Parking Rate hikes just don’t add up

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The more I think about this proposal, the more I question this increase;

“Our system is more than 90 percent full. It will be 100 percent full most likely in the next two years before we can open a new parking ramp,” said Darrin Smith, Sioux Falls Community Development Director.

Projects like the new ramp cost money. That’s why the city is proposing a rate change in Downtown Sioux Falls.

WOW! Where do we begin?

• We tear down a parking ramp that was useful and sell it for $1.

• We are going to be 100% full in two years yet the parking ramp the city is paying for is for a private hotel and apartments, with only about 3-5% useable by the public.

• The city will be leasing the parking ramp to these private entities. Shouldn’t that lease payment cover the bond payments? If not, why not? What is the benefit to the public to build a private parking ramp that the public can’t use most of the time and make us take care of the short fall on the bond payments?

This whole thing stinks to high Heaven, and I hope the council removes their heads from their asses and votes this increase down and demands the parking department adjust the lease payments to cover the bonds, or better yet, make the PRIVATE development build their own damn parking ramp. Let free enterprise work for itself, otherwise it’s just parking socialism. Maybe we should call it ‘Obama-park’?

Posted in: Developers, Development, Downtown Sioux Falls, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls City Council Informational meeting, Parking Hikes, Cell Phone Ban, Platting fee disappearance, and calling a Spade a Spade.

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It seems the city council just can’t drop the cell phone ban (even though they already did). At the advice of our City Attorney Loophole David Fiddle-Faddle (who wasn’t present) he previously told council chair Anderson that the only thing the council could do is ask for an advisory vote, and if the majority voted in favor of the ban, it would go back to the council to approve the ordinance, which in turn is no different then what they were proposing to do anyway. I think it should be an initiative process and be citizen driven. Councilor Karsky seemed to be the only voice of reason on the council, pointing out that hands free or not, there is no difference in distraction. This is turning into a real cluster, and the one councilor who championed this to begin with was very quiet on the topic yesterday (Erpenbach, or as Mr. Ideals Anderson calls Michelle, ERF-EN-Bach.)

Anderson also pointed out during the monthly financial report that the platting fees and .08 tax collection for arterial roads had mysteriously disappeared from the reports. Probably they are tired of Anderson pointing out how much of a disastrous idea it was.

Councilor Jamison takes over as the school marm (since she was peepless) during the meeting and reminds director Kearney that the Indoor Pool is not being paid for with ‘cash’ but with paid back ‘borrowed money’ (levee repayment) and in the future he asked Don to refer to it that way. Don just mumbled a yes back to him.

But the shocker of the meeting was when a parking consultant arrived with all new parking fees, and mysteriously the director of parking, Q-Tip Smith, was not even in attendance to introduce them or answer questions.

Smart move Darrin.

Just a few years back the parking department bragged about being an enterprise fund that made the city so much money they could afford to buy scooters for the meter maids and gents and re-brand the whole system (look for the gold ‘P’). But all of sudden fast forward to the city’s largest budget ever and the mayor trying to grab from every cookie jar possible to pay for unneeded TIF’s and parking ramps for private businesses. While they are proposing to decrease some monthly rates in the ramps (to better fill them) they are proposing a large increase in parking meters (side streets from 60 cents to 75, and main roads from 75 cents to $1 per hour). Besides the fact that I find these hikes questionable since the system makes so much money (I think this is a back door plan to help pay for bonds on a new ramp for a private business) I have often said if we want to increase traffic downtown and promote it’s growth, we should make all ramps free and only charge at meters on main arterials (like Phillips and Main).

It will be interesting to see how the council plays this one out, and if director Smith decides to show up to answer questions.

 

Posted in: SF City Council, Sioux Falls

What will the downtown Sioux Falls ‘Banks’ project cost taxpayers?

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While the media and the city have been busy showing us pretty pictures of the project, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

What we do know is that the project is projected to cost around $40 million, it will have 600 public parking spaces, it will have a partially public rooftop park and it will require demolition of a few buildings to construct.

Questions,

-What kind of reimbursement will the city receive for the façade it paid for in 2007 for the building that is being demolished?

-How much money will taxpayers be putting towards the project? Will it be a loan, a TIF or a one-time payment (rumored number is $10 million)? Where will the money come from? Reserves? Bonds?

-If we are giving 25% towards the funding of the project, will the city actually OWN 25% of the building (for instance, the parking ramp portion)

-How will property taxes be assessed if we own a portion of the building? Or will we lease? And if we are leasing, why would we help fund the project?

-What is the real economic impact of the project? Besides the few hundred temp jobs it will provide in construction, how many permanent jobs? Or mostly low-paying hospitality part-time jobs?

Too often we find the ‘Devil is in the Details’. Remember the supposed $4 million dollar TIF Dunham requested for the COSTCO project that quickly got reduced after all the facts came out? If we move forward on this project like our fine mayor, planning department and community development departments usually do in a non-transparent manner – the taxpayers of the city may be getting the shaft at the end of the day.

I encourage the city council to study the options closely, and make sure the taxpayers of this town are not once again handing out money and tax breaks like candy to the developer welfare class of our community.

 

Posted in: Developers, Development, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

The Downtown SF Parking Dilemma

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Recently a DT business owner told me about a meeting he had with the city about parking for DT business owners and their employees. His beef first off, is that the parking ramp fee is outrageous. Over $700 a year. Secondly, he feels that parking should be either FREE or heavily discounted for DT business owners and their employees. Why? first off because DT business owners collect sales taxes for the city, and secondly, city employees who work DT have FREE parking. So while the city requires all other DT employees to pay for their parking (or their employer), city employees do not. So while DT business owners collect sales taxes for the city, we subsidize the city employee’s parking.

I am not sure where I stand on the issue, but I have often said, to promote DT we should make all of the parking ramps DT free all of the time, and just have metered parking on the streets.

I asked him how the meeting went, he said something like,

“I was the last person in the room when it was over with.”

Posted in: Sioux Falls

Is the organization Downtown Sioux Falls ineffective? Seems so.

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dtsf-logo

Over the past few years I have heard constant complaints from downtown business owners about the org DTSF. The same crap is heard frequently;

• What do they do with their membership fees?

• Why did they move all the festivals to 4th and Phillips?

• Why do they charge so much for a booths during festivals?

• What really is their purpose?

• What do they spend their money on?

A few years back some DT business owners discussed starting their own group ran only by them, the idea fizzled, well, because DT business owners work their asses off and don’t have time for it. Downtown SF will argue they are a lobbying entity that gets things for DTSF, you know, like gigantor expensive planters that actually take up too much space. Or handouts in the form of ‘grants’ to a select few DT property owners who need new windows so they can sell more tobacco and liquor. While I understand paying lobbyists, we also expect those lobbyists to do something for that money.

Let’s take this winter storm for example. It seems Public Works found all kinds of time to plow the entire f’ing city, but they could not plow DT before Saturday evening? It’s not like this was some crappy Saturday night at the end of January, it was the day after Christmas! No spaces DT were plowed but to make it worse, the city decided to plow in front of the parking ramp entrances, so you couldn’t even get into them to park. A result was most DT businesses were closed Saturday Night. I know for a fact that Minervas, Touch of Europe and Sushi Masa were all closed.

But I don’t blame the city street removal on this one, I blame DTSF for not getting on the horn. Really?! How long would it have taken to plow Phillips avenue four blocks and clean out the entrances to the parking ramps? Idiots. I kinda wonder how many thousands of dollars of revenue was lost at DT businesses because of it.

If I were the next mayor, I would disband DTSF – they suck.

Posted in: Downtown Sioux Falls