The Northwest Beekeepers Association is hosting a 10-hour “Introduction to Beekeeping Weekend Workshop” in Sioux Falls this Saturday and Sunday. The workshop fulfills the education requirement of Sioux Falls’ new honey bee ordinance. A portion of the workshop focuses on beekeeping in an urban environment. Here to provide more information on the workshop and the new ordinance are Tim Olsen, president of the Northwest Iowa Beekeepers Association, Julie DeYoung, an animal control supervisor with the City of Sioux Falls, and Theresa Stehly, an elected member of the Sioux Falls City Council.Â
The council had a presentation on the replacement of the cornice and parapet on the roof of the Pavilion. I won’t revisit that.
Several councilors, including councilor Erickson leading the charge pretty much said that the parapet probably doesn’t need to be replaced, and the architects admitted that it really doesn’t harm the historical designation.
I appreciate the honesty.
Then Rick Kiley opened his mouth. He said that he thinks people do care about the parapet replacement. Not sure if he took that poll from his butt, but I’m sure it wasn’t scientific.
During public input I reminded the council;
• The Washington Pavilion has taken the lion’s share of the entertainment tax for over 20 years.
• That tax should have sun-setted after the bonds were paid off, taking $10 million a year out of our private entertainment economy.
• The Pavilion’s attendance numbers haven’t really increased that much over the past 21 years.
• Why doesn’t the Pavilion raise money for capital improvements privately? The Zoo has raised millions for capital projects privately (taxpayers own the Zoo – just like we own the Pavilion).
• The roof and parapet should have been fixed when remodeling the facility, not 21 years later.
But what I said at the end was that Rick Kiley thinks people care about the project. I told him that most people don’t even know this discussion is going on, and most people don’t even know what the parapet is or that it is even exists, I stressed that while people are dodging pot holes in this city, they ‘don’t give a rip’ about parapets.
Questions about the ownership of a strip of land within the Sioux Steel Co. site in downtown Sioux Falls has created a new, unexpected hurdle for the proposed $185 million redevelopment of the property.
The land in question was once a channel of the Big Sioux River and has ownership origins that stretch back beyond South Dakota statehood all the way to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
Archived press clippings appear to indicate that the channel that separated Seney Island from the western bank of the Big Sioux River was filled in and, along with the former island, was turned into usable land in the early 1900s. Sioux Steel Co. has owned and operated on the site since 1918.
Officials in the state School and Public Lands and Attorney General’s offices are reviewing maps, historic documents and other information to determine whether the state may have a claim of ownership to the strip of land.
I’m not naive, I’m sure the State will probably come back and say they don’t have rights to it, or if they do, sell it for very little coin. I know how palms are greased in Pierre.
But what makes this story frustrating is with all of the people from the Sioux Steel Company, Lloyd Company and the city’s planning office, NO one came across this possible conflict? It took a hobbyist in history to find it?
Not to mention that around $3.5 million has already been spent on planning this project and NONE of these questions were asked before passing a $20 million dollar TIF.
Sometimes I think developers in this town just fly by the seat of their pants, cross their fingers and hope things turn out.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, it took over 13 years to put this project out there. I get it.
I could go into long rants about why that is, but to tell you the truth, I mostly forgot.
I also want to remind people this was a first attempt at something locally. We all did not know what the Hell we were doing, but we all knew what we were passionate about, visual art and music.
I think the idea was cooked up one day while hanging out with Eyob. I had done a couple ‘Art of Jazz’ shows at the Touch of Europe (painting while music played) and people really dug it. So Eyob says to me, “Why not film it?”
Okay.
So we pitched the idea to a videographer friend Chris who worked at a local TV station at the time, she was cool with it. She recruited some of her colleagues to help with the filming.
And I have to give props to Chris, I think she had to go thru 25 hours of footage to get this down to 1 hour. I believe there was 5 cameras for 5 hours.
It’s certainly not a Warhol film. But it was a nice experiment. All or most of the paintings sold, I think there was 14. The main one I believe with the reclined torso is in the bathroom at Zandbroz. And I remember admiring it one day while dropping the kids off at the pool.
I also want to thank our sound engineer, Dave Scarborough, I often tell people the audio from this is a masterpiece in itself. I have the full 5 hours on CD. At the time, these were the finest Jazz and Blues musicians in the city (if not the state), some of them still are, and I think this is more of film about their extraordinary talents than a bunch of hooligans painting.
Sandra and James were also extremely accommodating in letting us use the basement of the Harvestor building. When I asked them if we could do it there, they pretty much said ‘Cool’. They used to own the Riverwalk Cafe which featured local musicians which is now the Market, you know that place that makes prize winning burgers or something.
There were also tons of great volunteers who helped out with many things, including Little ‘T’ and Charles Luden with photography.
I guess I just decided after 13 years or so it was time to show others, because art doesn’t mean a damn thing if you are painting in your basement by yourself (As an artist friend told me once) oh the irony of this being filmed in a basement.
Jesse is actually the one who encouraged me to put it out there (who was super sick with the flu during the filming) but stole the show with so many hot licks. I would also like to thank Cameraman Bruce for rendering it for me.
A lot of people these days are all about promoting the arts in Sioux Falls, which is great, but they talk a lot, I sometimes get bitter, then laugh a little and say to myself, “Yeah, that’s what I have been saying for 20 years.”
The best part (besides the fact that I’m a lot lighter these days) is that I still know most of the people in this project and talk to them on a regular basis, they are friends in art, and those friends I will always hold dear. As I often tell people, “All of my heros are artists.”
In this day in age when politicians say one thing and do the exact opposite, it seems like the new norm. In a press release Jensen was bragging about the ‘business elite’ endorsements he received (because you know their vote counts more than yours – LOL) and said this;
As a city councilor, Alex will work to keep taxes low, while understanding the critical need to invest in the future.
While in the legislature, Alex voted for one of the highest sales tax increases in the history of the state, which has been a complete failure in supporting education and teacher pay, and has yet to be repealed or amended.
If Jensen gets on the city council, I expect him to do as the RS5 has done for several years, vote for large tax and fee increases at the detriment of the working Janes and Joes while the business elite (who endorsed him) enjoy their corporate welfare, tax breaks, taxpayer incentives and TIFs.
You can say you are going to keep taxes low, but your record says a different thing. Better wear garlic on election day.
l3wis 