Amber Hansen, Reyna Hernandez and Darcy Millette sent the statement to Sioux Falls Live in advance of a meeting of the Visual Arts Commission, which meets at 9 a.m.
“We are grateful to the Sioux Falls Arts Council, the Visual Arts Commission, and MarketBeat for their support during the city’s selection process for the 10th Street parking garage mural. As of now, we do not know the reason behind the Mayor’s decision to override the VAC’s unanimous selection of our design, ‘Buffalo Dreamer.’
“As local artists and community focused muralists, we are disappointed by the exploitation of time, energy, and resources that the city’s process demanded from those it claims to serve. Despite our disappointment in what has transpired, we are hopeful that this experience ignites a conversation surrounding issues of transparency and systemic power plays concerning who determines and shapes the arts and culture in the city of Sioux Falls and throughout the state of South Dakota.”
I was glad to see they acknowledged their disappointment in the process. What has NOT surfaced is the actual rejected image. I doubt we will ever see it.
This is why I have pushed back on the mayor having a full-time arts coordinator in his office. Decisions about public art should take a village, not a dictator.
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The VAC will be meeting at 9 AM at the City Center Admin building downtown in City Center Conference Room 110. There isn’t really anything special about the agenda except for public input could get interesting.
There has been a lot of hoopla surrounding the rejected Bunker Ramp mural project. But without knowing what the rejected mural looks like (there have been several accusations that it was insensitive towards Native Americans and the LGBTQ+ community) it is hard to make a judgement call as to if this all to do about nothing.
Some have said that the image cannot be released due to artist permissions and copyright infringement, but my experience with being in a juried exhibit or competition those rights can be waived. I have not seen the image but I encourage the artists to release the image to the public so that the public can make that call.
Transparency goes a long ways, and in the case of rejected art, showing the image to the public would bring a greater understanding of what the artists intended and what the jurors and mayor perceived.
I doubt these three artists worked this hard to win the selection only to dupe the public into a secret plan to offend them with controversial art. If you think that you truly are ignorant to how the process of creating art works. It’s not like they suggested putting a statue of a naked dude in DTSF for 50 years.
I struggle with the notion that 6 members of the VAC who unanimously approved the initial concept would be so naive to move forward with a piece of art that would offend a certain group of people.
Me thinks the only people offended by the concept are not really affected by it’s message just butt hurt they were NOT honored and obeyed.
*for the record, I found out about this when a friend of mine casually said, ‘Have you heard what is going on with the parking ramp mural?’ I said no. So I decided to go read the agenda minutes from the VAC meetings and found a missing narrative in the January meeting. Not only were the minutes initially missing as to what the planning director discussed about the mural, the agenda page incorrectly listed it as a Jan 11 meeting instead of Jan 17. I contacted someone who may have been in attendance and they confirmed to me that the planning director came to the meeting and told the VAC the mayor had selected the other mural concept. This is another reason I have suggested that ALL city board/commission meetings be recorded and live streamed on YouTube.
The Mayor has the right to reject the recommendation, just like the city council has the right to reject zoning proposals from the planning commission. What he cannot do is bully all of the participants that were involved in this long and complicated process.
Item 6, Sub-Item 22; Entertainment Facilities, Washington Pavilion Building Improvements – Balustrade and Cornice Remodel; To award a bid, McGill Restoration, Inc., $5.9 Million, There is available budget to award this bid out of the Washington Pavilion CIP budget. (this is code for ‘entertainment tax’ the slush fund the Pavilion and city have been using to make repairs to the city owned facility. I have argued for a long time that they could just remove the bad balustrades and plug the holes for a lot less, even though the contractors say otherwise. No one would know any different if they were removed permanently. This should have been done 20 years ago when the problem came up, but now we are looking for a $6 million dollar fix while the Pavilion’s management sits on over $5 million in a savings account. The image below is a photoshop rendition of what the Pavilion would look like without the balustrades. While the city decries tax cuts in their legislative priorities, they seem to have plenty of money for glamor and appearance projects.
Items 20-86 (there are several VL lottery requests in the wake of the recent cap. I implore the council to pull each license and vote on them individually).
Item #96, 2nd Reading: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY AMENDING CHAPTER 37: TAXATION. Sponsor, Mayor, Background & Objective: The proposed changes are a result of the work done by Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. on the Main Street Sioux Falls Business Improvement District Growth Plan. The Plan proposes additional and enhanced services to best position downtown for growth and to address common issues. Additional funding would be generated by these proposed amendments to achieve the additional and enhanced services. (After this was explained to me, I support the amendments even, but you have to wonder why the mayor is sponsoring a tax increase? The council should have been the ones to bring this forward, but maybe they need 3-4 more full-time employees to assist them with their very difficult job of creating policy. I still think a better approach would be for the parking department to be in charge of the maintenance DTSF since they do collect a majority of parking fees in the downtown area and let DTSF concentrate on marketing, programming and business services with fees collected. DTSF shouldn’t have to beg for tax code changes to water plants and sweep the sidewalks, the city has plenty of money to take care of the maintenance and beautification of downtown).
