A few years back on a couple of occasions there was a very public push for a concrete company in Sioux Falls wanting to buy the Sioux Empire Fairgrounds because of the rich quarry reserves below. It was rejected by the County Commission. The fairgrounds are county property, and while they do have some infrastructure cost sharing with the city, the actual property was gifted to the County by the Lyon family. I may be wrong on my history but I think when the land was gifted for the fair it was farmland out of the city limits.
There were two issues with the sale a few years ago. 1) The Lyon family did NOT want it sold for a quarry and 2) The County didn’t have a plan to replace the fairgrounds.
Moving forward, the company has supposedly renewed their appeal for the property, according to one of my county sources. This time around they are claiming the Lyon family is on board, but my source is telling me the commission cannot approve the sale because the commission’s counsel has told them they cannot legally sell it for that use. The other issue is where will the SE Fair be moved to? And what would it cost to replace the grounds? The suggestion floating around is to just put a big tent up each year for the fair. How festive in a 1920’s Ringling Brothers sort of way.
While I could care less if we have a fair each year (just brings up bad memories of being in 4-H and how much I hated it) my concern is having a gigantic hole in west central Sioux Falls. I also wonder what the city would think about that attractive hole?
We will see how public and transparent this battle becomes.
It’s not just about more quarrying. What will be done with the present sinkhole? It’s the county. There’s some confidence. Were it the city, they’d already have approved digging up the west side so they could see Hell from here.
These people who come out of their houses only once a year to go to the fair, what will they do now?
Eventually, these holes will be filled with water and be called Lake Lorraine II and III.
I love a good fair. The get-ups that some people wear to it are amazing. Sometimes they wear fashions from three decades as one outfit. There should be some kind of 4H award for that. Maybe a big ribbon could be awarded, too, to be worn above their fanny pack. I’m also known to commandeer some Thune sticks (used to be Janklow) at the fair to make sure the less fashionable are always sporting a Thune sticker.
why dont they just keep mining the rest of the batholith all the way down in the holes they already got. they are just lazy pussies is why.
They won’t go “all the way down”, because they do not want to unleash the tentacles from the Gates of Hell. This town is run by fundamentalists, you know. Plus, a bunch of Chinese might then show-up and they have already infiltrated our Amazon electronic devices. That new Amazon building we have, you know, is like a bee hive of potential security vulnerabilities for us all.
Somewhere Dick “Gravel Pit” Kelly is feeling validated for his prior tenure on the Minnehaha County Commission.