can use the parking lot as a secondary address to put in 20 machines, I also don’t know how 20 machines will fit. This place is falling apart and one of the reasons the Bonus Round left the place. As I understand, the landlord also owns the rental house to the South that is in shambles. If you wanted a code enforcement hay day, this would be the place to go. I am hoping the council denies the casino, not suitable owner or place and tells code enforcement to do their job and get both places condemned and bulldozed. It would be a perfect location for affordable apartments.)

• Item #22, 2nd Reading: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, PROVIDING APPROPRIATIONS AUTHORIZING AN INCREASE IN PROPERTY TAX REVENUE PURSUANT TO SDCL 10-13-35 AND THE MEANS OF FINANCING FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31, 2023. (this is the unneeded property tax increase, Starr will offer an amendment to not increase, I assume this will still pass 6-2. Our tone deaf council will approve millions in tax increases in the middle of an inflationary economic crisis, because that is what they do best).

• Item #37, A RESOLUTION DECLARING IT NECESSARY TO LEVY AND LEVYING A SPECIAL FRONT FOOT ASSESSMENT FEE FOR STREET MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR. Sponsor: Mayor, Background & Objective: This resolution approves a $1 front foot assessment fee for street maintenance and repairs to be levied in 2023. This is an annual approval with no rate change from 2022. (this is just another tax hike they have put on cruise control since 1992. It started as $.40 and has shot up since. There is absolutely NO reason to increase frontage fees). CORRECTION: This is NOT a $1 increase just that it will remain a dollar for next year.

Item #40, A RESOLUTION RECOMMENDING THAT THE CITY ADMINISTRATION NEGOTIATE WITH WASHINGTON PAVILION MANAGEMENT, INC. TO ACCOMPLISH THE OBJECTIVES OF THE ARTS TASK FORCE AND THE CITY’S VISUAL ARTS COMMISSION AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES THEREOF. Sponsors: Council Members Merkouris and Jensen, Background & Objective: The resolution recommends that the City administration negotiate with the Washington Pavilion Management, Inc. to accomplish the objectives of the Arts Task Force and the City’s Visual Arts Commission. The City Council will also consider a supplemental appropriation to execute this provision if successfully negotiated in the new management and operating agreement. The agreement with Washington Pavilion Management Inc. expires on Dec. 31, 2022 (this seems to be a back door effort by these councilors to stop the full-time arts coordinator position. While I agree 100% we don’t need this position, I don’t agree the Pavilion should have it either. I was thinking today about the role of local government in terms of this position. Is it the role of government to determine the best path for the arts in this community, or to be involved with ANY cultural endeavor? Yes and No. The city should encourage and foster the arts, they should also get out of the f’king way. Arts flourish thru independent thought. While I love it that a city administration wants to foster art, I really am not on board of them dictating it. Art and artists work best when they are allowed to create, tourism and business getting involved only throws turpentine on that painting.)

Brandon Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls TIFs

UPDATE III: Your Dream Home Awaits in Southwest Brandon

l3wis 12Comments

UPDATE III: I wanted to make a correction to some of the things being said about how the homeowners will be paying back the TIF. While I have surmised from Mr. Powers testimony last night that the repayment would go back to the developer, SF Simplified was told this from the city’s planning office;

The $2.14 million would help with the costs of getting the site ready for homes, designing, etc., and it’d be paid back to the city over the next 20 years via property taxes.

Which makes more sense since the city is footing the bill for the infrastructure, but it still puts into question what was said at the meeting last night.

Does the developer take on the $2 million in debt or the City? Is it a 15 or 20 year TIF? I’m not sure who is in charge of talking points for this project, but it gets more confusing by the day.

A city official told me today that the payback to the TIF will actually go to the bank who is giving the loan for the development, which makes sense. Oh, and guess who that bank is 🙁

UPDATE II: Finally! At the planning commission meeting tonight, commissioner Larry Luetke asks how the TIF works when it comes to the eventual purchaser. Planning staffer, Dustin Powers explained that as people purchase the homes they will have to pay their FULL property taxes then the county will pay part of those tax funds back to the developer until they hit the $2 million amount. In other words the developer is paying the full cost of the development and the homeowners will be paying back the developer thru their taxes over the next 15 years. So essentially, like Starr said last night, this is just a $2 million dollar break on the development itself, for the developer, and gives the eventual homeowner NO tax savings.

