It’s looks like the city of Sioux Falls struckout trying to derail our tax petition;
1) PAID a consultant to mislead us about the constitutionality of the initiative
2) PAID a consultant to mislead us about bond interest rates(a bond they did not ultimately take out, because real people are not dying in floods)
3) Mislead us about the 6 month window and registration date.
According to city charter and ordinance 14-50;
Sec. 14-50. Requirement of registration with city clerk to precede petition circulation for initiative or referendum in a municipal election.
   Persons seeking to propose an ordinance or resolution shall first register with the city clerk’s office before such petitions are circulated for signatures. Registration shall include the name of the organization, address, contact person, and language of the proposed ordinance or resolution. A copy of the proposed resolution or ordinance will become public when petition circulation effort commences.
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There is NOTHING about the 6 month timeline starting on the registration date, it just simply says we must register the petition. So it seems state law and SOS Chris Nelson are correct. No wonder the city attorney’s office is ignoring us. If we attain the 4,800 signatures within a 6 month window we are good to go.
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Looks like we are going into extra innings. I hope your’e ready to “play more games” councilor Litz.
I understand the principle here, but isn’t all of this over a .08% change? From 5.92% to 6%?
Honestly – I think a more important issue is HOW they spend the tax revenue, not the amount they are capturing, because the difference in a $5000 purchase is a whopping $4. So if we assume a family is spending $20,000 a year in Sioux Falls on various products and services, the tax change to them is $16… or .0008% of the total if you like percentages.
Frankly I have zero problem with this increase. I just have a problem with how the additional funds are spent. I’m a firm believer of being debt free and I feel our city should use the funds to pay down debt rather than financing non-essential projects, adding new city services, building new parks, or hiring more out-of-state consultants.
Besides, you know how cheap people calculate a tip when they go out to eat don’t you? That’s right… they double the tax. So what you are really doing here is trying to hurt the wait staff because instead of getting a 12% tip, they will only get 11.84%.
Think of the people Scott! Don’t you care about our waiters and waitresses?
You ought to be able to plenty of signatures and support from the fine hypocrites at the Tea party. ROTFLMAO
Cost –
I agree, it isn’t about the small amount, in fact most of the people who signed the petition didn’t care about that either. It is about the wasteful spending the city is engaged in. A couple of things you have to remember
– If we let taxpayers spend that $5 million on goods and services in our community it will do a lot more to stimulate the economy and local business then if we give it to the city and let them dole it out to a handful of developers (ironically the developers who funded the campaigns of the councilors who voted for the increase)
– Ironically, the city was able to put $5 million away in surplus this year, even before the tax increase, so that proves it wasn’t even needed
– Costello and Staggers made amendments to the budget to cut out $5 million so they would have money for the roads before the vote on the increase, but they were voted down.
This wasn’t about building roads or a measly .08 cents. It was about maxing our taxes out.
John2- Actually someone suggested we go out there, and I laughed and said, “Rich people like retail taxes, they’ll never sign that petition.”