September 2023

UPDATE: We can get creative with the Brockhouse Animals

l3wis September 26, 2023 5Comments

UPDATE: I guess the task force meetings will be closed to the public. Because, you know, double down.

We can get creative with the mounts. You can have the aquarium on one side of the hall and animal dioramas on the opposite wall with creative lighting (Like LED WALLPAPER) and scenes and in cased glass with a proper ventilation system.

I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble but we all know that even if the city council agrees to saving the collection, we won’t be able to save it all. Some of the pieces (around 10%) probably won’t be able to be saved. Some of the other pieces may be able to be saved, but just for research purposes and not display purposes since a lot of them are endangered species. Keeping hair and tissue samples from these mounts is essential. But most of the collection will be able to be saved, repaired and put on display.

I’m not going to get into the money argument about how much this will cost or the rumors about donations being withheld.

Let’s just pretend for a moment a large donor comes forward and agrees to pay for most of the repair and new displays, let’s take the opportunity to create one of the most unique aquariums and natural history museums to ever exist in the country.

I do agree with the city on one aspect, we shouldn’t give the collection away. The taxpayers own those mounts and whether the zoo likes it or not, they are in care of them. Some private attorneys have even speculated that the city may be forced to save them do to past gifting/purchase agreements?

These mounts need to remain publicly owned and they need to be saved, for anything, at least historical reasons.

Private/Public Partnerships are just a scheme for the wealthy to avoid taxes

l3wis September 25, 2023 3Comments

Trust me, when this foundation started, I knew exactly what was up;

For the ultrawealthy, donating valuables like artwork, real estate and stocks to their own charitable foundation is an alluring way to cut their tax bills. In exchange for generous tax breaks, they are supposed to use the assets to serve the public: Art might be put on display where people can see it, or stock sold to fund programs to fight child poverty. Across the U.S., such foundations hold over $1 trillion in assets.

While I am sure many folks that are associated with our local parks foundation are doing this for the benefit of the public, because legally they have to, the real reason they are doing it is because of the massive tax breaks. While the administration and others applaud this partnership because they are assisting with building our parks, if we just made the wealthy pay their full taxes we could fully fund parks, school lunches, universal healthcare, etc., you get the picture. Instead they pull this crap;

Unlike public charities, private foundations are typically funded by a single donor or family, who retain a high degree of control long after receiving a tax break for ostensibly giving their possessions away. “This is the classic problem with private foundations: Substantial contributors can see it as their thing,” said Philip Hackney, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and former IRS attorney. “There’s generally not a coalition who cares, other than the family, so there’s nothing to ensure that the assets are used for a particular purpose,” he added.

Besides the frustration that most wealthy individuals don’t pay anywhere near the percentage in taxes that we do, they are also picking the projects in our PUBLIC PARKS, while plastering their names on the projects.

Were the citizens screaming for a new tennis court or ice ribbon? Never heard a peep.

So as taxpayers we are allowing the super rich to get out of paying their fair share of taxes while saddling citizens with over half the cost and operating expenses (even though the ice ribbon will have an endowment fund for operating expenses, it won’t cover maintenance, etc. and I am sure the fund is just another write-off for the donor.)

In theory, it’s illegal to fail to provide a public benefit or to make personal use of foundation assets. But the rules defining what’s in the public interest are vague, according to tax experts; for example, Congress has never defined how many hours a museum would need to be open to be considered accessible to the public. And with the IRS depleted by a decade of budget cuts, enforcement has been lax. The agency examines an average of 225 returns among the 100,000 filed by private foundations each year, according to agency statistics.

The other problem with it is that while the rest of us pay our fair share of taxes, and rely on the government to provide services to us, the rich not only get out of those taxes, they get to decide what the ‘public benefit’ should be and essentially take the money intended for taxes with no control of how it is spent, and pick the project that THEY want.