Item #98, 1st Reading: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE REVISED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY ESTABLISHING AN ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION BOARD. Sponsor: Mayor Background & Objective: The purpose of the Sioux Falls Active Transportation Board (ATB) is to advise the city council, city departments, and city boards regarding bicycle, pedestrian, and other active transportation and accessible pedestrian transportation modes. (While this is a great idea, this should have been initiated by the city council, like the homeless task force. The council will ultimately have to vote on any changes and they should be actively involved in shaping these policies moving forward. Just another fancy task force the mayor and his staff have cooked up to make it look like they are doing something. I heard in the first meeting they will spend the first 45 minutes rearranging chairs in the conference room. As an all season bicyclist and active street rider since the early 90’s in Sioux Falls, I would love to sit on this board and give my perspective of what I have seen. I would apply, but most likely my application would end up where my other city board’s applications have ended up 🙂
Item #99, A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE MINNESOTA AVENUE CORRIDOR PHASE I LAND USE REPORT. Sponsor: Mayor, Background & Objective: That the City of Sioux Falls adopts the Minnesota Avenue Phase I Land Use Report to provide policies and guidance for future rezoning proposals, conditional use requests, redevelopment grant funding, and other redevelopment proposals. (I have been watching this construction play out, and from what I have been hearing from residents and business owners in the affected area is that while the city has been having listening/learning sessions they ultimately are doing what they want to with little to no regard from private recommendations. Minnesota Avenue should have started this process 30 years ago. I remember De Knudson and Dr. Staggers recommending changes to this corridor with no avail. I guess better late then never.
Item #100, A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS AND WASHINGTON PAVILION MANAGEMENT, INC. FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE WASHINGTON PAVILION OF ARTS AND SCIENCE, ORPHEUM THEATER, AND THE MUNICIPAL BAND. Background & Objective: Resolution to approve entering into a five-year management agreement with Washington Pavilion Management, Inc. to manage the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, Orpheum Theater, and the Sioux Falls Municipal Band. Agreement covers the years 2023-2027. Details of the new proposed Agreement were presented at the City Council’s Informational Meeting on November 22. (While there was a presentation on the renewal, the Pavilion talked very little about their financial status. Do they really need an operating subsidy from the city when we dump millions into the place each year in maintenance? I think with $5 million in savings – growing a whopping $2 million last year – it is time the Pavilion put on their big kid pants and operated on their own coin considering NOTHING is FREE to use in the building except the toilet and water fountain. It certainly hasn’t become the place for ‘everyone’ but is has been costing ‘everyone’ in Sioux Falls a pretty penny.)
• Legislative Priorities. Their priorities seem to be PRO-TAX for citizens while advocating for a tax break for themselves;
4. We support efforts to eliminate double taxation on public projects through the state use and contractor’s excise taxes.
I would agree that making citizens pay excise taxes on public projects is silly, BUT it is the contractors who build the projects that pay the tax. If this tax is eliminated, would the contractor pass those savings onto the city?
5. We oppose any legislation that would reduce or repeal any municipal or county tax.
This of course may apply to the food tax. I think it is incredibly short-sighted to support a food tax cut statewide but not municipal. I think if we eliminate the food tax in Pierre, it needs to apply to cities also. I have also argued for a long time, the city is overtaxing us. If you have over $70 million in your reserves (a savings account) you have to ask yourself if the city is collecting too much in taxes. I don’t care how large the city’s budget is, there is NO justification of having that much in reserves.
7. We support tax increment financing (TIF), an economic development tool that has led to millions of dollars in increased property value, benefitting both the state as a whole and the local entities sponsoring the districts, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the process.
Integrity of the process? Benefits? As I have stated over the years, there has been NO comprehensive independent study of what those benefits are and the process. I recently received a tip that one of the more recent TIFs the city council issued was based on NO financial review of the recipient, or at least not a comprehensive one. Did we learn anything from the bunker ramp fiasco? Maybe Neitzert is right, maybe we need to do an investigation to see just how bad city government screwed the pooch on that one.
Speaking of process integrity, I was made aware last week that a current city director is being asked now to run two separate departments that have very little to do with each other. While he is an educated, qualified director for the one department he currently runs he has zero qualifications for running the other department. While we could surmise why PTH makes such idiotic decisions (he has NO leadership skills) you have to wonder why this director would agree to such a thing, even with a significant pay increase? I guess when he quits in frustration or gets fired the administration will just chalk it up as par for the coarse. I think Amazon management has a lower turnover rate.