On top of that, there are NO guarantees the pricing will come in where they would like them to. The developer has already warned those prices could fluctuate (in other words go up) and there is no contractual agreement to keep the price where promised. Good for the developer, not so good for the homeowner.

*on a separate note, one of the newer commissioners called roads in a development ‘artillery roads’ instead of ‘arterial roads’. I’m not sure what an artillery road is, but if you drive around some central neighborhoods you can certainly see some streets that look like they got hit by artillery.

UPDATE: Tonight at the city council informational meeting they did a presentation on the TIF and it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that developer, not the future homeowner is benefitting from the TIF. Councilor Starr said it best when he suggested that maybe the city should just pay for the $2 million in TIF expenses (infrastructure) out of the general fund and not mess around with the TIF.

Either way, the half ass promise made from the administration, planning and the council before the last election is we were going to target affordable housing in our core, building density while cleaning up our central neighborhoods. Instead we got a ham and cheese sandwich made from Spam and Velveeta.

———-

The Sioux Falls Planning Commission will be mulling over TIF #26 (Items 5C & D) this next Wednesday. As you can see from the drawings below these are pretty tiny houses. I was also surprised by the floor plan in which the bedrooms were not placed next to each other with one bedroom next to the front entry.

What is curious is there is NO mention in the agenda documents about who will be getting the 15 year tax break. The developer or the new homeowner? There is also the infamous recommendation from un-elected paid planning staff;

Both staff and the development team believe this amount of TIF support is appropriate and adequate for the project to move forward, and that without TIF in this amount, this project as presented would be unable to move forward.

The classic ‘We can’t do this without the TIF.’ But again, I ask, who will be getting the tax break? How do you give a 15 year tax break to a developer who will be selling the homes? Will the new owners be getting a 15 year tax break? I’m puzzled how this will work. It appears to me that the developer will be getting a $2 million dollar tax break up front and the new homeowner will have to pay the normal taxes.

Hopefully we will hear an explanation at the meeting.

*You will also notice that the planning agenda is NOT using the annotated agenda like the city council is using now. Not sure why transparency is so hard for these folks?

SF City Council Sioux Falls

Falls Area Bicyclists rock the City Council Meeting

l3wis 3Comments

I enjoyed watching the city council meeting last night (FF: 44:30) when members of FAB showed up to promote bicycling and safety. While I agree with most said, especially when it comes to more bike lanes, etc. I have felt for awhile that there needs to be more bicycle safety training and awareness by the city.

I have been commuting on the roads and bike trail ever since I moved here in 1991. You have to learn how to be a defensive rider. As a car centric community it is hard to change the mentality of drivers when they rule the roost. We also need to build new roads more accommodating to bikes and pedestrians. I think we missed an opportunity on North Minnesota Ave recently when building the medium in the center. We could have easily made that a bike lane. I have seen it in other cities and it works pretty good.

David Barranco Patrick Starr Property Taxes SF City Council Sioux Falls Taxes

Sioux Falls City Councilors Starr & Barranco reject the need for a property tax increase

l3wis 4Comments

During the City Council meeting last night (FF 1:25:00) Pat and David spoke out against the increase siting inflation hurting citizens;

“. . . we have families struggling with high inflation and I am NOT comfortable with a property tax increase,” David Barranco.

“We sit and talk about putting the city in good financial shape and it really doesn’t take that much from the citizens, it’s only a couple of bucks here, and it’s a Coke or a cup of coffee, but if look at the chart director Pritchett presented were talking about 11 to 12 million dollars over the next 10 years that the city will be ‘SHORT’. NO, it’s the taxpayers that will be short of this money,” Pat Starr.

Their colleagues on dais SAID nothing while voting to move to 2nd reading. Starr and Barranco voted NO.

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