A source that follows crime closely in Sioux Falls told me that the home that exploded was a ‘squatter’ house and that the SFPD responded to a call there just the week before to throw out some squatters. I’m not sure if that was the case. I’m sure the ATF investigation will find a cause of the explosion.
The news out of Sioux City and across the nation is talking about the Dean Foods disaster – bankruptcy causing it to likely be sold to another farmer based COOP like it was originally. The greed of the management team which took over the Land O’ Lakes cooperative years ago as a private company was the underlying cause of this bankruptcy. Milk market changes were secondary to the greed of the management / investment group. The Sioux Falls WinChill operation was a way for Blue Bunny to escape Minnesota and Iowa personal property (inventory) tax yearly bill.
LE MARS, Iowa — Dean Foods, America’s biggest milk processor and owner of a large plant in Le Mars, Iowa, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday amid a steep, decades-long drop-off in U.S. milk consumption blamed on soda, juices and, more recently, nondairy substitutes.
The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing cooperative owned by thousands of farmers. It was not immediately clear what such a move might mean for the company’s Northwest Iowa plant, which makes products for retailers and other customers.
“Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption,” Dean Foods CEO Eric Berigause said in a statement.
Since 1975, the amount of milk consumed per capita in America has tumbled more than 40%, a slide attributed to a number of reasons but mostly the rise of so many other choices, including teas, sodas, juices and almond and soy milk.
That has hit dairy farms and milk sellers hard, leading some smaller family farmers to quit the business.
Another blow to Dean Foods came when Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Indiana last year.
Dean Foods has lost money in eight of its last 10 quarters and posted declining sales in seven of the last eight.
I do know that WinChill is and has been diversifying their services (in other words they don’t just store ice cream and milk – I guess Smithfield has been using them to). But this will certainly be a big hit for them.
In his latest podcast, Hudson kicks out a busload of people who supported the Bunker Ramp. Amen!
Oh, the irony. Just a few days after I did a post about Mayor TenHaken’s speaking engagements instead of citizen engagements, he takes this picture.
Surprised he would even show up to a dinner honoring law enforcement after stiffing the police union and struggling with his campaign promise of cleaning up crime in this town.
I wonder if they served him a plate of crow last night?
Part of the extra $1.5 million of the extra money needed, approved by the Sioux Falls City Council tonight was $467K in ‘Demobilization’ fees. What is this? We are being charged to take down the crane and for them to clean up the site because the hotel is NOT being built. First off, this ‘fee’ should have been in the final costs already, and we shouldn’t be paying for this with extra funding. The developer, contractor and CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk) should be paying this, this is why we hire them – TO TAKE ON THE RISK. While I understand we have to ‘fill holes’ and provide safety issues at the facility to get it open, taking down a construction crane is NOT our problem. The CMAR, supposed developer and contractor can hash out that on their own.
Of course, the excuses were flying like the back blades on a manure spreader on an early Spring day, why WE should have to pay for this.
The finance director said the crane had to be taken down and site cleanup to open the ramp. Duh. This would have had to happen whether we built the hotel on top or not, and should have already been budgeted for.
Stehly said during the discussion, there have been very few answers about the demobilization fees. She tried to amend it by taking off the $500K and no one seconded the motion, so it failed.
Only councilors Starr and Brekke had anything to put in towards the discussion.
Towards the end, Brekke said that her ‘hands were clean’ in the matter. I guess Neitzert was making fun of her by whispering to Marshall asking for some soap as they proceeded to pretend to wash their hands (I didn’t catch it on camera, so I’m not sure what he was doing) but Starr commented before the vote, “. . . I wanted to tell Councilor Neitzert that I do have some soap and some hand sanitizer and if you want to sit in leadership and make fun of people while they are making a speech, go for it.”
LOL.
There was NO response from Neitzert.
l3wis