How’s that contingency plan working out?

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Remember when local economist Mark Weber warned Sioux Falls about the economy and preparing for the worse? Well guess what, they were not listening, once again;

Sales tax collections in Sioux Falls through July are down 0.4 percent from last year, causing some city councilors to worry that a projected sales tax growth of 4 percent in 2010 is too optimistic.

Eugene Rowenhorst, the city finance director, told the City Council during a budget hearing Monday that sales tax revenues did not grow at all in the first seven months of the year. The council originally had budgeted for a 6.5 percent increase this year, but that later was modified to a projected 2 percent increase.

It’s not like you couldn’t see this coming for months and months. It was pretty obvious that SF was not immune to the recession, but it doesn’t stop Eugene from spinning it even more;

But the fact that the tax revenue is down this far into the year has some councilors worried about next year. During the budget meeting, council member Kermit Staggers questioned why the 2010 proposed budget projects a 4 percent increase in sales tax.

Rowenhorst’s answer was that the economy is expected to improve by next year, and the 4 percent increase is a middle ground between the 2 percent growth that eventually was projected for 2009 and the historic 6 percent to 7 percent increase in sales tax receipts.

“We’re coming out of the recession and getting back to a more normal growth phase,” Rowenhorst said.

Sorry, Eugene, I have trouble taking the word of a man who basically ignored economic trends by not preparing for the worst. I believe Munson did not care what happened with the economy, it is his last year in office, and he had a legacy to build. How do you justify cutting the budget when you can ‘pretend’ everything is going to be fine down the road. I have often been told by many people that Munson is a positive man, and I believe that, but IMO, lying to yourself and the public to get what you want is very negative, very negative indeed. I have been saying it for years that Munson has put his priorities above the public’s best interest, and while McKennan Park residents will be enjoying a new $170,000 shitter and the Rhino’s at the zoo have a new shed to sleep in the rest of us and the next mayor are going to have to figure out how to fix this shortfall and overspending by Munson.

The first thing the next mayor needs to do on day one is fire Eugene and anyone who is loyal to him in the finance office, and employ someone who is in touch with reality.

Posted in: economy, Sioux Falls

How nice. The Gargoyle Leader’s Ed Board cares about tax payers, now that we are all flat broke

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I had to read this editorial twice to make sure, they were saying what I thought they were. I’m shocked!

The allowance to raise property taxes by 3 percent or the rate of inflation each year is just that. An allowance.

It’s not an automatic function that city officials should customarily build into each year’s budget.

Yes, but that is the nature of socialistic, tax and spend, big government Republicans, they don’t care if the average Joe can make ends meet, they only care about their ‘ends’ and ‘behinds’.

As residents continue recovering from the economic downturn, a respite from property tax increases undoubtedly would be well timed.

Indeed, there are times when even in the face of economic downturns it makes sense to spend in ways that take advantage of unique opportunities – such as issuing needed bonds when interest rates are low.

It’s hard to see how automatically raising property taxes fits into this category, though.

Actually, it’s the exact opposite. The 2010 budget offers a unique chance to hold the line on property tax increases.

City officials need to offer a better reason than they’ve stated why Sioux Falls should pass on this opportunity.

You mean, you agree with Staggers for once? Get out!

Posted in: economy, Property Taxes, SF City Council, Sioux Falls

“I had a dream where the statue of Sanford fell on me and I splattered to puddles.”

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octopus

I will have to admit, I hear a lot of funny (and sad) things at city council meetings, but this has to be one of the biggest LOL moments ever. Tonight the city council approved more zoning and neighborhood destruction for Sanford hospital. But before the vote, an elderly lady who has lived in the neighborhood almost her whole life came to testify against it. Besides the above comment in the title of the post, she had some other things to say (paraphrasing).

“I may be a lone wolf in the wilderness, but I need to say this stuff (about Sanford).”

“I know Sioux Valley hospital, but I don’t know this octopus eating up our neighborhoods, Sanford.”

But when she said the title of this post, I almost pissed my pants. She prefaced the comment by saying she has vivid dreams and she was giving kids a historic tour of the hood in the dream, and that is what happened.

