The partners in The Banks project rejected by the city of Sioux Falls:
Robert “Bob†Thimjon – Regency Management (Ramkota)
Bill Baker – 1st National Bank of Sioux Falls
Michael Bender – Bender Company
Last Tuesday during the City Council Informational they did a presentation about the survey results. A whopping 600 people responded! The results have pretty much been the same for over a decade. Fix our streets, parks are great, Sioux Falls is wonderful. But one of the more interesting parts of this waste of taxpayer money is the open comments section. The survey responders get to sound off. This set of comments were troubling (DOC: Open-end-Report-2019;
While it is perfectly okay to call out a general group of citizens or elected officials like Theresa and Paul, I think it is very inappropriate to be publishing a private citizen’s name. What if someone would have commented about Denny Sanford or Paul’s wife, do you think that would have made the final cut? Doubtful. It also seems that this was purposely put in to tie Stehly to Danielson. I almost wonder if this was ‘concocted’ later. I told Bruce to request that that comment be taken off of the document as it has NOTHING to do with the performance of city government or city council.
Wednesday, May 22, 8:30 AM
Convention Center, 1201 Northwest Avenue, Mtg. Rooms 8-10
I went over and snapped some pictures. It was interesting to watch them piece it together. While this will be a ‘neat’ sculpture, I still think that the $2.6 million spent on this project could have have been put to better use doing HUNDREDS of art and beautification projects all over Sioux Falls, hiring local contractors, landscapers, artists, artisans and craftsman. Instead we spent it on a fabrication shop in Colorado. At least the artist was from South Dakota. As I have stated in the past, this is just a monument to egos.
So a friend shows me this the other day. It was a fundraising letter from the Pavilion. We were both curious as to why Smith felt the need to include his name on the return address. If it is some kind of marketing strategy, we are both confused by it’s purpose.
l3wis