UPDATE: I am being told the big reveal for Aquatics Bonds will be at the Wednesday Presser or at the State of the City address on Thursday. I assume they will release the details on Wednesday. Obviously councilors are NOT talking because the admin will put the data out there, BUT, at least two councilors told me they are concerned about how much we will be subsidizing the new facilities and that up until now the Parks Department and Mayor’s office has not released that data, as I am sure they won’t. As I mentioned before we already subsidize the Midco for over a Million a year. Add 2 or 3 more facilities and you are looking at a massive 30 year expense in maintenance, bond repayment and subsidies. So here is my request from the media. ASK THE QUESTION!!! HOW MUCH WILL WE BE SUBSIDIZING THESE FACILITIES?!
As I mentioned before, the current council’s last meeting is May 21. So between then and now they have to approve the aquatics bonds. The Parks Board has a monthly meeting around the 2nd or 3rd week of the month. As you can see, it has been suddenly cancelled. They were set to hear the bond details. I will be surprised if this council even gets to vote on the bonds, the way they continue to kick the can down the road tells me they are stalling. But why? I’m guessing the rumors I have been hearing about what is in there is probably becoming even more challenging to negotiate and you wonder if a deal may have fell thru.
Who knows?
I did have one small victory last week with the city and I will report about it in May once I review the materials.
“Maybe they knew they wouldn’t make quorum, because too many of the members have been run over by e-bikes”…. 🙂
The part that Scott left out of the article is the fact these facilities are publicly owned buildings of the People of Sioux Falls. As public buildings, the city government is in charge of maintenance, operations, and collection imposition fees to support suc causes. The city government does not so muc subsidize the facilities, it raises the revenue by means of imposition fees (permits, user fees, membership fees, etc to support the operations, maintenance, and improvements made in the future. In order to pay off the bonds, one has to generate the revenues necessary to sustain the bonds. The city government therefore contracts a management company to manage the facility, by contract, they must agree to give back to the city government a percentage of that revenues, ile te company, typically a non-profit trust company, ets to keep a % to cover its expenses. Generally speaking, the bond holders, typically the landowners of the territory, want to see sufficient revenues prior to buying t bonds. Anything built on the land, adds land value, to ic, the londoner wants to see an actual plan that ives to tem sufficient profit.
don the con and are you surprised that parks is witholding information, is anyone really surprised? also time for new park board members so information is more transparent
Now, the Parks Board is the committee that completely voted down the idea of e-bikes on the bike trail in August, but then unanimously supported the idea in February, right? They must have liked the idea of adding e-bikes to pedestrian sidewalks, which was lacking prior to the February meeting, huh? Plus, keep in mind that their agendas have recommendations on them as to how they are supposed to vote. But, you know, where I come from, rubber stamping is just not as obvious.