UPDATE:Â The rumor swirling around is that this TIF could have a value of over $91 million+ and a certain bank with a certain councilor working at this bank wants to finance projects at Flopdation Park with the caveat that this TIF can be used as collateral. So guess who is on the hook if the Development Foundation defaults . . . you guessed it. I’m hearing that many of the councilors are very uncomfortable with the TIF and they may have the 5 votes to kill it and send it back to the drawing table. Of course this is all speculation until we hear more tomorrow, stay tuned, they are going to have to clean out Carnegie with skid steers after this meeting.
To say I was a little disgusted when reading the agenda of the meeting is an understatement. Of course I knew this was coming;
• TIF 23 – Foundation Park North Update by Bob Mundt, President, Sioux Falls Development Foundation; and Jeff Eckhoff, Director of Planning and Development Services (No supporting documents in SIRE)
• Marion Road Improvements at Foundation Park by Mark Cotter, Director of Public Works (there are supporting documents and maps in SIRE)
The State, County and City has already given millions towards Foundation Park in infrastructure, and we are set to give more with the road improvements. I can’t imagine if we spent the same amount of money on our core, fixing up the infrastructure we already own?
But that is the least of our problems. The city is proposing for the first time an open-ended TIF. While I am opposed to millions in tax rebates to even local developers, I am even more weary of international companies that pay little to no Federal taxes and make billions paying less than a living wage. But what makes this TIF even more egregious is that it will give the Development Foundation carte blanche to have an open ended TIF that can use for however long they want to. One of the reasons the docs are not yet posted on SIRE is because this will be the largest scam in property taxes in the history of our city. Large corporations will come into Foundation Park, pay little in property taxes, little in Federal income taxes, pay low wages and send all the profits straight out of town while us worker bees pick up the slack in higher property taxes and infrastructure costs.
In other words, for the hardworking folks in Sioux Falls like you and me, IT’S A BAD DEAL!
Anybody promoting this on Tuesday and tells you this is a good thing for our community is FULL OF SH!T!
An “open-ended TIF” is like a brothel which allows you to put it on a tab. But who will pay the eventual bill? Most likely the ones not having any of the fun.
From one of your previous posts:
“… a proven formula of growth for many years”
Laundering of money from government coffers (state, county and city) into these projects through the various economic and community development foundations, NGOs and non-profits. Tertiary laundering of funds from these forementioned entities to private investment vehicles (venture captial, angel investor – pick your nom du jour).
Government grants, loans and loan guarantees.
Property, excise and contractors tax breaks and incentives.
But yah, “free enterprise, free-market capitalism”. LOL!
Here is another time I actually agree with Scott – we should NOT be encouraging these Multi-Nationap Corporations to come here and steal our jobs, remove our profits outside the State, while paying little to no property taxes to the State, while taking ‘TIFS” to boot. This was NOT what the TIF program was designed for.
I am tired of all these MULTI NATIONAL COMPANIES dictating to us how we must run an ecomony, they are the ones responsible for pushing all these COVID policies onto us. KICK everyone of them out, all of them, and return us back to a SMALL MOM and POP Locality.
– Mike Zitterich
MLZ,
I contend that the multinationals “dictate” very little relative to those policies of economic development in our region.
The shuttling of money to private enterprise from government coffers directly or indirectly through monetary support of the twisted web of NGOs; tax breaks and incentives; the infamous “public/private partnerships”. All of those are the brain children of our state, county and local elected officials and non-elected economic development personnel. Described as part of the “proven formula” by these people when they are asked to comment.
Rather than a dictate from elsewhere, this is the MO for “economic development” in this region.
