The MPO is holding this meeting on Tues. January 14th from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at the Downtown Library.
I also received this email about some of the plans for public transit in Sioux Falls, and concerns (I edited the content to be more specific);
The Planning Department suggested to have bus rapid transit from downtown to the Events Center and than to the Pentagon FARE-free, for conventioneers, sports fans, tourists, but NOT our most fragile residents.
As I have mentioned before, we must first fix paratransit and make it easier to use, faster, city-wide, and yes, more affordable before we start tackling who can get to the dead zone called the Events Center campus or a Skyforce game. It seems this town has plenty of money for those who already have the means to pay for their own transportation but not for the less fortunate. Do I think public transit for everyone should be totally FREE? No. But I do think we can provide better service and make it extremely affordable to almost FREE. We need to concentrate on the economic impact of public transit and getting people to work. If we can provide an efficient, hassle free and affordable way to get people to work the economic impact of it would pay for itself. While we are dinking around with TIFs for parking ramps and bailouts of historical movie theaters we are neglecting the people who make this city spin, OUR WORKERS of every economic stripe and status.
Dustin does a nice job of explaining the proposed TIF. While I disagree with ‘editorilizing’ the proposal, at least he does explain it in detail. I believe the TIF will pass 8-0. I don’t think one single councilor has the appetite to vote against it. What I do hope though is they negotiate a better deal for the taxpayers. I would really like to see the parking ramp FREE 24/7 not just at nights and weekends (unless you are using a valet service from the hotel/convention center). I would also like to see a non-compete clause with the CVB when it comes to the kind of conventions they book there. We are really cutting the private developer a ‘blank’ check’ worth well over $30 million (TIF + BID + River Greenway). I also struggle with the $25 million dollar yearly economic impact. Whether the place gets built or not, people still have other places to stay downtown, eat downtown and park downtown. That money is being spent already with or without this project. All they are saying is that money is being re-directed to their site from other competition that already exists in Sioux Falls and Downtown.
The first thing he does in this interview is blame the last guy for the problems with the Bunker Ramp. While there is ‘some’ truth to that, he could have put the brakes on immediately after he took office, instead he took a piece of toilet paper signed by developers that said they were good for the money.
Then he says he doesn’t want to do an audit until after it is finished, while that is SOP, and I get it from a financial standpoint, there is NOTHING stopping him from looking into what went wrong RIGHT NOW. That doesn’t take an audit to achieve, it requires him doing his job as the city manager and city employees boss (his main job according to charter) and putting a boot up their butts or at least a stern talking to and get them on investigating what went wrong before we sign on the dotted line for another developer to finish it.
He once again fails to lead.
I really believe one of the reasons the deal fell through towards the end is because of the Sioux Steel development and potential for a TIF funded parking ramp.
This is pure speculation of course, but think about it for a moment, what if they would have allowed the Bunker Ramp Hotel to be ‘scaled back’ and finished? That means a nice hotel in the center of our downtown would have opened at least a year before the Sioux Steel Hotel and Convention Center. Things that make you go hmmmmmm. I won’t get into all the players involved, but something smells funny here.
Towards the end of the interview, PTH continues to blabber about charging non-profits for police assistance, China and Kermit.
She asked for several things from the podium during the 2020 Audit Plan presentation;
• An external audit of the Parking System (Theresa mentioned that she found it odd that the city wants to keep building or subsidizing parking ramps downtown yet wants to sell off flat parking lots).
• An audit of the CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk) process.
• Travel expenses of city staff (I guess that during the current administration, city directors and staff, and mostly the mayor, have been taking a lot of ‘junket trips’ but not really giving a report to the public as what they are doing on the trips. Recently TenHaken put up a short column about his trip to China, but never really told us what was really discussed. We also get a lot of updates on FB from the Innovation Manger and all the different cities he has been drinking in.
• A study of City Director salaries in comparison to other cities. Something I pointed out the last time the HR department did a wage study, but did NOT include city directors. How convenient.
The committee argued the merits of all the items. Councilor Brekke mentioned that maybe the city council budget analyst could look into the last two items and do a presentation on those findings – which I agree.
Audit Manager Nelson suggested that the CMAR audit would have to be done externally due to it’s speciality of the audit.
