Shocker; Mayor TenHaken Supports Corporate Welfare of Anti-Union corporations

We have been saying it for years to our local government, we want new business coming to Sioux Falls, but we want those businesses to be sold on our reliable workforce, we want them to pay a decent living wage, and ENOUGH of the corporate welfare.

Mayor TenHaken thought giving billions to Amazon in NY without the promise of union scale jobs was a missed opportunity. Somehow I am NOT surprised. This is the same guy that let the telecoms and Feds tell us what to do with 5G (an issue that is getting tons of pushback across the nation, of course in PROGRESSIVE communities).We want new businesses in Sioux Falls to INVEST in our community (that means their money) not DIVEST (that means taking our tax dollars for a handful of token pallet humper jobs).

Progressives ‘Get It’ when it comes to creating REAL jobs through REAL investments. Supposed conservatives like PTH just want to give away the farm. Once again, another reason we can’t allow partisans to run our supposed non-partisan city government.

Does Avera plan to bulldoze an entire neighborhood?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqs7hbS8Do

FF: 4:56 (Ironically the Planning office says they are working with them so they don’t disrupt the neighborhood. Huh?)

Avera has new zoning notices up at 24th and Cliff AND also at 7th/8th  and 24th.

These are pink signs vs. the orange ones that were originally posted for the Feb Planning Commission meeting.  The NEW pink signs are posted at both locations.

Seems like a sneaky strategy to have zoning requests at 2 different planning commission meetings with 24th and Cliff now added in. Why wasn’t this done all at once? Hmmmm.

They own approximately 49 out of the 64 homes in the neighborhood.  It seems they plan to have 8th, 9th and 10th Avenues vacated at some point in the future! Do you really believe they will be able to move ALL of those houses? Not likely.

This cutting up our core neighborhoods like pie has got to end.

In Benders Market Outlook it was mentioned there was a at 9.8% vacancy rate with apartments in Sioux Falls and;

Overall, the multifamily real estate cycle is expected to remain in the recessionary stage.

I have often argued that many developers in Sioux Falls don’t have a long term plan with their properties, I maintain they are only looking on how they can make money TODAY without worrying about the future. I think by cutting up these core neighborhoods with affordable first time homebuyer houses they are forcing more younger families and seniors on a fixed income into rentals. I have even heard a planning official say that living in an apartment is appealing because it is a maintenance free lifestyle. What they don’t mention is when you move out of that apartment, you get $0 back for investing in someone else’s property. As a city we should be promoting home ownership over renting at all costs and we need to put the brakes on bulldozing our affordable neighborhoods, we also need to end TIFs for apartments and invest that money in saving our core neighborhoods.

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Feb 26-27, 2019

City Council Informational Meeting, 3:30 PM (Carnegie), 2/26

Besides an update on of Fire Codes, we will finally get to hear what is going on with the collapsed wall by Sherman Park. There seems to be some ‘missing pieces’ behind the scenes. You know like that ‘missing’ NO mow list the Parks department had. They seem to missing a lot of things these days . . . like how the fire got started at Elmwood. It’s been a couple of months and we still have NO IDEA how a ‘shed’ caught on fire?

City Council/Minnehaha County Joint Meeting, 5 PM (Carnegie), 2/26

Another wedding barn looking for approval in the quasi-judicial-no-mans-land-of-joint-jurisdiction. Or is it a Funeral Barn? This should involve some interesting testimony, the neighbors are not happy about wedding bands and DJ’s. Maybe if we allow them to make requests they can come to an agreement?

City Council Working Session, 1 PM (Carnegie), 2/27

The council will discuss the 2020 city budget. I’m sure a lot will be solved in an hour and a half.

There is also some interesting topics that will be proposed and discussed in March by the city council. I don’t have all the details right now, but it has to do with MORE open government and MORE transparency. And it ain’t coming from the Mayor’s office.

Drinking Liberally weighs in . . .

In Politics: Nationally, Trump relented and signed the Legislation needed to keep the Government open. Then, as if unable to tolerate the calm, he created another Constitutional Crisis by declaring a National Emergency and announcing he would use money Congress had appropriated elsewhere to build his wall. Trump’s drama and his attacks on the institutions that have given us a stable government for almost 250 years, which, in turn, underlies the very foundation of our prosperity and leadership in the World, has to stop. Unfortunately, only Republicans, including our own Republican Senators Thune and Rounds and Representative Johnson can mitigate the damage Trump inflicts daily on our Country. As Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday……:

“To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse.”
“Many of you have acknowledged your deep misgivings about the president in quiet conversations over the past two years. You have bemoaned his lack of decency, character and integrity. You have deplored his fundamental inability to tell the truth. But for reasons that are all too easy to comprehend, you have chosen to keep your misgivings and your rising alarm private.”
“That must end. The time for silent disagreement is over. You must speak out.”

Here is our link to this week’s summary of national progressive news, political cartoons, and opinion:
http://www.directzine4dems.com/1068.htm

Back in South Dakota, a friend noted an article from Jan. 29 in my hometown paper, the Huron Daily Plainsman, entitled “Nepotism bill defeated in committee.”

My friend wrote, “Seems like an outrage considering, as the paper noted, Kristi Noem hired her daughter a recent SDSU grad as a policy adviser in her office, Daugaard’s chief of staff was his son in law, Gov. Rounds hired his brothers, sisters in law and children. Republicans feeding their families at the teat of government. Welfare for them. Thought they were opposed to that.”

Republican hypocrisy, it is never ending.