It is 1,169 miles from Del Rio to Sioux Falls. As I listened to all these Right Winger A-Clowns call into the Belfrage show this morning crying about something this far away we have our own little crisis going on right over by the Bishop Dudley House (you know, the place that was going to solve all of our homeless issues). In tonight’s photo album you can see occurring simultaneously on public and their private property fights, drinking, needles, homeless laundry and various other activities. As I understand it the Dudley House says not our problem, the cops say not our problem and the surrounding business owners say WTF?
In my opinion the city leaders and YES the taxpayers of this city have a responsibility to clean this up since we decided that this partnership and location was going to work. So guess what, it’s time to MAKE IT WORK or shut it down.
Cruise control government at it’s finest. (click on photo to enlarge)
While there are many options for the Districting Commission to review at their meeting on Wednesday, options C9 and especially C11 would be the biggest changes to the district in years. Not only would you make the Central the largest by population, you would really make it a core district again.
The discussion should be interesting.
Hopefully many candidates will be challenging Councilor Soehl for the Central District in the 2022 municipal election since he has been an utter failure delivering very little to the residents and homeowners of the district and more concerned about handing out millions in TIFs to DT parking ramps we don’t need while letting the residential streets of the core turn into the roads of Baghdad.
We found out a few years ago that the Planning Department in collusion with the Mayor’s office has a list of PRIVATE developer and corporation tax rebates. The kicker is all of the rebates are approved ONLY by the discretion of the Mayor. There is NO City Council OR public review of the rebates. The mayor simply signs off on them. While they can be seen by the public you have to know who to ask. There are NO public presentations of the recipients.
How do they work? Basically a developer or company, or investment group (LLC) makes significant upgrades to the property and a portion of the cost (usually around half) is rebated back to them from their paid property taxes. Like TIFs, it is only an option for a select few and extremely UNFAIR to the 99.99% of property taxpayers in the community.
Now, I’m not going to cry corruption, I’m just going to keep this simple, it is time to end this welfare handout because 1) it goes against the FREE market system but more importantly 2) The mayor should not have this kind of power and control to secretly hand out tax rebates to whomever he wants to.
I think the City Council needs to end this process ASAP.
You will see below how random and highly questionable the recipient list is which adds the element of corruption;
• Endeavor 212 LLC, Dr. Richard Brue, Historic DTSF Property, this one surprises me since downtown property is very valuable and certainly doesn’t need a tax break.
• Smithfield, this company owned by Communist Chinese investors got a massive tax break in 2019 and again in 2020.
• Graco Minnesota Inc, this very successful company based out of Minnesota got a tax break. Why?
• Schenk Properties LLC and AL Properties LLC may be intertwined with Murray properties and they have gotten massive tax breaks in Foundation Park for 3 different properties in 2019 & 2020.
• 4 Suns-I90 LLC, I believe has developed property on North Cliff and 60th, they are based out of Fargo, ND. So I guess we don’t only give tax cuts to the Chinese but also our Northern neighbors.
Third Avenue Lofts LLC, Riverview Square LLC are Legacy Projects intertwined with Norm Drake. So I guess the mayor felt it was okay to give a tax break to a guy involved with the Copper Lounge collapse and the Bunker Ramp debacle.
KV LLC, this one is a mystery, but seem to be based out of Sioux City, SD.
Last Saturday afternoon I rode by on my bicycle and the whole area looked like a garbage truck had exploded, blankets were strewn all over the sidewalks and boulevards. When I took the picture below today, the garbage seemed to be cleaned up (probably blew away) but many of the homeless who are NOT permitted in the shelter, are sleeping on the public sidewalks in front, and it has been going on all summer.
I warned the city council when approving this location that an already strained neighborhood would get worse, and it has. Besides being baffled by why this is being allowed to exist (we supplement the House’s budget) what is the city doing about it? Absolutely nothing!
What makes it even sadder is that the city also employs the house’s director as a part-time employee for CityLink.
One of TenHaken’s campaign promises when he ran 3 years ago was that he would eliminate homelessness. It has actually gotten worse.
There are two solutions we should have done to begin with. The shelter should have been built just North of the jail and not in the middle of a neighborhood on a busy street. Also, the shelter that used to provide cots for the intoxicated should have never closed.
Between panhandling and now the Dudley Sidewalk Slumber Parties our leadership needs to be working on solutions instead of just cutting checks. Of course, this isn’t going on in their neighborhoods, so they don’t give 2 rips.
l3wis 
