Councilor Selberg starts the show off with patting himself on the back when it comes to cooperation with other local government entities. While there has been a lot of cooperation lately, there has been little interaction with the public except at the actual meetings where the decisions have already been made before the meeting even started. When it came to mask mandates, MED MJ and Covid money they didn’t bother asking citizens and business owners what they wanted they just cowed to special interests which seem to be at city hall quite a bit behind closed doors. This is NOT true open government and cooperation. I also was a bit confused about how road money is being spent. If you walk or ride your bike around the core neighborhoods you would think you are in Baghdad, the roads look like they have been hit with mortar rounds. A Pettigrew Heights resident told me yesterday that there is no intention of fixing core neighborhood roads until 2023 and this is why the public works department doesn’t even bother with maintenance in that neighborhood.
I’m sorry, but when I hear about Federal money going towards butterfly houses and tennis courts it infuriates me. I have long argued lifting up and fixing our core neighborhoods should be the number one infrastructure priority. Not only does it help with combatting crime and poverty, it would be an enormous driver in supplying affordable housing and local construction jobs. The ROI with such an endeavor would be gigantic. Councilor Brekke actually brings it up during the episode. But instead we throw money at Foreign Egg Roll factories and more unneeded parking ramps.
Councilor Soehl brings up that it is hard for developers to build an affordable house. Hogwash. We could change zoning in Sioux Falls to allow half lots in the core. We could also build tiny houses or smaller one bedroom homes with NO garages.
The regular citizen in Sioux Falls no longer has a seat at the table. This is because apparently it costs $120k to win a city council race by 99 votes. Follow the money. If your last name doesn’t start with an S or L you are screwed.
Yesterday at the joint meeting, Lincoln County Commissioner Joel Arends tried to get out of planning staff (both city and county) where they came up with the 1,000 foot setback. Once they rolled out the Mariachi band and did an extensive dance, they still couldn’t give a reason. That’s because it was directly pulled from their behinds. Seeing they were not going to win that argument, the city attorney Paul Bengford decided to move the goal posts and say this was about meeting a deadline and newspapers and NOT the setback. It was quite the turd polishing, and exhibited just how inept our local government officials and appointed staff is.
I think they truly believe the public is that naïve.
But the best part was when Councilor Neitzert said it was ‘absurd’ to allow citizens to vote for the legalization of drugs (marijuana). Waiting for our elected officials to legalize it is even more absurd, because they would never act. I joked to someone before the vote in November that even if the Feds decriminalized MJ today and allowed states to regulate it would take South Dakota a decade to put in the regulations if you waited for the elected officials to act.
The only way anything beneficial to the citizens happens in this state is through direct democracy. Waiting for our representatives to help us is the true measure of absurdity and their war on the initiative and referendum process. Keep poking the bear, because that just emboldens us.
You gotta love it when Councilor Kiley’s strategy of telling half the story gets shot down. He often tells only partially what is going on to support his argument. Last night he tried to compare a wedding barn facility in rural Minnehaha County on a dirt township road to wedding barns annexed into the city limits. The problem is he left out the part they were annexed in the city limits. He also did this a few weeks ago when he tried to accuse councilor Starr of saying firefighters stand around too much. Starr did say that, but he wasn’t referring to fighting fires he was talking about mutual aid with calls of service for ambulance. In the past they had to wait for our rinky dink ambulance service to show up before administering care, now they are allowed to assist before they arrive eliminating them ‘standing around’ on ambulance calls. Kiley has been pulling his ‘half the truth’ arguments so long, he just can’t resist, unfortunately for him he failed last night and the rezone was approved. He probably told friends and colleagues after the meeting that he still prevailed because some of the votes were the same as his 🙂
Also the FAA told the private airport folks no dice. I knew they would, it’s just too close to other residential areas and as Greg Jamison pointed out the FAA says it would cause flight pattern issues with the main Sioux Falls airport. I guess those poor rich folks will still have to drive the whole 3 miles in their Range Rovers to Tea Town. I feel so bad for them . . . maybe we should start a Go Fund me for a valet service?
I also made some comments on agenda item #5 and some other ones about panhandling and TIFs during public input. I have been throwing around the idea of taking panhandlers to the neighborhoods our elected officials live in and let them ask for money there. That would be fun to watch.
While the almost 5 hour meeting last night had many fireworks from the Med MJ ordinance discussion (this was only 1st Reading) towards the beginning of the meeting they approved TIF #25 with almost zero discussion (they moved it up so the VIP wealthy developer getting a handout wouldn’t have to sit thru all the people’s REAL business).
Besides the same lame brain presentation from the Planning Director about the TIF itself only one speaker emerged to defend the TIF, and it wasn’t the developer. In fact the developer has said NOTHING about the TIF except when he made a presentation to the council at an informational meeting. His daughter did say a handful of words when the Planning Commission approved the TIF, but the developer himself has said NOTHING at the 2 readings of this ordinance. Not even a please and thank you for getting this handout that the rest of SF property tax payers will have to make up for. Of course, why should he? All of those negotiations were done in secret over the past several years, this is also why you didn’t hear a peep from the councilors either, just a gigantic sound of 7 whaps on the dais with a rubber stamp. (Marshall Selberg was absent)
Wouldn’t it be great if getting food stamps was that easy?
