2020
l3wis Midco Aquatic Center subsidy in 2019 double of what predicted
I just about fell out of my chair when a city official sent me this;
Aquatic Subsidies for 2019
Total $2,335,028
Indoor $794,913 Â Â 34% of the subsidy
Outdoor $1,540,115Â Â 66% of the subsidy
*2019 financials are not final until after the Audit is completed.
We were originally told that the yearly subsidy for the MAC would be around $400K, it is almost double that. We were also told that it would be so popular that that subsidy would possibly get smaller the longer it was open. Not the case. Just imagine if the Sanford Sports Complex opens an indoor pool, than what will happen? I said before it opened that it was in the wrong location, it didn’t include other stuff like a fitness area, it was too small and didn’t have enough space for expansion. It also has a lot of private competition. As predicted, the MAC will be a yolk around the taxpayers necks for years to come.
Was LifeScape’s street closure plan just a ploy to add value to the property?
As we said when they lost that battle with the city council ‘Yes, Yes and Yes’.
So here is the news we expected to hear;
The new facilities will replace LifeScape’s 26th Street children’s specialty hospital, residential and school location.Â
The children’s campus on 26th street will eventually be sold, but that can’t happen until the new campus is fully functional.Â
The project will require fundraising and infrastructure still needs to be done. While LifeScape ideally would like to be done in a few years, the entire campus could take up to five years, Watkins said.
The renderings shown in this piece were produced by the late architect Jeff Hazard before he passed away last year.
As suspected, these plans were probably already set in motion when they came to the council to ask for the street closure. See, the way the rules work is if a street is closed, the adjacent property owner (LifeScape, in this instance) gets possession of the property at NO cost. This of course increases the value of the property. Billion Auto pulled this trick a few years back, except they still own the property where the street used to be.
It pains me that a non-profit that employees great people, does great things in our community and is a needed service would have people in leadership/management who felt they should try to manipulate the city council and an entire neighborhood for financial gains. Thanks to the insight and vision of 3 councilors (Brekke, Starr and Stehly) and countless citizens in the neighborhood that pushed back, this financial windfall at the expense of taxpayers and people living in the neighborhood never happened. If you want our money, just ask. I often expect people to conduct their private business and non-profits with integrity, but especially organizations that help the disabled.
The Saudi Prince of South Dakota needs to go
As I posted about on January 2, there is a little trouble in the SD GOP;
A group of Fall River Republicans are demanding that Dan Lederman resign as chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party due to his lobbying work for Saudi Arabia.
The Fall River County Republicans’ Central Committee unanimously approved a resolution on Tuesday night alleging that Lederman has a conflict of interest between his role leading the state Republican Party and his work lobbying “against American citizens on behalf of a foreign government.â€
The resolution has been sent to the party’s State Central Committee for consideration.
I heard about this on January 2, when I posted about it. But as I understand it, Fall River is NOT the only county organization drafting letters. I have heard about at least 3 counties if not more. This will be interesting to see how this plays out.