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Sioux Falls

Bunker Ramp SF City Council Sioux Falls

Bunker Ramp extra funds approved 6-1 (Stehly dissenting, Soehl absent)

l3wis 11Comments

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.

Bunker Ramp Downtown Sioux Falls Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Planning Commission Member Luetke has interesting response to parking ramp debacle on FB

l3wis 5Comments

I’m going to break his comment up into pieces since it is kind of long, and I will add my commentary. This is from Planning Commission member Larry Luetke responding to a post Councilor Stehly had on FB about the Bunker Ramp;

Larry Luetke I really think there is more to this story. The city cuts off communication with their partners two weeks before their deadline of 30 days to respond to changes with the project. It is stated in the contract that the city must respond within the 30 days. Either ok with the change, a modification or build what they were supposed too. There was no response back to them and contract was cut. It is fine if you don’t agree with the company that got it but there was a contract that was signed. Which puts us at citizens liable. Reading through the contract I don’t see where the city will win this one (I am not a lawyer). Which will put us liable for a lot of stuff beyond the 1.5 million that is short.

I’m with Larry on this one (I am also not a lawyer) but I do agree that modifying a contract is NOT unheard of, and when you cut off communication early, some wonder if something else was going on behind the scenes (not like that ever happens in city government 🙂

I think what is best for us is to allow the modifications to the project and allow the developer to start building. The lawsuit will cost us so much more.

He is absolutely correct, but we should have never taken out the bonds to begin with, and we should have halted this until we had substantial proof that the investment dollars were there from the developers. All we got was a lousy piece of paper that basically amounted to a IOU note in your piggy bank similar to when one of your older siblings stole from you.

Once finished it will bring in sales tax revenue and property tax to the city and county. Currently as a parking ramp it will pay no sales tax, no property tax and we will collect a minimal amount of parking fees.

As taxpayers, I never thought we would make much on this anyway, completed or NOT. This is why the city needed the 2nd Penny for collateral, because like most other projects we have bonded for over the past 20 years, we have had to have the 2nd Penny pay the mortgage. We have a very solid track record of multiple projects that will NEVER pay for themselves, such as the Pavilion, Events Center, MAC, Orpheum, etc.

I feel that it is our best interest in allowing the developer to move forward with their project. Some questions I would ask our city officials. If there was a meeting at one of the country clubs about another downtown hotel project in which a person said that we need to keep this quiet for a couple of weeks (which is the same time frame of when the city was not responding to their partner). Also a rumor is that the hotel project that I was just talking about was also in question of not being done because of the Village on the River project would be finished first and the other hotel would saturate the downtown hotel market. So because of that a certain project downtown would not move forward. The information I just stated is third hand but really has made me question what the real issue of why the city did not respond to their partner Village on the River.

I have no idea what project Larry is talking about, but if I was going to bet my ass on a guesstimation it would be the hotel and convention center Sioux Steel in partnership with Lloyd is proposing on that redevelopment project. But at this point, just pure speculation.

Also based on the contract the contractor is the one responsible for the performance bond. What I have heard from a partner of the developer is that this project is still a go with the modifications once the city agrees to their modifications. With the modifications they have more hotel rooms then proposed even without the extra two stories. Just as a disclaimer I have nothing to do with this project but feel based on my research and hear say we as citizens will be the burden of costs if we don’t allow this project to move forward.

Well, I hate to break it to you Larry, but the taxpayers were and are getting stiffed on this project either way. We were never going to get the parking spots we needed publicly, we paid too much for the spaces and foundation, the lease was a steal, and it is being built in the wrong place.

I will stay with my original emotions on this project – it was a bad idea out of the gate and should have NEVER even made it to a city council agenda. Thanks to Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut, another money sucking project he cooked up that is screwing over the constituents.

Sioux Falls Washington Pavilion

It took the Pavilion 20 years to break their own attendance record

l3wis 4Comments

And I’m about to tell you why it took so long;

More than 100,000 visitors have passed through the Pavilion’s doors this year. That’s 4,000 more than the previous record which was set in 2000.

So why did this take 20 years?

When the Pavilion opened they hosted many FREE events, such as various community concerts. They also had special deals to get into the Kirby Science Center. But one of the greatest things that encouraged attendance was a FREE visual arts center (except for special and international exhibits). It was a promise they made to the public who was helping to fund the facility (we still do, to the tune of millions each year in an operation’s subsidy and maintenance – we own the building).

But this wasn’t just for the people who appreciated visual art, this was done to get people thru the door and exposing them to the arts who normally would not. Then they might stroll over to the Kirby Science Center or buy a ticket to a show or movie, or visit the gift shop.

Currently, the Pavilion holds very few FREE events. I think First Friday is the only time you can walk thru the VAC for free. Heck, it has been so long since I have been enticed to go there, I couldn’t tell you. I do know they have special deals for seniors and veterans to.

The Pavilion needs to reopen the VAC for free again, but I doubt they will, since they wouldn’t want to break with their tradition of only catering to a the ‘specials’ in town that can afford it, while the rest of us foot the bill and hope some crumbs fall to the floor for us once in awhile.

Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Is TenHaken the Mayor or a Public Lecturer?

l3wis 2Comments

There has been a lot discussion in the local media about the lack of communication and openness from Mayor Paul. Recently, instead of holding a press conference to discuss the parking ramp ordeal and answer questions from the media, Paul shot a YouTube/Facebook video.

Some in the media were not to happy about it. And getting information from his secretary, or two chiefs of staff is next to impossible (all with a combined salary of over $300K – Now that’s our tax dollars hard at work).

A friend said to me today at brunch something intriguing. He first asked/stated that there probably isn’t that many people in Sioux Falls that follow city government that closely. I told him my guess is around 3,500 adults (I won’t get into how I came up with that number – that’s a whole other topic). Then he stated the obvious (and this is coming from a conservative). “Why not just put the information out there? With so few people even following city government, how would this hurt TenHaken?” I agreed, and said it wouldn’t, it would actually make government better and put more trust in our local elected officials, even if you disagree with their policy decisions, you can at least respect them for telling us the truth.

But folks, it is hard to get the back room deals done when you do them in the front room. (Remember, PTH is the one who assisted Pitty Patt in trying to hide his campaign consulting business website using musical computer servers. Pitty was working for the SOS Gant as Deputy SOS at the time and PTH was running ClickRain and we saw Pitty’s political business as a conflict of interest).

Have you noticed that Paul hasn’t really held a press conference (where he talked about a city issue and ANSWERED QUESTIONS from the media) in a very long time. The only exception would be the tornado press conferences that he was kind of forced into doing. All his other ‘speaking engagements’ have been to ‘special groups’. Whether that is the Chamber Annual Meeting, a tech conference, or reading to school kids. And hey, who am I to tell the Mayor he shouldn’t do those events? I think he should. But he also should have regular press conferences, at least once a month where he fields questions from reporters and citizens. He seems to like to do a lot of videos from his garage and talk to business leaders in town, but I find it extremely ‘odd’ that someone who is supposed to be our ‘cultural leader’ of our city can’t face the public and the 4th Estate when tough issues arise, and what is even more troublesome is that he has three capable communication folks working for him who can’t do it either.

As mayor of this city or any city your main purpose should be COMMUNICATION & TRANSPARENCY, after that everything else is a cake walk. And Mr. Mayor, you are failing miserably at it.

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