The state can’t afford to help with a new events center, they have Canadian oil companies to help first.
Of course the AL cannot resist to spread a little beautiful sunshine before telling us to go vote;
The plan calls for a $115 million center to be built adjacent to the Convention Center. It would seat 12,000 people, and no new or raised taxes would be used to pay for it.
Until the next council and mayor take over, there is nothing stopping them from raising taxes. There is also no mention of the current council shifting enterprise funds out of the 2nd penny to make infrastructure upgrades be rate supported only (why do you think water rates have gone up almost 200%?). Or that the facility will cost almost $200 million when it is all said and done.
More than 1,500 jobs would be created, and 85 percent of local contractors would be used for the project.
A commenter on the AL site had this to say about that half-truth;
According to both the Mayor’s EC update to the Council (see siouxfalls.org September 12th Informational meeting) and the EC public presentation that they gave at the public libraries this week:
1,100 jobs are TEMPORARY construction jobs
184 jobs are PERMANENT jobs (their comment: these will be mostly in the hospitality industry)This is a total of 1,284 jobs, of which 1,100 are TEMPORARY (an important omission of the facts, esp. when job creation is such an important and timely topic).
AND, I think that this is a good example of why the pros and cons of this project need to continue to be discussed!
(This is a sentence taken directly from this editorial: “It’s time to stop arguing about the pros and cons of an events center and put your ballot where your mouth is.”
And I’m still wondering whose butt they pulled this factoid from;
The estimated economic benefit is $36 million a year.
I have mentioned to councilor Jamison in the past that having Pat Costello sitting on the Governor’s staff as the main dude when it comes to economic development that you would think we would get something from the state? Anything would help. This commenter says it best;
Lastly, the big talking points about why we should build this thing is tax revenue from visitors. Well, doesn’t the state get 2/3rds of all sales taxes collected in this state? I realize they are broke thanks to a decade of mismanagement, but the state stands to gain quite nicely from a new facility, yet they are unwilling to provide ANY type of support, either monetarily or via fiscal policy.
Well they are not broke. They have almost a $800 million sitting in an investment fund, untouched. They also have all kinds of money to throw at foreign oil companies for tax breaks. Yeah, you would think the state would give something? Right?