So I should be expecting my refund check any day now . . .

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water3

Another ‘feel good’ story about how the city is looking out for us(?);

A reconfiguration of wastewater capacity limits has saved the City of Sioux Falls millions of dollars.

Average daily water flows to the Water Reclamation Treatment Facility were consistently over the permitted amount that was set back in 1979.

The City faced mandated new infrastructure which could have cost up to $20 million.

Instead, the city spent $200,000 for an engineering study, which concluded that the current facility could support higher capacity.

The capacity limits were raised from 13.4 million gallons of water flow a day to 21.

The increase rating was approved by the state in September and presented to City Council on Monday.

While I think this is super-fantastic, I’m still curious why our water and sewer rates keep increasing? Notice they say the ‘City’ has saved millions, not the residents of Sioux Falls. This kind of shit just pisses me off, cuz you know they are not going to pass the savings onto us, just spend it on more crap we don’t need. I would prefer they just kept this info secret instead of rubbing it in our feces.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

How scary is this crap? (H/T – Crooksandliars)

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Project Censored 2010_87576

Project Censored, a media research project operating out of Sonoma State University in California has spent several years looking at media accountability and how the freedom of the press aids democracy:

At Project Censored, we examine the coverage of news and information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning democracy. We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

The latest edition of Project Censored is in and available on Amazon:

Here’s this year’s top 25 stories:

Posted in: shit found

What Recession?

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rose_colored_glasses

Let’s put our rose colored glasses on, raise water and sewer rates, raise retail taxes, raise property taxes, raise vehicle registration, and over budget for deficit spending in 2010. We’ll pull out;

The foundation commissioned a national poll that surveyed 4,004 people between June 18 and July 13, including 400 South Dakotans. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Among its key findings:

– 29 percent of respondents in South Dakota said they had problems paying their mortgage, rent or heating bills.

-  44 percent said they’ve cut back on the amount they spend on food; 45 percent have cut back on saving for retirement.

-  And 22 percent have had a friend or relative stay with them because of a lack of money.

“That 22 percent may be the single most striking figure in the survey data for me,” said Kevin Walker, Northwest’s chief executive officer. “That tells me one out of five South Dakotans have provided emergency or transitional shelter. That really brings home the impact of the recession on families and communities.”

Having trouble keeping up? Stop whining and move in with a friend, we gotta city to build God Dammit!

Posted in: economy, SD

Highlights from yesterday’s SF budget meeting

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I found it ironic that the city is making gigantic budget cuts in 2010 (too little, too late) yet still found the need to continue these projects. Screwed up priorities, as usual.

– Historic Facade program Downtown (This is a $150,000 taxpayer handout to private property owners). They are given this money that they not expected to pay back in exchange for restoring their facades. While I think the program is a great idea, I have argued this should be funded through community development and be a low interest loan, not a handout. I am also surprised in this down economy that they are continuing to fund this in 2010. I guess even in a down economy special interests still get handouts in SF.

– SculptureWalk. I don’t think I would normally have a problem with this subsidy, considering we are buying a sculpture with the money. But besides it being a poor use of taxpayer money during a down economy, funding public art, it really chaps my hide that the SculptureWalk organization denies that they receive public money. No where on their brochure this year they credit the taxpayers of SF for this subsidy, on that denial alone, I say we pull the plug on funding. If they cannot acknowledge us as a partner in SW, why should we give it any money? Seriously.

– Sioux Falls Transit subsidy. It is estimated that SF Transit is subsidized $3.80 per rider. I don’t have a problem with a subsidy, considering our transit system constantly needs to be improved, but, I find it strange that there has not been a rate increase for 13 years (1996). I take issue with my water and sewer rates being increased leaps and bounds every year, but if you ride the bus, you are immune. It’s time to raise those rates.

Posted in: Sioux Falls

The Event Center task force risks burying the project with their horrible funding proposal

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I have to help pay for an Event Center now to? Next you’ll wanna take my guns.

On Inside KELOLAND yesterday they discussed the success of the Summit League tournament. They tried to use the show’s discussion to push the Event Center, again. During the segment they talked about all the economic benefits of the tournament. As I mentioned before, Sioux Falls IS a great town to visit. The Arena pulled off the entire tournament with only one major change; upgrading the locker rooms. So would a bigger facility make this event better? Maybe so, but is it worth building a larger facility that will only be filled to capacity a couple times a year? Maybe, if we approach the funding and subsidies carefully and mindful of the citizens. Ironically no representative of the citizens was invited to be on the show, for or against the EC.

When the Event Center discussion started a few years back (mostly pushed by sports nuts and the same crew that thought the Vikes training camp was coming to town) I opposed it. I didn’t care how it was being paid for. I recently climbed aboard and kind of support it and think that breaking ground in 3-5 years would be doable. But I only supported it because the task force basically said they would pay for the building of the facility through corporate sponsorships and a bed and booze tax. I also supported it because the facility has been scaled back to 10-12,000 seats. Well guess what? Those funding ideas have been thrown out with the bath water.

Jim Woster, an EC task force member said on yesterday’s show that they will be encouraging the legislature in 2010 to pass legislation that will allow municipalities in South Dakota to increase their retail taxes so other cities besides Sioux Falls could build similar facilities. What a gigantic can of worms. If the legislature approves the increase (which I don’t think they will) citizens would have the opportunity to vote on the tax increase. So now it seems they want to tax every purchase you make to pay for the EC. So people who won’t even be using it, or benefitting financially from it, still have to pay for it? Bologna! Woster says if this happens in Pierre they will be “Educating the community” on the benefits of the EC and the tax increase to pay for it.

I’m still trying to figure out what happened with the bed and booze tax or the corporate sponsorships? I have also suggested a corporate entertainment tax. This makes the most sense since the corporations are constantly begging for a new EC so they can “attract” workers to the city. We have this mentality though in South Dakota that corporations and businesses should not be taxed because it will ‘kill jobs’. How long or we going to drink this hogwash? Politicians reason that if we don’t tax corporations their profits will trickle down in higher wages and good jobs. Yet South Dakota still rates almost dead last in wages. In other words the tax break hasn’t produced results just more money for the already rich execs. I can hear the argument already ‘We can’t expect small businesses to pay these taxes’ and most likely they wouldn’t if it was structured correctly. The tax would be based on profit margins. The bigger profit margin the more you pay. I think the corporate entertainment tax is a great idea and it would pass the ballot in flying colors.  

Remember. Sioux Falls has a horrible track record when it comes to building entertainment facilities. Over the past ten years it is estimated that the CIP budget has dumped an additional $20 million into the Pavilion and counting costing taxpayer’s almost $40 million to date. This money comes from the general fund, not the entertainment tax that was setup for operating and subsidizing the Pavilion.

What am I saying? I support building a new Event Center, but we need to pay for it differently, not by taxing food more. I also think we should take our time in planning it so we don’t end up like the Pavilion.

If they think they can pay for this through a retail tax increase, it will never get built because the public will reject that funding option. Why do I think no one on the task force sees that? Because there really isn’t any working class people on the task force, just the same old elitists that sit on every board that are completely out of touch with the community, like half of our city council. Unless we start including some regular Joes on these committees the event center will never happen.

Posted in: Event Center, Sioux Falls