July 2021

Sioux Falls is Full of Boom Town Rats and very few Progressives

l3wis July 13, 2021 16Comments

Well the â€˜Boom Town’ mentality chickens have finally come home to roost;

Sioux Falls Development Foundation is getting creative in reaching out to those living nearby with a social media and mailer campaign. Bob Mundt is the President and CEO.

â€œIt is a tremendous need over the next several years to bring people Sioux Falls to work the jobs that we’re creating and so we’re being really creative as to how we do that, looking at how we can reach out to other communities,â€ said Mundt.

The campaign is targeting residents throughout the midwest.

â€œMinneapolis, Twin Cities area, Des Moines, Sioux City, Council Bluffs Omaha, Fargo,â€ said Mundt. â€œA lot of production jobs. We need a lot of specialized jobs, skilled level jobs.â€

Another challenge for those relocating is finding a place to live.

â€œI think it’s a challenge that we have, is to come up with a way to have more housing and the affordable housing areas,â€ said Mundt. â€œAnd so I think when we really talk about housing, that’s probably the next big thing. We’re going to have to push hard on is making sure that we have places for those folks to live.â€

â€œWe just want people to come to Sioux Falls and become part of our community,â€ said Mundt.

I really didn’t know when the bomb fire would start burning out of control in Sioux Falls, but it is really starting to roar. It is estimated that for ever 10 jobs available in Sioux Falls there are only 2-4 workers to even â€˜possibly’ fill them. This means passing background checks, drug tests and sometimes health screenings. And if you can get pass that, you may have to deal with attendance issues due to child care.

So how did this all happen? I guess I don’t have to do a bunch of scientific economic studies to tell you the obvious reasons. COVID and the national economy along with global warming issues is driving people and businesses to our region, that is unquestionable, but what has put this â€˜Growth for Growth’ sakes attitude take hold is from the years of throwing money at developers and especially development parks. We still live in this dream world that trickle-down economics works. It has never worked and never will (except for those on top of the food pyramid). Even before the ridiculous and unneeded $94 million dollar TIF to Flopdation Park, the taxpayers in the State, County and City have dumped well over $50 million in infrastructure into the place. And for what? Thousands of below living wage jobs that cannot be filled. But this is kind of like throwing gas on the fire (in the form of tax rebates, FREE infrastructure upgrades and TIFs) and it has been going on for over two decades and now that we have â€˜over attracted’ business here, we don’t have the workers to fill the jobs, the wages to maintain a economically stable middle class community and the housing they need to live here.

The writing was on the wall folks.

One reason I have railed against TIFs for years is that it is a foolish way to spend property TAX dollars. Instead of investing 100% of that money into the entire community (roads, schools, social programs, etc.) the enormous tax breaks go towards the private investors and developers who spend it on propping up their own businesses while we subsidize those rebates and now it seems to the detriment to the rest of the community.

I have felt that if we would have started cleaning up our core, 15-20 years ago, using these same tax dollars, building up density, propping up affordable housing, and investing in local businesses we would be in a much different position now. Would our growth have been slower? Yes, but it would have been more manageable and we would have developed local wealth. Instead of investing in the core, we blew it on Pools, Event Centers, Bunker Ramps, Dirty Railroad land, etc.

But our failures in infrastructure upgrades is just part of the problem.

While I don’t have an issue with bringing folks in from all over the country, or even other countries (diversity is a good thing) I wonder where they will live? In tents?

While we built up businesses (even ones from other parts of the country and world, who pay little to no Federal or state taxes) we neglected affordable housing, affordable neighborhoods, local business and infrastructure, and somehow we think we are going to be able to put out this bomb fire?

Good luck.
It is possible though.

First we would have to change our entire city council and mayor’s office, county commission and school board. We would also have to restructure our city charter. We would also have to put an immediate freeze on all tax rebates and TIFs to developers and businesses (they don’t need any more incentives folks). We also should put a 2-4 year moratorium on NEW quality of life projects (Did you know the Canaries want us to help build a new stadium). We also need to change ordinance so that the city has at least a $11-13 an hour minimum wage, and wage listing requirement in help wanted ads, and a change in zoning and regulation for homes older then 50 years so it is easier to fix up affordable homes or expand them. We also need to focus a majority of the 2^ndÂ penny on cleaning up our core and creating more density.

This of course would mean we would have to overhaul our entire structure of government in Sioux Falls and make bold decisions helping the CITIZENS of our city instead of the MONIED elite. I know, a total 180 from how things are done now.

I hate to say it, but it is going to be a rough ride in Sioux Falls over the next 5 years if some of these things are not done. Inflation in housing will skyrocket, property taxes will become unreasonable, crime is definitely going to go up (and not just because of population growth as our Mayor and Former Police Chief contends).
We will also need a change in the mentality of public employees who will need to have more of a culture of customer service instead a culture of kiss ass the mayor.

I have no intention of leaving Sioux Falls, no matter what happens, but we are no longer the big prairie village that can get away with the old white dudes running the town and pillaging the city coffers. We are going to have to make big progressive moves if we are going to come out of this, because the rich old money white good old boys Republican playbook ain’t working.