Besides the lost tax revenue, the public is being completely left out of the process while footing half the cost or more for the PUBLIC projects and decades of maintenance and operation, this is why I adamantly oppose Private/Public partnerships for our public parks. The public simply doesn’t have a say in the matter and that needs to end.

While I am all for the wealthy in town dropping some G’s for public projects, since this is a tax write off, the public should decide how that donation is spent, and not the donor.

Censored and Rejected Mural Artists have response to the new Bunker Ramp Mural

l3wis September 25, 2023 8Comments

As I have said recently, I separate what happened to them compared to how Portz was able to create the mural. These artists were censored by the mayor;

“An open letter from the original artists of the 10th Street Mural

September 19, 2023

By Amber Hansen, Reyna Hernandez & Darcy Millette

The Sordid History of the 10th Street Parking Ramp Mural and What Became of the Project Steeped in Controversy.

Sioux Falls, SD

There are many aspects surrounding the state of the arts throughout South Dakota that should be a cause for concern, but for the sake of this article, we will speak specifically to the state of Public Art and the city of Sioux Falls.

Based on our experience as the original artists chosen to paint the 10th Street Parking Ramp Mural, we’ve reflected on the process and would like to highlight some of the structural transgressions that we encountered:

– There is no clear or transparent process that outlines how artists are selected to create art for public buildings in the city of Sioux Falls.Public art on city owned property in Sioux Falls is presided over and controlled by the mayor. The mayor’s office has complete authority to approve or deny what art is displayed in public spaces. Simply put: One person has the power to define the arts culture in a major part of Sioux Falls and to dictate the cultural value of art based on how “instagramable” and “non-controversial” he considers the art to be.

– The Visual Arts Commission (a commission created by the mayor’s office) has no real sway when it comes to the art decisions in Sioux Falls and is seemingly in place for the sake of optics.

– Artists should be fairly compensated for their work. Low wages set an unsustainable precedent for working artists.

Sioux Falls Art and the 10th Street Parking Ramp

The Plan:

In the fall of 2022, the Sioux Falls Arts Council (SFAC) in partnership with the City of Sioux Falls and the Visual Arts Commission (VAC) released a request for qualifications (RFQ) inviting artists to apply for an opportunity to create a new mural on the side of the 10th Street parking garage.

Three finalists would be selected and given an honorarium to create a design for the parking garage. Once the Sioux Falls Arts Council and the Visual Arts Commission reached a consensus and selected the design, it would be presented to the mayor for approval.

What Happened:

The Sioux Falls Arts Council and the Visual Arts Commission unanimously selected a design created by three local artists. The design was sent to the mayor for approval. After reviewing the design, the mayor dismissed the design chosen by the SFAC and the VAC and selected another artist from the group of finalists and began working towards approving the other design. At this point the mayor began an entirely new selection process without input from SFAC or the VAC (despite the fact that the Visual Arts Commission is a committee of people that his own office appointed). When we were notified by the Sioux Falls Arts Council that the mayor had rejected our design, we requested a meeting with the mayor’s office or a written explanation as to why they would not be moving forward with our design. We were denied any such correspondence.

Due to the violation of the previously set protocol of the selection process, the Sioux Falls Arts Council decided to halt participation on the mural project. The project funder, Marketbeat, also decided to withhold their donation. The city then released a statement that the project had simply “run out of time” and that there would be no new mural, citing that a consensus could not be reached on the design. In reality, the mural was stalled because the mayor didn’t agree with the Sioux Falls Arts Council and Visual Arts Commission’s design selection and thus attempted to override the process, in an effort that wasted time and resources.

What’s Happening Now:

In August of 2023, the mayor hand-picked an artist for the parking garage who used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to create the design. The move required approval from the Sioux Falls Arts Council and the Visual Arts Commission. The new mural design was presented during a meeting without informing the attendants that they would be voting on this new design.