Item 5A, Petition:CU-017246-2022: Conditional Use Permit to allow for a Full Service Restaurant within 250′ of a sensitive land use. Operations will include On-Sale Alcohol with supplemental video lottery located at 7601 S. LOUISE AVE.
What I find interesting about this item is how some entities will come to the planning commission asking for conditional use permits without even having a business name. If you review the documents you will see this is basically a 3 tiered casino that has a pizza oven.
He envisions a restaurant centered around brick-oven pizza and with pasta dishes, salads and other family-friendly menu items.
Nothing says family friendly like 30 video lottery machines and a pepperoni pizza. “Where’s dad?” Asks Johnny. “He’s hopefully winning this month’s rent in the other room.” Mom replies.
Roach infestations, mold and broken security doors, leading to homeless encampments. Those are just a few of the issues that low-income tenants are facing living in various properties in Sioux Falls owned by Tzadik Management.
Part of the issue is that code enforcement and the health department really doesn’t enforce much of anything unless you are a lowly homeowner;
“We have a pretty good rapport with the regional managers from Tzadik and the property maintenance staff from the city and they seem to address it pretty quickly,” Tobias said.
Yeah, I bet you have a pretty good rapport, which means turn the other cheek. I heard during the pandemic when most city employees were hiding in their basements, few inspections were happening. I have been complaining about the complex/lot at 15th and Cliff for years which consists of several empty buildings with roofs falling in, and two abandoned houses all owned by the same person and the city has done little to nothing. But they did show up in my neighborhood to spray my sidewalk in front of my house for a ¼ inch crack. Git R’ Done!
This is a prime example of the tale of two cities. While we have tax payer incentivized condos and parking ramps going up downtown, we have a crumbling housing system in our core that has been going on since I moved here in 1991. The city leaders and staff just turn the other way. There has also been a rumor circulating that affordable housing in our core is being hoarded and not being rented out or sold for rehabilitation.
When I hear our current elected officials talk about the housing crisis in Sioux Falls and all the fabulous things that are going to do, I know better. I am pretty sure if they can’t figure out a minor roach infestation, they are going to really struggle rebuilding the core.
I encourage people to vote for Brekke, Reistroffer, Ingle and Pam Cole in the upcoming election if they want to see a council that will work on these issues.
“We all thought when we got the vaccine in January that COVID was done and we were going to move on and it was going to be 2020 (that was) the year we wanted to forget, and 2021 has been more of the same,†TenHaken said. “It’s almost like the year of deja vu.â€
That’s because in order for the vaccine to work, you have to actually get it. Weird how science and medicine works. And when our fearless leader who promotes everything from gravy, dad jokes and mentorship pushes that job off on the private healthcare providers don’t be surprised when things don’t change.
“They’re not all law-abiding citizens,†TenHaken said. “So we doubled down on public safety initiatives, whether it’s the training center, opening a report-to-work location or adding staffing resources with a behavioral health community resource officer and our first six months of The Link, which indirectly is a public safety initiative because we’re trying to keep people out of jail who don’t need to be in jail but need other kinds of help.
Funny how Poops still can’t say the ‘P’ word (Precinct). He also doesn’t mention what he is doing about our homeless and panhandling issues, let me fill you in; NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he refuses to ask for the community’s help and engagement.
Downtown also is the site of what the mayor calls “one of my biggest personal disappointments of my first term.†The unfinished multiuse parking ramp project along 10th Street east of Phillips Avenue has been tangled in a legal dispute between the city and developers since 2019.
The irony is that THIS Mayor and City Council had the power to cancel the project and the bonding (we would have had to pay a fine . . . which is ironic;
“I want people to know we are laser-focused in trying to get to a resolution,†TenHaken said. “I wish we could talk about it more and talk about it publicly because I think people think we’re sitting on our hands waiting for something to happen, and we’re not. There’s not a week that goes by that we’re not engaged in some kind of activity trying to bring closure. In 2022, I’m confident there’s going to be significant action in that.â€
It is ironic, because the rumor going around is that the DEVELOPER (not plural) has been telling people the city will be paying him off to go away, and they want to do it in complete silence without the assistance of the council. So why didn’t we just pay the fine initially on the bonds? Because the bonding companies (we only use basically one in the city and state) have complete control of our elected leaders instead of the other way around. Let’s just say they have many ‘tools in their toolbox’ to use against governments that don’t want to cooperate with the Godfather of Bonds and there was no way in Hell they were going let a $26 million dollar bond be taken off the table.
The ramp itself is cash-flowing, he added. “We’re not losing money. It’s not costing a red cent to have it sit there like that.
