South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

November 2017

Christine Erickson SF City Council Sioux Falls

Super Majority for bonding in Sioux Falls is great idea!

l3wis 2Comments

I might even add, that Councilor Erickson’s idea is way past due;

Erickson hopes to raise the bar on borrowing money by requiring a “super majority” on the Council. She says that if a project can’t get six of eight votes, it’s not worthy.

All other state governments require this majority for bonding. If this would have been in place when the Administration building was being debated, it would have failed.

Right now, the city is paying down eight sales tax revenue bonds, including ones that financed the administration building, the Denny Sanford Premier Center, and the tax increment financing bond that covered the removal of the former Zip Feed Mill in downtown Sioux Falls.

Also ironically if the Events Center vote would have been a LEGAL bonding vote instead of an ADVISORY VOTE, the bond sale would have failed (would have required 60% of the vote).

Marijuana Medical Mary Jane South Dakotans

Recreational Marijuana Petition, What Happened?

l3wis 4Comments

The only POT that is legal in SD.

Only a few months ago, I was told that things with the REC petition were doing very good, even better than the medical petition.

Apparently that is NOT the case today.

Do I think I was lied to? Not at all. It seems what is evident today is that the circulators who promised to circulate didn’t follow through. Trust me it happens, I have seen it with local petition drives. That is why when I take a sheet, I don’t make any promises.

But what worries me more is that there seemed to be a bigger effort to get signatures for medical marijuana first (they did submit enough initially, but may not have enough to be certified). Let’s say that the medical petition is certified and does make the ballot, I still don’t give it much chance of passing.

Why is that?

As I have told the past two campaigns on this topic, people don’t want to fiddle around looking for a doctor to prescribe them medical marijuana, or hold a card, etc, etc. And recreational smokers don’t consider it fair either. People just want to go to the corner Jane store, pick up their weed and use it. Is it really anyone’s business if that is for pain, meditation and self-reflection or to simply just get high and check out for awhile?

Theirre efforts should have been full boar into getting rec on the ballot, it would have passed. Medical, I guess we will see.

Sioux Falls

Tear down the Arena? Get Real!

l3wis 9Comments

I often disagree with the Argus Ed board, but I won’t make this an argument about differing ideas. I would partially agree to the idea if we sold the building as is and a private hotel came in and tore it down for another hotel, but I do not agree to using tax dollars to tearing down a building that is still functional and structurally sound.

Instead of hiring consultants and outside counsel every time the city has to make a ‘tough’ decision, why not use common sense instead?

Common sense would have told us we should have built the Convention Center downtown instead. Common sense would have told us we should have built the EC downtown instead. Common sense would have told us to build the indoor pool at the Sanford Sports Complex and lastly common sense would have told us it is better to lease city office space than to build a $25 million dollar fortress we don’t need.

Common sense tells us that the best solution for the Arena is to auction off the seats and other outdated performance gear, put in a false lowered ceiling and use it as convention center floor space. We could probably pay for it with the proceeds from the auction and it would serve us well.

I have never understood this mentality of blowing a bunch of money on consultants and lawyers to justify spending gobs of money to tear down a city structure that is functional as is.

Denny Sanford Premier Center Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls economy Event Center

Tax Incentives for Economic Development rarely pays off

l3wis 2Comments

Let’s look at some recent examples in Sioux Falls.

Uptown II; Taxpayers held the land for over 10 years collecting NO taxes for one developer, sold the land at a discount, gave them another 10-13 year tax break and in return we get an apartment building (that isn’t affordable housing) and a few parking spots for Levitt Pavilion.

Flopdation Park; State, County and City taxpayers will have spent over $30 million in infrastructure with only one tenant so far and NO signed agreements. And an employer that may provide 20 jobs at best for an Iowan Ice Cream factory.

Events Center; The building will cost taxpayers $180 million once paid for. While that may include the mortgage payments, it doesn’t include the yearly maintenance that comes from the same place as the mortgage payments, the CIP, a fund that is supposed to be for roads. While the EC may have a net operating gain, any of that ‘extra’ money doesn’t go to paying for the building or maintenance, it goes into a revolving fund that the management company uses. Than there is the supposed Economic Impact, since the EC has been open, tax revenue in Sioux Falls has actually gone down.

When you watch the latest episode of Last Week notice the part about the Fargo City Commission and how they approved a tax incentive for a company that was already moving there and said they didn’t need the tax incentive, the city commission approves it anyway. Sound familiar Sioux Falls?

But hey, without all these great amenities in Sioux Falls the rich millionaire doctors wouldn’t be moving here and building pools.

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