Our Perspective:

As A.I. generated content becomes a new threat to artists and their creative livelihoods (i.e. SAG-AFTRA strikes and amongst visual artists across the globe) the mayor has essentially organized a mural created using controversial A.I. generated imagery without input from the qualified artists and professionals on his team (the SFAC and VAC). Additionally, he has chosen an artist who agreed to paint the entirety of the nearly fourteen-thousand square foot wall for a lump sum of $30,000. That is $2.14 per square foot. We assume the artist is also responsible for covering the cost of materials. Considering that muralists are generally paid $20-$50 per square foot, it’s worth mentioning that the distribution of labor and wages for this project sets an unrealistic precedent that artists can work for extremely low wages.

In addition to undermining processes and promoting questionable, if not potentially unethical methods of designing art for public spaces, mayor Tenhaken is now in the process of dismantling the Visual Arts Commission by creating a new arts commission in his vision; a commission comprised of business owners, engineers, financers and fewer artists.

We do not know the mayor’s reasoning behind rejecting our design as he refused our request to discuss the project. We did not receive any correspondence from him or his office throughout the process. Due to this lack of communication we can only speculate on his subjective view of our design so, we would like to take this time to remain focused on sharing our experience concerning the violations of process carried out by the mayor’s office and the amount of control that he has over the arts & culture of the city of Sioux Falls.

Sioux Falls should have a clear and transparent process for deciding public art on our city buildings and for selecting the new City Arts Coordinator. The Mayor should rely on the Sioux Falls Arts Council and Visual Arts Commission and likewise qualified people to make art based decisions that affect the public art landscape. The City should find ways to better support arts programs in Sioux Falls so they can help the arts and culture in our community thrive.”

This is why our property taxes keep getting raised in Sioux Falls

l3wis September 25, 2023 1Comments

The finance director will tell us we need the money for plowing streets and maintaining pools but we all know why our property taxes and assessments keep going thru the roof;

Since the city doesn’t track liabilities for future maintenance in the budget process, city leaders feel blindsided when a major maintenance issue occurs. In 2023, the city realized the Sixth Street bridge needed replacement. Some city leaders expressed dismay about this “unexpected” infrastructure expense. The bridge was close to 50 years old. It was obvious that it would need work at some point, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise when it did. But the city doesn’t acknowledge future obligations, and therefore can’t plan for them.

I have often seen the city build these huge brand new roads in Sioux Falls and I think to myself, that is going to cost us in a couple of years.

During the discussions at the Active Transportation Board many members expressed concern about how unsafe our roads and sidewalks are for pedestrians and bicyclists. Guess what, that Genie ain’t going back in the bottle. We built these inner city freeways and that won’t change anytime soon. I have said to people, if you think Sioux Falls was expensive to live in now, you wait.

All these employers in the hospitality industry are crying they can’t find workers, maybe it’s because they can’t afford to live here?

Who says gov’mint can’t be funny?

l3wis September 23, 2023 8Comments

I was reading the agenda for the joint Sioux Falls city council meeting with the Lincoln County Commission and this line of bullsh!t really made me laugh;

The goal of effective growth management is based on a plan which designates where different types of new development should go, and determines when those areas should be opened for development. Identification of desirable future growth areas with sufficient land appropriate for development is a central component of the Comprehensive Development Plan. The growth management philosophy of Sioux Falls is to provide developable land when it is needed in amounts sufficient to prevent limited supplies from artificially driving up land costs. It is also important that the timing and location promotes orderly, compact new growth that allows the most cost-effective provision of public and private services.

Heck, Grammarly or AI could do a better job of explaining . . . and I am still not sure WTF they are talking about.

I dare you, read it like 10x, you will become even more lost, Hell, I even read philosophy and was completely lost. If anyone can figure out this paragraph, please fill me in, or better yet write your one sentence synopsis of this.

Here is mine;

When considering purchasing real estate, it always important to carry a tape measure, calculator and Diet Dew.