Probably one of the main reasons peeps did not vote in the city election and recent primaries is because the government doesn’t engage them. They have no clue of what is going on so why vote?

I will give you an example. I like to ride around town at night and look at public/private partnerships. It is intriguing to me how some partners really take it one step further and some just cash the check and say, oh well.

So I was riding on the river greenway tonight by the Steel District project admiring the cheap exterior elements 🙁 and some random dude in a random car (not security) told me I needed to leave the PRIVATE property. I told him it was NOT private property and pointed to the greenway while I was sitting on a public street attached to a parking ramp that got a $25 million dollar TIF.

He wanted to argue, but I informed him I was sitting on public property and had every right to be there. He didn’t know what to say except, “This is private property.”

It just goes to show just how little the general public knows. We are paying for that patio, we are paying for the infrastructure, we own that damn project whether we like it or not yet some clown in a random car needed to somehow school me. Poor fella.

UPDATE: I just got a tip this morning that the project for the RR Redevelopment will be requesting a TIF. With inflation and property taxes going thru the roof this is a horrible time to be handing out TIFS. 80% of property taxes in SF are paid by residential property owners. Why are we subsidizing parking ramps for NOT workforce or even low income housing!?

Maybe we could afford a food tax cut, if we would just stop giving these Developer Welfare Queen Grifters massive tax breaks! Want to jump start the economy in SF, lower property taxes and stop giving OUT GODDAMN TIFS! THEY DO NOT WORK!

Still waiting for that independent comprehensive study on TIFs in Sioux Falls and the State. Oh that’s right, we can’t do a study showing how awful they are, then we would have to stop handing them out to our friends.

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At the informational meeting (Wednesday) the city council will get an update on our public transit system and an update on the supposed development directly east of the 8th & RR Building. It seems they will contract with a developer from Des Moines (you can see they do the boring crap SF likes). I do know that some local developers proposed some housing in the area and their RFP was declined and it wasn’t Lloyd 🙂

At the regular meeting, also on Wednesday, they will be voting on sending the tiny house community more money (Item #46, 1st reading);

This ordinance will provide an additional $200,000 of funding for the ongoing construction of the Veterans Community Project tiny home village. The funding will come from the restricted cash balance, in the General Fund, set aside by Ordinance 52-23 – Liquor License Proceeds.

I supported this project initially, but over the past couple of years I have gotten suspicious of this private non-profit. I have asked several friends who work with or at the VA and DAV if they work with this group and they said NO. I have also asked people who work at affordable housing solutions if they work with the group and they said NO. So why are we giving them money? And why don’t they work with veterans and housing partners? Seems odd to me you call yourself a Veteran’s Community but you don’t work with some of the largest Veteran organizations in our country.

I also see we are taking the money out of the Liquor License Fund. I thought that money was going to be used for youth prevention? Maybe we should use the money to give every adult a beer at the July 4th hot dog festival. Makes about as much sense.

Remember when the news only covered random plants growing from the street . . .

A city councilor sent me this last night;

I’m considering putting together a 3 month task group to look at plurality/majority/approval voting, vote centers and moving date to match primary. Not sure where I stand on primary date and approval voting but I want to push the discussion.

It is worth the discussion for sure.

This is a reaction to the last election being so poorly attended. There are many factors as to why the turnout was so low. Closed government is the main reason, but there are several.

I am opposed to having the election during the primary because that is a partisan election. Just look at the ballot in Sioux Falls today, good luck finding a Democrat or Indy, it’s ALL Republicans. So bad idea. Indies and Dems would stay home.

I live in District 10 and the only person on the ballot was Democratic candidate for president (I am a registered Indy, and the Dems are nice enough to let me vote with them 🙂 even though the state party has turned into a bunch of agists (I guess age discrimination is okay with them).

It would also be confusing to voters as to why some candidates have a letter behind their name and some don’t. I think if we had open primaries it would work because it takes the partisanship out of the election, but I am not sure it will pass in November, people in both party’s leadership seem to be opposed. Since they made the change in Alaska they have seen more common sense, moderate candidates from both parties and the extremists seem to be thrown to the wayside. WE NEED THAT IN SOUTH DAKOTA! Sixty years of one-party rule has only held our state back. That and they like to destroy taxpayer property with holy water 🙁

Vote centers sound good in concept, but they usually just confuse voters. Keep consistent precincts and polling locations and that would improve voter turnout. Give them more places to vote, not less.

So a foot soldier googled ‘—- ——-‘s watch’ and the picture below popped up. This person has made themself very rich in SF by harvesting email addresses. They like to show off their toys. I think he should have taken the picture in front of a microwave instead 🙂 oh, and pick up some hand lotion.