How fitting after our Little League team just gets done playing in the LLWS the Mayor appears on the B-N-B show catching softballs from Greg.
Funny how in under 50 minutes the mayor can contradict himself, several times. Whether he is talking about how God has enlightened him or how he continues to fight the Parks Districting idea (doesn’t matter now, that decision is now up to the next council and mayor, your opinion on that is of NO consequence).
But one of the best parts of the interview was when he started blabbing about TIF’s. He said that TIF’s are NOT handed to people’s wives friends. LOL, nope, just to your wife. Mike’s wife invested in an apartment project that got a TIF. And in order to save his ass on it, he had Mark Cotter sign off on the TIF.
He also went on to scoff people (developers) who asked for TIF’s to develop around the Events Center (which ironically has yet to get any development that will stick around). But has NO problem with having taxpayers subsidize a PRIVATE hotel on Elmwood, setting a precedent by putting the taxpayers of Sioux Falls in the lodging business.
But his comments at the beginning of the program and at the end are a doozy. He starts out by defending the TIF for Lloyd’s Uptown project, saying it is needed to clean up this area and make this project a reality. Than at the end of the interview when a caller asks about the Sioux Steel DT property, the Mayor talks about, almost giggling, that he wishes he would have bought DT property early on because it is so valuable now.
So which is it Mr. Ed? Is DT property ‘valuable’ or is it so ‘worthless’ we need to hand out millions in TIF’s to multi-millionaire developers?
I would like to thank the mayor for agreeing with my argument against the Uptown TIF, that the property is SO VALUABLE, why on earth would we be handing out tax incentives?
You would think after 7 years, the mayor would get better at the game? Thank goodness he wasn’t pitching at the LLWS, otherwise it would have been two perfect games against them.
He finishes the interview by talking about his bi-annual South Dakota mayor’s conference he will be attending today in Chamberlain. He talked about how the mayors share ideas. We know Mike, this is where you are rumored to brag about your use of the VETO pen when you have an uncooperative council.
Have fun! Keep sharing your brilliant (fascist) ideas!