But they got into a long discussion about the external parking ramp audit. Councilor Kiley said he didn’t want to put it on the audit plan because they are in the middle of litigation, but other members argued that there was nothing wrong with putting it on the agenda, and if they have to pull it in the future, they can. The amendment to add it passed with Kiley and Chair Neitzert voting against it. Councilor Stehly doesn’t sit on the committee so she couldn’t vote on it.
T.J. Nelson, deputy chief of staff in the mayor’s office, said City Hall isn’t opposed to a review of the parking system or the ramp, but not until the ramp project is complete and the dust settles on any lawsuits surrounding it.
“The administration will complete a comprehensive review of the process that led to the prior approval of this project by the Huether administration. This will take place following the ramp’s completion and resolution of any outstanding legal matters,” he said. “At this time, the administration supports a financial or construction audit consistent with the time frame outlined above.”
Yeah, after we have f’d up in every possible way we can, then we will tell the public how that f’k up occurred. WHAT!? Wouldn’t it be wise to figure that out BEFORE we move ahead with another developer or even litigation? Wouldn’t this help our case? Sometimes I wonder if putting money in a burn barrel would be a better way to spend money then paying city communication staff.
There was also a presentation on the Landfill Audit. There was a lot of problems going on out there where basically employees were not following procedures and not doing proper inspections. You can listen for yourself. My view is the city is missing out on a lot of landfill revenue due to the laziness of the employees. I think they were warned about these things in past audits. I think it is time to start handing our pink slips, then maybe they will get the picture.
Chair Neitzert mentions at the end they are going to start the process of hiring another staff auditor (which they do need). I wonder if this time they will actually put an employment ad in something besides Tidbits and the City Hall’s lunchroom?
PUBLIC TRANSIT MEETING
I still haven’t heard all the details of what happened, but I guess a committee member got a little irate about how the public is being left out of the decisions they are making. More to come.
I still remember attending the open house about the Sioux Steel Development at Josiah’s. Many people from the public offered their opinions at the meeting, as did I. I remember telling them it was a great idea, but I advised them to ‘go it alone’ and not get the city involved. I remember Rysdons’ incredulous look. Shocker! They didn’t take my advice.
It’s like the playbook never changes, when a developer in Sioux Falls wants a TIF they use the tired old threat,
Right now, the Sioux Steel site is valued at about $3.1 million by the county equalization office, resulting in an annual tax bill of $57,000. When the project is complete, the anticipated property tax payment would be around $1.58 million a year.
That equates to a 14 YEAR TAX BREAK!
Without it, parking to service the businesses included in the vision would likely be scaled down to surface parking lots, said Jake Quasney, executive vice president of development for Lloyd Cos.
“What would happen if we didn’t do the parking ramp, we’d build a scaled down version of the hotel and conference center, maybe some apartments and some surface parking,” he said.
Oh Well?
These are private developers that are already getting around $10 million from taxpayers to upgrade the river greenway along their property (something else I’m opposed to – because I think the city should just sell them Kiwanis Park and let them ‘upgrade it’). They are also ‘Private’. Why should the city be concerned if they scale back the project? Which brings us to another interesting factor. As we are trying to get the EC campus to get it’s poop in a group so the CVB (that we fund) can bring in more conventions, this private development wants to build a convention center, downtown. While I will applaud them, because it is a great idea, it is still private. So why would we give property tax rebates to a private development that will be competing with taxpayers for conventions? It is insane! It would be like paying Wild Water West to accept the City of Sioux Falls pool passes!
In this ARTICLE and STUDY they lay out what TIF’s really do;
“On average, [TIF] may be moving development from one part of the city to another, and changing the timing of the development, but there’s not more development than would have otherwise been made,†Merriman said.
Basically he is saying that you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. As I have argued, the development will happen anyway – with or without the TIF.
In addition, this is a tool with several drawbacks. According to Merriman, TIFs might “capture†some tax revenue above the capped “base value†that may have been generated anyway through natural appreciation in property values if the TIF hadn’t been created. This is money that taxpayers might have otherwise paid directly towards an overlapping school district, or for public services. And while TIF is not a direct tax increase, it may lead to higher rates or service cuts elsewhere, if the city plans on bringing in the same general property tax revenue as before TIF.