We are actually losing out on property tax revenue, so in essence we are losing money and no doubt when the project gets handed over to another developer (which we all know who that will be) there will likely be tax incentives and a possible TIF, so we will again be losing more money. Besides the Railroad Redevelopment deal (which never got rid of a single train DT) the bunker ramp is a prime example of how poorly negotiated the deal was. Even though the public and other business people threw out multiple red flags over multiple years and administrations and councilors they still went full on. To this day NO elected official or city director involved has apologized for the colossal F’Up. I think they all should have resigned. When I hear certain folks tell me that government should run like a private business, I point to this mess DT and tell them, that is the result of such a foolish philosophy.
As many of you know, I have run this blog for about 14 years as a hobby and as a citizen advocate for open and transparent government. While I have a communications degree, I do NOT have a BS in Journalism. This is why I really don’t worry to much about all the criticism when it comes to my writing skills (seriously, I don’t care), I am only concerned about getting the information out even in a rudimentary and snarky way.
It often frustrates me when the media has a wide range of topics and stories they could cover but don’t. Nationally and Locally it has to do with who is paying the bills (advertising) and why I often roll my eyes when the right-winger radio manure spreaders say there is a left wing and right wing media. There is a GREEDY media, that’s it. Locally they have prostituted themselves to the Industrial Hospital Complex and anything controversial to do with them will never be reported or downplayed.
I will also have to give Mayor Poops credit for one thing, he has the local media right where he wants them, somehow he has found a way to make sure any negative or controversial reporting on him or the city is non-existent. Heck, KELO AM even gave him some kind of award. It works out great for him. He has NO serious challengers (only one so far) and he will cruise in as the incumbent with a tank full of money.
So what stories are we missing out on that the local media could cover?
• The lack of Covid vaccination education and combatting misinformation
• Massive profits from the healthcare industry in Sioux Falls and their monopoly on care (relating to Covid). This actually showed up in the city’s financial report presentation yesterday at the city council informational meeting.
• The possible Federal investigation into a certain person (there have been several national stories about this but the local media has only barely scratched the surface, oh and they have taken it to the SD Supreme Court)
• Smithfield (Federal fines, environmental concerns, TenHaken’s ties, tax rebates and incentives, Covid health of workers, product shipping to China, etc.) This place alone could keep one news organization busy for months
• Economic Impact of TIFs in Sioux Falls (I would even suffice for simple story about how the returns don’t even add up)
• A survey of South Dakotans and their stance on abortion (I still think a majority supports legal and safe abortion in SD especially when it comes to exemptions)
• Medical and Recreational Marijuana and the REAL harmful effects, if any really exist, and Noem’s corrupt war on the voter’s will
Medical MJ Dispensary limitations (the not so quiet rumor going around is that the big wheel developers and banksters in town went crying to the Chamber and Mayor Poops claiming if a dispensary is built next to their property it would decrease it’s value. Doubtful. If you visit downtown Fort Collins, CO you will see a striving entertainment district full of bars, restaurants and galleries intertwined in with dispensaries
• Why has the Bishop Dudley House become so mis-managed? What is the SFPD and City Hall doing about it? The neighbors and business owners response? The taxpayers responsibility? The cost? The solutions?
• What’s going on with the Bunker Ramp?
• Why is everything sponsored in Sioux Falls by one person?
• I leave the most important story to last; The lack of open and transparent government in Sioux Falls and the push towards secrecy and corruption. If you think things were kept quiet during the last two mayoral administrations, they have nothing on Poops. He has virtually made sure public meetings are posted so vaguely or just eliminated them all together. He also has limited the number of public meetings the council holds, got involved with eliminating an incumbent populist councilor, changed the meeting times to be inconvenient for the working stiffs, changed public input, tries to cut deals with councilors and developers without quorum and generally doesn’t tell the public much unless it is about his dogs on Facebook.
Do I think this is intentional? YES!
I also don’t think this is a conservative, liberal or independent thing, it is a authoritarian thing. There are some political philosophies out there that think informing the public to much only complicates getting things done in government. While I will agree it is a REAL philosophy, it is also wrong-headed and extremely dangerous and wreaks of corruption. You would think those in the media would be appalled by the lack of access they have to their local government. Sure Poops likes to tell us about butterflies and parking ramps but he really isn’t letting us in on much else except that city employees apparently hold hands and sing songs during their morning coffee breaks because they are part of the SF One Borg.
It is time for our local media to remove their heads from a certain person(s) butt and start digging around, at least on a few of these issues. I would agree we live in a pretty good town, but I also think the concentration of power by a few players and the lack of transparent government is holding us back and it is the duty of the 4th Estate to remedy this, if only they had the courage or the brains.
