There has been some rumblings for awhile that certain people at city hall are a little envious of the BID (business improvement district) tax. They want it so bad, they can taste it. In fact, the mayor’s wife tried to snatch some of it up to help market (raise money) for the indoor (private) tennis facility.
My drinking buddy (inside joke) Joe Sneve over at the Argus Leader can fill you in a little bit;
“Much has changed in the past five years in Sioux Falls and it’s prudent to step back and assess whether there are new or different opportunities of which we could take advantage and whether or not the priorities established five years ago remain the priorities today,” the email said.
The review committee will be comprised of councilors, CVB-BID board members and representatives from the public and business community. The group have three goals: find better ways to use available tax revenues, find any “quick-wins” that could be applied in the coming year, and make recommendations for long-term changes to diversify how BID revenues are spent, potentially using them for brick-and-mortar projects or expenses.
The original intent of this money was to market our city to bring in tourism, which is economic impact, which is funded by tourists. Seems to make sense. Use the extra ‘tax’ to fund marketing to bring in more travelers and tourists who use our hotels.
But it seems our mayor sees another cookie jar he can rob from for his ‘quick wins’. Not sure who will be on the BID review board, but I hope they recommend to keep things just the way they are, use 100% of the tax to market our city.
As for the mayor for proposing this review (to ultimately take some of this money) he really should be ashamed, but that would require him to actually have any shame to begin with . . . maybe with the help of God he can create some.
This is just another way to pilfer from public funds. It’s the Huether legacy. Munson was sorta there but he mostly just worked around the council. Funds still got spent toward the public. Indoor tennis and a bathhouse don’t relate with tourism. A city owned hotel wards private hotel franchises away. Other than the sludge running over the falls, there’s nothing a tourist will stop for on their way to Mt. Rushmore. We’ll maybe, our vagrants and low income fallout in city parks might incite bus tours past Dudley House and through the Whittier area.
Greed starting to rear its head? Starting?
http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2013/12/15/investments-projects-raising-specter-of-conflicts-for-mayor/1578534/
I like how in this story about investing in real estate Huether states “it’s a common practice” and he even said “Come on, you’re telling me that Mayor (Dave) Munson, Mayor (Gary) Hanson, Mayor (Rick) Knobe — mayors before me — never invested in things?â€
Yet every single one of the Mayors mentioned that Huether tried to accuse of engaging in poor ethics, did just the opposite of himself and avoided investing in real estate development while in office (Wow, was that really the “but they did it too excuse” you’d get from a 7 year old?).
Also Governor Daugaard has stayed out of real estate investments. Even Governor Janklow had enough sense to put his real estate holdings into a blind trust while in office.
Apparently Huether has a better sense of ethics than all of those other people combined (not just sarcasm; dripping sarcasm). But at least he’ll have those God-given memories to pass the time in his jail cell.