Don’t get me wrong, Sanford needs to expand, that is obvious, but they do not need to expand their specialty clinics, etc in the middle of the city, and they know it. Citizens need to rise up and stop this expansion.

Councilors Staggers was the only one who voted against the expansion. Go figure.

Posted in: Sanford Hospital

Breaking: Event Center Task Force meeting (today)

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I just attended a 3 hour EC Task Force meeting. Lots of interesting things happened, but the main things I took from the meeting were;

– The ECTF will probably endorse tearing down Howard Wood and building it in that location and

– They will recommend a 12-15,000 seat facility

I know we have been hearing these two things for awhile, but I think that after today’s meeting it is 99.9% set in stone, but let’s start from the beginning;

The meeting started out open to the public and they invited the Howard Wood Task Force to speak about their concerns, they basically came to the conclusion that they would get behind tearing down HW if they got a equal facility to replace it. While this discussion was going on I was amazed by how some ECTF members acted like money was no object. Darin Daby from the School board was very careful to say that they don’t have the money to move it, but also don’t have the money to keep up with upgrades and kind of made it sound like moving it was a wash. ECTF member Terry Baloun commented that the parking was needed. He said it costs $1200 to $1400 to build a hard surface parking space but it costs $17,000 to build a parking ramp space. He didn’t back that up with ANY evidence, but a city engineer(?) did back up the hard surface number, so I was suspicious. I did google it and the number I came up with is about $20,000. Daby mentioned it will probably cost about $20-$25 million to build a new stadium, but doesn’t have any hard numbers. The HWTF seemed to be okay with moving the stadium, but wanted what they have now with upgrades. Obviously there was no discussion of how it would be paid for.

This is where the meeting got interesting, they asked the public and media to leave, when we decided to stay someone had pointed out to Woster that it would be against open meeting laws and so he said it would be fine. Before the second part of the meeting started, Baloun tried to persuade us again to leave, but admitted he didn’t know the legality, so we were welcome to stay. He has actually very cordial about it, and I could tell he didn’t want any controversy. We were all pretty curious why they didn’t want the media and public there, then we found out why. Winkels surveyed the 18 member task force and he had the results of the survey. They will use the survey to put together there recommendations, that was pretty obvious.

Here are some of the results:

Should HW relocate? 15 – Yes 3 – no

Parking Ramp at HW?   9 – Yes 6 – No

30-32 Box Suites were suggested

Expand Convention Center? 16 – Yes 1 – No (by 75% square feet)

How big should it be? 12-15,000 seats with expandable seating for different events, and curtains to split it up if they need to. ( I found this interesting, because they can have the illusion that the facility would be used to it’s full capacity, when most of the time, it will probably not.

Some interesting discussion points;

– They have NO target tenant but said they will have an aggressive sales team selling the place.

– They mentioned that Fargo has been in the black since they have built the Fargo Dome because they built it big enough and that Sioux City has been in the red because they built it too small. (I had to laugh when I heard these arguments. First off, Fargo has a way bigger market then SF has, and as for Sioux City being in the red it is because they have too small of a market, even with taking 45% of there ticket sales from Lincoln and Minnehaha county they still operate in the red. That should tell us right there this facility will never make money or be used a capacity for years down the road. We should learn something from the SC comparison.

My conclusion is this;

– Don’t build a new EC at all

– Upgrade HW for $12 million in it’s current location

– Double the size of the convention center

– Refurbish the Arena

– Add a parking ramp

– and fund the whole project with a bed and booze tax. I think we are biting off more then we can chew.

Winkels mentioned to Staggers after the meeting they are shooting to do a formal proposal to the council and public in October. The next step of the Winkels group is to put together a cost performa report and different options.

Posted in: Event Center

Mr. Obvious David Kranz

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Gee, Dave, yah think?!

Count on City Councilor Kermit Staggers to be a possible mayoral candidate.

 

The central district representative says he’ll most likely run in the 2010 race.

 

“Over the past several summers I have gone door-to-door talking to people about the city,” Staggers said.

“There is a good chance we will” run for the office, he told me Friday.

 

As for a timetable on a final decision?

“We won’t have to hurry,” Staggers said.

Exactly. You can’t even collect signatures until after January 1, 2010. Settle down Dave.

Posted in: Staggers