Stay the course
l3wis 
June 2009
The Retail Tax increase ruse is finally revealed
Last year when the Sioux Falls city council voted to raise our retail taxes they said it was for new arterial roads. They argued the extra .08% would raise $5 million for new roads and platting fees paid by developers would pay the other $5 million. A 50/50 partnership, so to speak. In recent months, I assume to downplay our tax petition, the city started to say it was going to be a 40/60 partnership instead, with the developers paying the 60%.
Well the numbers are in, and they ain’t even close to what the city is claiming. Since the tax increase took effect January 1, 2009, the extra .08% in retail taxes has collected about $1 Million dollars. In five months. Obviously it will have to pick up a bit to reach the $4 million dollar goal by the end of the year. But the alarming number is how much the developers have put in the kitty since January 1st. Let’s just say I rewinded the audio three times when finance director Eugene ‘Montgomery Burns’ Rowenhorst mumbled the amount at yesterday’s informational meeting; $8,000 dollars! Nope, you heard right, not $800,000 dollars, $8,000 in five months!  I think the Boy Scouts could raise more than that in just one week selling popcorn.
I said this tax increase was a ruse from the beginning to max out our taxes, it had nothing to do with building those roads. And if the developers are going to chip in 60% to build arterial roads, they better turn it up a notch, because at that rate, they won’t have enough money to build one block let alone several streets.
As usual, Sioux Falls taxpayers will have to pony up 90% of the money for the roads. And as usual, Munson’s administration misled and lied to the public to raise our taxes.
Shameful.
ANOTHER THING THAT WAS BROUGHT UP, in the meeting by Rowenhorst was how much of our Capital Improvement fund goes toward debt service (paying interest and principal on bonds); 22%. Just imagine all the roads we could fix if we weren’t throwing those millions away on interest payments? By rough estimates I’m guessing we pay about $25 million in interest/principal payments a year, just on our CIP projects. Ironically, Eugene bragged that 22% was a good number, he said the city’s credit rating could allow us to be paying 44% out in debt service.
Where do they get these clowns anyway? Oh that’s right Rowenhorst and Munson worked for Citibank, that explains it all.
Is it finally over?
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“Gosh darn it, I’m good enough, and now I’m legal (maybe)”
Wire Services (Argus Leader)
ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Minnesota Supreme Court has ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state’s long-running Senate race.
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The high court rejected a legal challenge from Republican Norm Coleman, whose options for regaining the Senate seat are dwindling.
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Justices said Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office. When Franken is sworn in, he’ll give Democrats a big enough majority to overcome Republican filibusters.
Coleman hasn’t ruled out seeking federal court intervention.
Wonder what Coleman will do?
After squandering tax dollars on his legacy for 7 years, Munson hands off past due infrastructure spending to the next mayor
Gee, should have saw this coming a mile away from Mr. Predictable, Dave Munson. After throwing money at Phillips to the Falls, Monkey crappers, bunny slopes and consultants for the past seven years, Dave wakes up from his deep sleep and goes, oh, that’s right, we have to spend tax dollars on fixing roads and sewers to;
“It’s something you have to do to make sure you’re repairing and maintaining streets so that they don’t become full of pot holes and chuck holes, and so that people aren’t out there damaging their cars and they are always having to have alignments. We need to be out there taking care of streets and maintaining what we already have,” Sioux Falls Mayor Dave Munson said.
This should be the number one priority expenditure of every mayor, every day of their term, not just in the home stretch. Even Munson admits that’s what he is doing;
“The infrastructure is what keeps us moving forward in the city and we don’t want that to languish behind, and so that we really have to someday play a game of catch up,” Munson said.
Of course we know who the real force is behind the expenditures, special interests;
But its not only the old streets that have to be maintained, 32 million dollars is set aside in the five year plan for expansion of new arterial streets. That expansion includes the Southwest part of town where Sanford plans to build its new research park, and developers plan to build new homes and businesses.
“We all work together but right now our focus is really on public works to make sure that everything is at the stage we want it to be,” Munson said.
You mean work with special interests to make sure they get what they want while the rest of scoop shit from our basements from backed up sewers.
Chico needs to quit Monsanto board. Immediately.
This letter says it all;
There are no benefits to a land-grant university from sharing its president with a multi-national corporation. Monsanto is in the business of making money. It pulled down a profit of almost $1 billion in 2008. It is eager for more and has no boundaries or allegiances to anyone other than shareholders.
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A university is in the business of education and research. It should be an incubator of ideas and visions and should be free to entertain ways to make residents more independent from corporations.
Monsanto and other biotechnological corporations have been restricting university scientists from researching and publishing information on patented crops (see the Feb.
20 issue of the New York Times). A land-grant university cannot serve its mandate of freely disseminating information to farmers and other residents with a president who wears a Monsanto logo.
Monsanto is working on its image after a decade of bad press from hauling farmers such as Percy Schmeiser to court for allegedly planting patented seed on the sly. Monsanto is attempting to associate with esteemed institutions in hopes of blurring its achieved image: an ogre.
My biggest complaint is my tax money being intertwined with this corrupt corporation.