When the city council decided to raise our taxes last Semptember they promised two things. 1) That the extra revenue of .08% would go into a special fund that would only be spent on arterial roads 2) That the developers would be paying 50% of that tab through platting fees. Even with the economy down and the city not being able to raise $10 million for the roads doesn’t mean that developers should be off the hook for their half of the bargain. But it seems like they think they are, and the city isn’t doing a damn thing about it.
In my interview yesterday I reiterated that the night of the increase vote that we told councilors a recession was coming, they didn’t care. It was pretty obvious that night as it is today that the four councilors who voted for the increase, Knudson, Brown, Jamison, Litz and Mayor Munson, were bought and paid for through campaign donations by the developers, one of which I busted cracking jokes about citizens testifying against the increase in the bathroom that night. The same guy who was crying and blaming the recession and the economy last night on the boob tube. Pretty funny now, isn’t it?
Here’s some highlights in the story that seem to prove they knew all along that the developers were not going to pony up;
“There’s a good supply of land platted and until that land becomes to be matured, meaning there is rooftops on it, additional land does not need to be platted,” Cotter said.
So, then, why did we need to increase taxes in 2009 to build roads we may not need until 2010 or 2011?
“We have a million dollars more in the fund today than we would have had before. We can always take the negative approach to everything and it really wouldn’t matter in the long term. We don’t build our company and I don’t think Sioux Falls builds their city, and I don’t think any bona fide business person is going to say, ‘Well, I build my company one year at a time,'” Craig Lloyd of Lloyd Companies said.
Craig’s comment is very revealing. 1) He is right, we have a million in the fund, money we, the citizens, put in the kitty, you know, the same people you belittled that September night while taking a leak. Where is your share? I agree, a city doesn’t build itself one year at a time, but when the city and developers tell us there will be a 50/50 partnership, you better hold up your end of deal, and if you don’t, why should we?
But let’s just look at the figures;
$1,000,0000 – What the city has raised so far
$78,000 – What developers have put in so far ($70,000 was added in June to the fund)
Now lets scenario the economy turns around and those numbers triple by the end of the year;
$3,000,000 – City
$234,000 – Develop
$3,234,000 – Total December 31, 2009
But this is where it gets interesting and the city gets caught up in their lies. The CIP has $5.4 million budgeted for arterial streets next year. Where is that additional money coming from? Most likely us.
$2,166,000 shortfall (that will have to be taken out of the regular CIP fund)
That would mean while taxpayers will have to pony up $5,166,000 for arterial streets next year, developers will only be putting a fraction of that aproximately $234,000, unless of course they win the lottery.
Does that sound like a 50/50 partnership to you? Kind of sounds a bad restroom joke to me.
I predicted last night that the city would be in high gear today with damage control of this story, man they are so predictable, Munson will be on Greg Belfrage’s show this morning talking about the topic.
http://www.keloam.com/page.php?page_id=11407
I’m sure Greg will belittle me as much as possible on his show since I have called him out on his bullshit when he used to have a blog.
If we had a real media all this would not be necessary.
This is true, but it is fun to watch TEAM SCHWAN’s damage control. I can’t wait to see the next KELO story about it. It will be just like after 9/11. Everyone and their dog was blaming the sagging economy after 9/11 for their businesses closing.
I still think it is funny that the city is blaming the recession, which I agree with them 100%. Unless you were a complete freaking idiot, you could see the recession coming 100 miles away in September.
It was just weeks ago that the city was ongoing with agressive growth plans. What a turnabout. Munson has to blame the economy to hide from terrible decisions and run away developer rigged spending. At least the city is finally buckling down for a bad storm. Hint for the new mayor; award a few big projects to the developers then use Home Rule to withhold payment for their part of the 50% fees.
Give the corrupt developers major projects. Then cite past inflated prices, cost overruns, bid rigging, and platting fees to use Home Rule and not pay them. Keep Home Rule after the next election and deplete developers to sponsor infrastructure repairs. What goes around comes around. They’ll discover how well socialism works.
Oh, when they are backed in a corner by citizens that expose the LIES, they are full of excuses. Munson tells the LA Times that the recession hasn’t affected us, but tells KELO it has.
Maybe Munson would have seen the recession coming if he would have hired a cheif of staff rather than an over priced PR wanabe.
Or maybe he could be a little pessimistic once in awhile, it wouldn’t hurt.
Be careful, he’ll decide he needs a grouchy swimsuit model to assist the PR political payback with a weekly one-liner.
I heard Palin is looking for a job.
Miscalculations? Recession? or lies?
Is this a rhetorical question? My guess is it is 15% miscalculations (we tend to get a lot of that from our city department heads), 15% recession, 30% lies, and 40% pure unadulterated ineptitude.
I still think they intentially mislead the public – and I am sticking with that.
Grouchy swimsuit model??? Who is that?
If it’s away from the heart it’s arterial. If it’s towards the heart it’s venerial.
I know this is an oldie but there is still the question about the need for the 69th St viaduct, roundabout and 4 lane highway in front of the 2 ‘Christian’ run businesses called schools.
There still is no need for this expenditure. If WalMart would have been able to be built on this street, we the taxpayers would have been able to start recouping some of the costs. As of now, the only traffic for this multimillion dollar street extension are TeaBaggers paying to send their children to private church schools. If I mistaken, these ‘church’ schools are tax free and as such do not pay any taxes or street upkeep.
The funds should have been used to build a much needed 26th street / Southeastern / Sioux River, or Cliff Avenue bridge or both. The traffic jams at both of these intersections has been needing attention for 20+ years.
No matter what or how the downtown rail yard discussion plays out, infrastructure changes need to be made in the core of town. Trains are still going to be traveling on these tracks, in fact we recently learned BNSF is planning more trains per week. What is the city’s plan?
Why doesn’t the developers look at a development plan to actually consider the railroad a tourist attraction? Travel the roads of America and see how railroads have been a must see thing. I have been very happy with the city’s failure with the railroad. If the developers want to rework the railyard for their profits, let them pay for the costs.
Just because developers keep stretching out the the town’s boundarys doesn’t mean, we the citizens must pay for their ability to make more money on the taxpayer’s backs.
We are getting tired of socialism for costs and privatized capitalism of profits.
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The question: Why do we increase taxes in 2009 when we don’t need the roads until 2011 or 2012 was a silly question. If the roads are needed in the near future, it is best to prepare for the funding in advance. Too many cities wait until the roads are already a disaster before they take steps to fix it. I laud the city for being proactive and don’t understand the criticism over two years advance preparation.