Rah Rah (G/T-Tim Benson)
l3wis 
May 2021
Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, May 11, 2021 & the $449K Convention Center Door
Informational Meeting • 4 PM
Presentations on Curbside pickup and Sioux Steel TIF;
Not sure what the garbage presentation is about, but it looks like the garbage haulers are not happy about the changes. You know, if you would have just gave discounts it may not have changed back. But guess what, sometimes being greedy sucks. I don’t have a problem with putting the can at the end of the driveway on pickup day, but why not just offer a discount to customers who do it? Oh, that’s right, that greed thing again.
There is also an update on the TIF for Sioux Steel. As I understand it the original TIF will be rescinded and after changes to the project (not sure what they will be) the TIF will be re-instated. I think the council should send a message and rescind the original TIF and not give them one. We don’t need more office space or hotels downtown, we need affordable housing. If the developer was willing to turn the project into a work force housing development, I think the TIF would be fine.
Item #7, Approval of Contracts, Sub Item #10;
Software Platform, Mass Transit On-Demand Pilot Project; amendment to introduce a second “Pilot Program†of “SAM on Demand†This pilot project will test to see if on-demand service will improve ridership, Pantonium, Inc. $36K. (I’m wondering if the public is going to get an update about how they continue to milk this bad idea).
Sub Item #11, Convention Center Improvements – Convention Center Vestibule Door Replacement; Sunkota Construction, Inc., $449K (While the mayor bragged about giving a whopping $1 Million in rental assistance last year, he failed to tell folks he plans to spend almost a Half-Million on a door. To be fair, it’s probably a couple of doors. Wouldn’t spending that money on actually marketing Sioux Falls for conventions be better spent)?
Sub Item #12, Greenway and Trail Improvements – Downtown River Greenway Improvements – Phase 3; Agreement for final design, Confluence, $797K (so it costs less to build a door than it does to design a sidewalk. Hmmm).
We need to stop incentivizing businesses with TIF’s and Tax rebates in Sioux Falls
As I said a few months ago, it was baffling to me why we would give a $94 million dollar TIF to incentivize businesses to come here. First off, it is pretty obvious we don’t need anymore job creators currently;
To find out more about what might be going on, I reached out to Secretary Marcia Hultman, who leads the South Dakota Department of Labor.
“What you are seeing and what we’re hearing anecdotally, the numbers really support,†she said.
They definitely do. The most current number she could pull for me Friday was 23,500 active job openings in the state’s database. Nearly 10,000 of those are in the city of Sioux Falls.
You read it correct, 10,000 available jobs in Sioux Falls, and we want to incentivize business to come here? It’s ludicrous. Factor in our schools are over crowded, affordable housing is a rarity (where we should be investing tax rebates) and building permits are through the roof. If anything we should be giving the tax rebates to the citizens to create more affordable housing and propping up our current infrastructure instead throwing it at Egg Roll factories owned by Koreans.
I also found this interesting in the article;
Another tip: You should list a wage with your opening.
“Statistically, if the wage is posted, even if it’s not the best, those job orders get more activity. If nothing is listed, the assumption is that it’s low,†Hultman said.
Nearly every business I talk to has increased pay, some significantly. Frankly, that’s not a bad thing, to me, in a state that has struggled with persistently low wages in some sectors.
I have often said the city council should pass a city ordinance that any job listed within city limits should have the minimum and maximum pay listed in the ad.
It’s time to end most if not all TIF’s in the city and tax rebates for the supposed (low wage) job creators and start helping the people who live and work in this city with more affordable housing and propping up infrastructure, and we can do it without welfare to big business. This is what happens when you have a partisan greedy mayor on cruise control and a former developer executive running the city as Chief of Staff.
Ironically, when she left the city the first time she met me for coffee. She told me the deciding factor to leave the city, besides the last mayor being a total jackass was that she was forced to write the Sanford Sports Complex TIF which she felt set a bad precedent for TIFs because of it’s size and that it was NOT for housing or blighted property. Funny how her feelings have changed on the Tifiliciousness of TIFs and doesn’t seem to bothered by the bad precedent she set.