In other words, while this PRIVATE developer is getting a massive 14 year tax break, the rest of us are paying higher taxes to support it. Even with provable economic impact, those higher taxes for the rest of us don’t offset what benefit we would get from it. In other words the only one who is really benefitting is the developer.
Also take note that we have bonded for several major projects recently, the Denty, the City Admin Building, the Bunker Ramp, the new jail, the new schools and very soon the public safety training facility and water plant. At rough estimates that is about $680 million in new bonds over a short period of time with a payoff amount exceeding $1 Billion.
There is something else developers and city leaders like about TIFs;
Perhaps the biggest concern with TIF, though, is that of transparency, because of the way this mechanism effectively bypasses the public municipal budget process.
“Once a TIF is created, the operation of a TIF receives less scrutiny than other spending,†Merriman said.
In other words the public is essentially left out of that process and is usually given ZERO evidence that it will help us. But in this town, we love closed door deals, 5G is a great example of this.
Not everything about TIFs is bad, if used properly;
But TIF is good for sparking public-private partnerships that may help fund useful infrastructure that may not otherwise be appealing to investors, such as raising the height of a bridge tunnel so it can carry large trucks, for example. In the report, Merriman recommends several ways to use this tool more effectively, and make it easier for policymakers and researchers to evaluate. Most important: Cities needs to be more transparent about how they are using TIF. It’s not a magic free-money generator.
“It’s a concern about why those decisions are being made,†he said, “and why there’s a public subsidy for development that might have occurred even without the subsidy.â€
So is the Sioux Steel development giving Sioux Falls residents something we need to improve quality of life and infrastructure? Not one iota. In fact the infrastructure upgrades to the river greenway along this development is being paid for by us. I would even be willing to gift the development the river greenway land, give them a smaller TIF, and have them upgrade it. There the taxpayers would benefit.
I also enjoyed this little tidbit;
The ramp portion of the project is estimated to cost about $22.6 million.
So they are going to build another Bunker Ramp downtown for about $25K a space. How is this possible? I will tell you – BECAUSE THAT IS THE F’ING GOING RATE! Never mind that hand soap sanitizer man child Neitzert has told you different. The cost for the Bunker Ramp was incredibly inflated and we said it from the beginning. With the new codes in place they will have to build this facility with the proper lighting, fire suppression and generator power – just like the bunker ramp.
I will say this, I think the concept of this development is fantastic, and I commend them on it, but like most things ‘FREE ENTERPRISE’ I also believe they can sink or swim on their own. TIF or NO TIF, it will be successful, and they know it, they just want to save a little money, that is obvious. I encourage every single public servant who is voting on this to request a comprehensive TIF study in Sioux Falls on economic impactand workforce development. I would even go so far to say that the city pays for it and has one of our public universities do it. It seems like when we ask for TIFs in Sioux Falls, it is all based on a whim, and NOT reality. Don’t be suckered by the ‘threats’. Make the one’s asking provide the evidence that this will help us. I already know the answer and this is why they avoid the study.
UPDATE: I see they are bringing out the ‘big guns’ on this, employing everyone in the (paid) media to tell us that this is a partnership with the community;
Both current downtown redevelopment projects require some level of partnership with our city government. In the case of the rail yard development, the city is being asked to sell land. In the case of the Sioux Steel development, the city is being asked to approve tax increment financing.
It sure is a partnership. The developer gets a gigantic tax break and all of our taxes continue to go up. Who wouldn’t be for this kind of ‘partnership’? Comparing the railyard project to getting a TIF is hardly a comparison. Did we get what we wanted for the land? Nope. But that was never going to happen. I think it is wise for the city to liquidate property so it can start generating tax revenue. Unlike what they did with Phillips to the Falls where the city ‘sat on’ land and held it for 11 years for a developer. They were never going to sell it to anyone else. And surprise, surprise, the same the developer is going to the trough once again.
It will be fun to watch the predictability of how this will play out. They asked for $21 million, but the city will come back and say we will give you ‘X’ amount instead. Then the city will brag about how they negotiated a better deal. It’s the old bait and switch the energy companies have been playing for years with rate increases. They always ask for double of what they really want or need then make it look like they cut a deal with the PUC. Old’s trick in the book, and our elected officials fall for it everytime.