Denny Sanford Premier Center Event Center Former Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut Sioux Falls

Event Center column about 8 years too late

l3wis July 11, 2021 11Comments

Many people have been talking about this article that popped up on the Argus Leader site on Friday. It is by the supposed anonymous food critic ‘Secret Fork’. Many have speculated, including myself, that Secret Fork isn’t such a big secret, but the GM of the Argus Leader, Cory Myers. While there has never been any confirmation of that, I don’t think the Argus would allow a food critic to write this article unless they were in some kind of leadership position, but speculation aside, let’s review;

It’s high time to declare a loss on the so-called Sports and Entertainment District.

Duh?! As I said in the title of this post, this article should have been written years ago. The EC was never going to revitalize the area, study after study proved that. The obvious recommendation was a Downtown location;

It turns out the question of whether the voters would support such a project was intertwined with proposed locations. Very early on in the process, a tug of war developed between those who wanted the project downtown versus those who felt the Arena/Howard Wood area was more suitable.

The voters would have supported a DT location, if it were explained to them. But it really is moot, because the vote on the EC was not legal and only an advisory vote. If a legal vote would have been put on the ballot, the EC would have had to receive 60% of the vote to pass. This was a trick played so the City Council could approve this project without citizens really weighing in. I still run into people who actually thought their vote on the EC mattered. It wasn’t worth the paper the ballot was printed on. It was pretty much a straw poll with voting centers.

Still, the capacity to absorb any measurable chunk of a concert crowd in the so-called â€œdistrictâ€ remains elusive. But those crowds most certainly eat and drink before and after events. Where? Downtown. That’s the very definition of irony. And failure. In a city where we have literally turned salvage yards into showcases and breathed new life into aging industrial buildings, that’s unacceptable.

Some people eat DT before events, but most of the people who attend the EC for events drive directly there, spend any money they do have eating and drinking there then go home. And why wouldn’t they? When you spend $200+ on a ticket and probably another $50 on drinks and food, you really don’t have a lot of extra dough to go DT before or after an event.

I’ll say it until I am blue in the face, doesn’t matter if we would have built a smaller EC downtown or the current one. It is a drain on the city. All of the money sucked in from the facility (I estimate around $20 million + a year) goes directly out the door to promoters, artists and vendors and never gets recirculated in our community. Add that it costs taxpayers (from the 2nd penny) another $10 million + a year for the bond and maintenance on the facility and all you really have is a money vacuum sucking it right out of our town. Imagine if the $30 million spent in entertainment each year was spent on local venues, can you imagine the impact? We could have that right now if we never built that place.

I have speculated for a long time the management company that runs the EC has preferred that location all along, because they knew that people coming from out of town would drive directly there and spend their money there. Do you really think they would have wanted people eating and drinking in locally owned restaurants and bars DT before the show and spending very little once they walked in? They have also rejected an idea I pitched to the city council we add a bond fee to each ticket (around $5) saying it would hurt ticket sales and promoters and artists are against it. Other cities do it with much success and they just simply write it into ordinance and the promoters and artists have to accept it if they want to perform here.

This place has been a Class A disaster from the beginning, just like the long list of other failed projects by a credit card salesman (Admin building, Bunker Ramp, etc.) and who can forget his terrible negotiation with the railroads allowing them to run even more trains through downtown after handing them $27 million for Federal land we probably already owned. Everything this man touched turned to sh!t, but I could have told you that 8 years ago.

Jason Ravnsborg

Even if AG Ravnsborg hit a tree in the road, he is still guilty of a crime

l3wis July 9, 2021 16Comments

So here comes the Hail Mary from his defense team;

In the paperwork that was filed on July 9. Ravnsborg’s attorneys say that Boever had told friends that his preferred method of suicide would be to â€œthrow himself in front of a carâ€.

Even if any or all of this is true and provable in a court of law, it doesn’t change the fact that whether Jason hit a tree in the middle of the road or Boever, Jason was web surfing while driving which is against the law, and not to be cold, but Jason hit ‘something’ in the road while he was violating the law, and that is what matters here. He should have seen the obstruction and at least tried to avoid it, but he couldn’t because he was distracted. Investigators have pointed this out.

Not only is Jason not qualified to operate a motor vehicle, he can’t even come up with a solid opinion without retracting it as he did today with Tribal Medical Marijuana cards. Any AG, or lawyer should know, you shouldn’t say anything until you absolutely certain. I am still baffled how he got elected.

SFPD

Sioux Falls Police Chief ‘Under my Thum’

l3wis July 9, 2021 2Comments

This morning on the Belfrage show when Greg was interviewing the mayor he called the new Police Chief, Police Chief ‘Thumb’, Paul was quick to correct him it is pronounced ‘Tomb’. Not sure which is worse. But it proved two things to me, Belfrage not only knows very little about National and State politics, he knows absolutely NOTHING about city politics. And as I have mentioned to my many dissenters, when I come up with nicknames for government officials, I don’t pull them from my butt, someone else does. Greg gets the award today for calling our new Chief, Under My Thum.

Epp does a cordial interview with the new guy.

I will be honest with you, one reason I haven’t railed on Thum is because I have only heard glowing remarks about him, I’m a grain of salt dude though. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. But I still take issue with the internal hiring process in this city, but that is not Thum’s fault.

We will be watching.