GFG- You are correct. I can’t count the number of times I have asked for research or even ONE study that TIFs have benefitted Sioux Falls economically. At the beginning of the TenHaken Admin, COS Beck commented that the private sector was either working on one or had one, but it has never surfaced. I am willing to believe the private sector does have the data and numbers, but they will never release to the public because they know they are dismal. TIFs are not totally useless if used correctly, to clean up areas for more affordable housing. That has gone by the wayside. The rents at the Cascade, the last project to get a TIF are $900 – $2,400 a month. And the the low end is a 600 sq ft studio. I’m sure the new Railyard Flats apartments (who got a significant discount on the land after taxpayers paid millions for the land that did nothing to relieve DT rail traffic) will have similar or even higher rents. These tax rebates and incentives only help one person, the developer building these projects. They now it, and they will never admit to it.
As the PA Lt Governor said lately a real “dogshit and motor oil smoothie”
In reality, the population growth and economy of Sioux Falls has benefitted from a multi-decade mega-trend – migration to a regional population center of inhabitants from the rural areas.
The steady 3,000-5,000/yr increase in population reflects people who must relocate from rural areas to a population center to seek work. They have chosen to migrate to Minnehaha and (more recently) Lincoln County.
Gathering not only people, but dollars. The later in no small part due to existence in Sioux Falls of a health care oligopoly in which both participants are parties to an arms race of building duplicate and redundant capability and capacity. Each has engaged in vertical integration of the health care model, creating insurance companies (in order to integrate the volume of dollars involved in health insurance into their custody).
One of the health systems has seen fit to diversify into sports facilities (in the interest of furthering the science of sports medicine), hospitality and entertainment. The diversified sports empire motivated minimally by the quest in sports medicine franchise, part to create amenities about which can be boasted in employee recruitment, but mostly due to the aspirations of a former CEO, who fancies himself as a sports executive.
With these elements in place, a monkey could be head of regional economic development and claim economic prosperity.
Let our regional economic development wizards go to Mobridge or Redfield or Aberdeen and deploy their “proven formula”. They will soon realize and appreciate the substantial tailwinds driving the economy of Sioux Falls.
Do we live in a “Feudal System” Today?
True – When the Multi-National Corporations are given the same powers as feudal states, or nations, expect wars.
Where it is McDonalds, Amazon, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Menards, Pizza Hut, Lowes, Wendy’s, you name it, the list of Multi-National Companies go on and on and on;
When they begin to act as large government entities doing foreign commerce thru out the globe, they begin to control actual governments around the globe from Countries, to States, to Local Governments.
Multi-National Company – “A multinational company is a corporate organization that owns or controls production of goods or services in at least one country other than its home country.”
Multi-National Companies are in fact the largest form of “Corporations” whom act as one entity in order to govern a specific territorial commercial enterprise.
What or How is the word Corporation defined – “A corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners. 1 Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibilities that individuals possess: they can enter contracts, loan and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets, and pay taxes. Some refer to it as a “legal person.”
Anyone whom has ever went thru the process of establishing a LLC in their own name – understands that the first step is registering and establishing the Article’s of Organization, then the second step is creating your “Charter” (constitution) which establishes the governmental rules, codes, and regulations of governing the Corporation as one entity. You establish a list of Officers from President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretaries, General Managers, right down to the “Employees” (servants) of the company; to establishing rules as to govern the company, codes to follow, and company regulations as to guide the company as it conducts business.
So – Multi National Corporations are your largest form of corporations of which do business across Countries, Territories, States, Cities, the Globe; they act as large territorial governments of whom now govern all those persons whom ‘act’ under them; and o whom now contract directly to your Centralized Governments of the Country they do business in; while working with that “government” to partake in Foreign Commerce.
My article goes on, but for the sake of keeping this post short, you may email me at zitterich76@gmail.com
The Multi-Nationals Corporations do play a huge role in developing this country, as many of them are members of the C.F.R in order to control Foreign Commerce.
– Mike Zitterich
Guy From Guernsey… you described the local health care situation pretty clearly… so do we have better health care? I believe the answer is no. Healthcare professionals leave the area regularly and I suspect it is the business model that leaves them dissatisfied. The systems are devoted to wringing every penny out of every encounter so they can continue their building boom. The patients are secondary.