I got a call late last night from a friend who was chided into going to a country western concert fundraiser for veteran suicide prevention at the Alliance.
He said while it was a good cause and all, he got a good laugh at Poops’ speech (while wearing a cowboy hat) talking about how Sioux Falls is a drinker town and in some weird way should be celebrated, talking about how the Events Center broke a record for most beer sold at a country concert.
While there is a lot of truth to that, not sure what that has to do with suicide prevention. But hey, this is the same guy who didn’t sign up for Covid and said this is a nice town to be homeless in, you know, because of all our fine drinking opportunities.
As I suspected yesterday, an announcement was made that a settlement was reached in the Bunker Ramp debacle.
But was it a good settlement for the taxpayers? Hardly.
Fortunately the only good thing to come from today’s announcement is that it is finally over and it took a mayor almost his entire first term to write a check from our bank account to a failed developer who defrauded us.
The developer(s) didn’t do it on their own, they had the help of two mayors and several former and current city councilors who have yet to apologize to us for the terrible decision they made based on fraudulent information and even obvious information that investing with this group was a bad idea.
I remember sitting in the council chambers listening to citizen (item #44) after citizen come to the podium and plead with the city council to not do this. But even after that initial approval, a second mayor had an opportunity to undue the bad decision of the last mayor and councilors.
He chose to steam ahead because the banksters and bondsters involved needed to make their buck from the bonds. We could have refused the bond and paid a fine and moved on.
Councilors Starr and Stehly tried to do just that and were scoffed at. I told Starr today if any taxpayer asks you about why this sloppy settlement was done this way all he has to say is, “I didn’t vote for it. Go talk to the councilors that did.”
But what makes this announcement even more egregious is listening to what the city attorney and mayor said about the settlement;
“For that reason, the settlement agreement includes reimbursement of $500,000 from the city of Sioux Falls to VRG for a portion of the hard costs it’s leaving on-site, and reimbursement of the $150,000 developer fee previously paid to the city,” TenHaken said.
What about the additional costs to taxpayers to seal off empty floors with cinder block since the developer never finished the project?
Also our litigations costs of $300K.
And why are we paying those costs and the cost of the settlement out of, I am assuming, the general fund? Shouldn’t it come out of the Parking Enterprise funds?
Like I said, glad this is finally kind of over with (we still need to find someone to complete it) but the way this was handled says tons and tons about how the majority of the city council and this mayor has ran this city the past four years . . . on perpetual cruise control and little else.
There has been a rumor floating around today that Mayor TenHaken plans to have a news conference tomorrow afternoon at around 2 PM at City Hall concerning a new development downtown.
I guess a deal has been in the works to finish off the rest of the Railroad Redevelopment site just east of the 8th and RR Building. The two proposals floating out there are workforce housing (market rate apartments) and luxury condos. I can’t tell who the competing developers are or if this is what the rumored press conference is about, but the timing of this supposed press conference is interesting considering the council suddenly posted today they are having a 1 PM working session on Friday, that has NO public agenda items except public input and they go directly into executive session. Maybe they should have just called a City Council Poetry Reading since I find it laughable they are calling a faux working session so they can be told something privately.
These folks are so sloppy.
Councilors and council staff are not allowed to tell the public what goes on during the session, but I can make some guesses. It could be about the development Poops may announce (sneakily telling council only a few minutes before he announces a proposal to the public) or it could be a settlement has been reached with the Bunker Ramp and that could be the ultimate announcement?
My head has been spinning for weeks while watching Paul pack 4 years of his do nothing term (that he didn’t sign up for) into a few weeks of getting something done. Maybe he will announce he is cancelling the election because his opponents don’t have a snowball’s chance?
You won’t see it on the end of the video we downloaded (it was edited out) but as you can see from the screenshot below it had an unusual ending;
The city did eventually upload to their YouTube channel, but before that it was ONLY on FB. Bruce Danielson who owns and operates the SouthDacola YouTube channel that I link to frequently downloads from FB videos. He does NOT and never has had a FB account, so he was surprised when at the end of the SOC address video post on the City’s official FB page an ad/video for some kind of butt spray paint appears. Not sure why that happened, but it makes you wonder who uploaded the video to FB:) Was it a city employee or one of Paul’s campaign goons? And Bruce, if you are secretly looking for butt spray paint, we need to have a serious heart to heart conversation. LMFAO!
TenHaken announced he will be proposing to the Public Transit Advisory Board and City Council to make the public transit system free to kids citywide.
Hey great idea, wonder where it came from? Oh that’s right, I wrote about it here. I won’t take credit, I was alerted about this from a citizen advocate, Cathy Brechtelsbauer, and after I blogged about it I contacted Sioux Falls School Board President Cynthia Mickelson about Cathy’s idea and she started collaborating with a couple of city councilors, as far as I know they have already been trying to draw up an ordinance to do it, but like most of Poops ideas he lifts them from other people, you know like precincts, uh, I mean, report-to-work stations 🙂
So I have been getting several calls today about what Poops said about the Wastewater Treatment Plant in this interview yesterday;
TenHaken says city is trying to remain cognizant of rising inflation
But as he looked toward the next year, he said the city is also trying to remain cognizant of rising inflation and that many people are dealing with “incredible monetary tension” at the moment as they consider any sort of city fees or rate increases.
It’s hitting the city, too. TenHaken said groundbreaking on the expansion of the city’s wastewater plant has been postponed as “historic price escalations” began piling up. “We’re not ready to break ground yet,” TenHaken said, “because we still got a lot of pencil sharpening to do now based on the price escalation we’re seeing.”
To be honest with you, it surprised me also. The city has bonded $260 Million dollars for the plant, and has been working on it (not sure what the groundbreaking is about). The city has been spending the money and construction has begun. I look at this project as essential for growth, and it should have been started 10 years ago. Why didn’t that happen? Well because Huether put it off so he could bond for the Midco, City Admin, Bunker Ramp and Events Center. Ten Haken continued with the Bunker Ramp and has been handing out TIFs and other Booty Prizes like a drunken pirate, including $10 million last night to DSU.
There is absolutely no reason this project should be stalled and the contractors need to be held to their bid obligations. You also have to take into account that this department in the city is funded mostly by FEES and not taxes because it is an enterprise fund, and our fees have been drastically raised to help pay the bonds on this. If we need to take money from the 2nd penny to finish it, we have to do it, plain and simple.
Still curious why the public and council have not been alerted about a pause on a $260 million dollar essential infrastructure project? Oh, I forgot, it’s that transparency thing the administration hates so much.
l3wis 