So who was the only defender last night? Joe Batcheller, Director of Downtown Sioux Falls. While Joe and I are on good terms, even if I disagree with him about bringing snakes to outdoor events (he thinks it is fine) 😊 we also disagree on TIFs. As a trained urban planner, Joe adamantly thinks they are good thing. He also even makes the tired old argument I hear councilors make ‘TIFs may not work well in other communities, but golly gee they work great here’. The problem with the argument is that we have NO economic or financial evidence of that, NO studies have been done on TIFs in SF or SD that shows an actual benefit to the public.
Which brings us to another point Joe made. He said this TIF was justified because we are getting a Return on Investment (ROI). I’m not sure a parking ramp (this is what most of the TIF will be spent on) that can only be used by the public on nights and weekends is much of an ROI when you consider that the Bunker Ramp is mostly empty at night and barely filled during the day, we will have another parking ramp sitting at the Sioux Steel Project and my long term argument is parking ramps really probably won’t be needed in the next decade. The irony of it all is that by the time this TIF runs out in approximately 20 years, it will probably NOT be a parking ramp.
Joe also made the argument that TIFs are not ‘Handouts’. I’m not sure what else you would call them. TIFs are essentially a tax rebate you get to use on your private property. The developer builds a parking ramp that they will be using during the day, and likely charge for access and they get that ramp paid for by getting a rebate on the $25 million dollar taxes they are supposed to be paying to the county, the school district and the city while raising taxes on the rest of us due to the total valuation of the project. It would be like you personally getting a $500 dollar property tax rebate to fix your front door. While that benefits YOUR property, it has very little benefit to the tax payers who have to pay their full tax bill, while also supplementing your rebate. Sure they throw us a few crumbs saying the TIF will also build roads (to their private project, to their benefit) and we get to use the parking for the Levitt (even though I have yet to see a parking issue at the concerts even when the lawn is packed) the true beneficiary of this REBATE is the developer and his investors, this is why it truly is a HANDOUT.
The most egregious part about the almost $200 million dollars in TIFs the city council has gleefully handed out this year is that this could ALL be done with private investment. The money is there. It has been proven by the past decade of record breaking building permits that have been issued to contractors in this city who have asked for ZERO tax breaks. Besides the public building permits, I think most of the private permits issued by the planning department are 100% privately funded. It would be a great presentation and study done by our Planning Department, but of course that would shoot holes in the whole NEEDING TIFs to succeed in Sioux Falls. Believe it or not, I think that is fantastic that private business, can invest privately while providing good jobs without a government HANDOUT.
Which brings us to Joe’s last point, that was so ridiculous when he said it, I laughed for about 5 minutes. Joe said it was important to remember that Cherapa II’s developer was taking on 100% of the risk for this approximately $350 million dollar project.
Really Joe?!!! He should be commended for that after getting this handout from the city?
Isn’t that how the Free Market system is supposed to work? Oh never mind, in Sioux Falls it’s called Developer Socialism. You give us massive tax breaks and we will make sure we spend it on us and never present data that shows otherwise.
And lastly, Jeff, a Thank You would have been nice.
Item #6, Approval of Contract, Sub-Item #12, $300K for Midco Aquatic Center Filter. Not sure if this is something that has to be done consistently, but that must be one hell of a filter for that kind of money.
Item #24, Village on the River moving another one of the Bunker Ramp liquor licenses
Item #25, Looks like Dave & Buster’s is parking their liquor license at a Casino. Don’t you love how they can just skirt the rules by moving the license to another address? No restrictions there but boy do we need to HAMMER on Med MJ!
Item #45 & 62-63, 2nd Reading and Resolutions of TIF #25, Cherapa II. This of course NOT needed and private investment could build this entire project, but when the city gives out TIFs like candy what do you expect? Continue to give the tax breaks to the wealthy developers thinking it will trickle down to the rest is futile.
Item #48-49, 2nd Reading, Supplemental appropriations from Covid money.
Item #50, 1st Reading, Platting of Rural areas, I am still researching this one, but I suspect this is the city stepping on Minnehaha County’s toes and trying to get platting fees from rural properties which is why the Sioux Falls Planning Commission voted down the next item;
Item #56, 1st Reading, Expansion of Wedding Barn. This is the project that the Planning Commission felt needed to pay city platting fees. We will see how the council handles this. While we give $200 Million in tax breaks to big developers we gotta find a way to stick it to the rural wedding barns. GEEESH!
Item #58, 1st Reading, Med MJ ordinance. I can’t wait to hear the discussion on this one or if any amendments will be presented or passed.
“It’s important that parents and people who have access to that know that this is still a dangerous substance,†TenHaken said.
It is probably the least dangerous plant based drug in the world. There has never been a recorded overdose of marijuana. In fact prescription opioids and alcohol is way more dangerous then Med MJ causing millions of overdoses and deaths. I struggle with how the mayor of the largest city in the state has ZERO understanding of this harmless plant based drug.
l3wis 