I know, NO surprises here. So the developer spends over a year building this place while wrecking the street and when it comes time to re-surface the road, they just do the half adjacent to their building and have the other half full of potholes. When the developer bought the property from the city and presented their plans, the city should have put a condition in there that they would fix the street once the construction is finished. Developer welfare queens strike again, “Yeah, we are the brand spanking new apartment building downtown right next to the street that was hit by mortar rounds. Should be easy to find, when the front end of your car falls off, you will know you have arrived.”;
So amazing when you hear a councilor spout off about something NO ONE in the public was aware of. So Curtis the Blurtist decided to go off about how the council was left out of negotiations on the ambulance service, and to be quite honest, this is a bad path, and I 100% agree with him. We need to implement a municipal ambulance service. We are already doing it (SFFD) and we are getting F’ing zero ROI of assisted calls. This isn’t rocket science. You equip all the fire stations with ambulances and EMT’s. You give them union benefits and pay, and you hire a 3rd party insurance collector for revenue. It baffles me we have a contract with a company that literally relies on taxpayer funded EMT services to assist them and we get ZERO in return. Even councilor Soehl brought up that we should explore this, because the current setup with the fire department is f’d (because they are the first responders to calls, and basically hand off the patient to a taxi service. Oh, and I have witnessed it. Rode past emergency situations and the only EMT’s on scene are SFFD. And they literally prepare the patient for transfer and the ambulance shows up, and the SFFD puts the patient in the ambulance. It is a f’ing joke.)
But back to the RFP’s. Tonight while Soehl was ranting about RFP’s and other contracts he said this;
“Mayor TenHaken has approved $100 Million in NON RFP contracts since he has been mayor.”
WOW! And you waited seven years to tell us this!!!!!!???
First, some clarity. RFP’s are proposals sent out to potential professional contractors, they submit their bids and low (but qualified) usually wins. But in a weird rule in the charter (Munson was guilty of this a lot) the mayor can override any RFP and pick the contractor of their choice. I’m ok with this rule, BUT, you must first put out a bid for qualified contractors.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about city government is NOT corrupt. But when our mayor hands out millions to his buddies without constituent knowledge, there is only one word for it; CORRUPTION! and maybe a couple more like integrity and ethics?
Poops, I have always known you were corrupt, but this puts the nail in the coffin. WOW!
And Curt, thanks for the Rex Rolfing dented siding moment. And if you knew the mayor was this corrupt, what did you do about it? Chirp. Chirp.
Also, there was a city council joint meeting with the Laughing Waters County Commission. Doesn’t matter what happened, but this hot mic from a commissioner made me laugh after the commission approved the denial and awaiting the council to do the same. Well apparently the discussion irked a county commissioner as you could here her say into a hot mic, “If the council votes against this I am going to lose it.” (or something like that, it was fuzzy, but understandable.)
And folks, these are the Clems ruling us. They make Trump look like Ghandi.
Speaking of poor folks getting screwed, my favorite Steve Earle Song (it’s my life story);
Ever since the State Morons in Pierre changed the rules for TIFs (can be for economic development now) They have exploded. I suggest that we limit them to severely damaged lands and low-income housing. The school district just did ANOTHER opt-out, and lied to the public about our taxes increasing. A foot soldier left this comment about the opt-out on Turdbook;
As regular taxpayers are asked to fish into their pockets for $2.1 million of additional money, each year for the next 10 years, be reminded that just for the TIF package given to the developers of The Steel District, the Sioux Falls School District will forego (aka not collect) $1.05 million in real estate tax revenue from those parcels in 2026. For the TIF package given to the developer of Cherapa II, the Sioux Falls School District will forego nearly $1.2 million of real estate tax revenue from those parcels in 2026.
In other words if we started eliminating TIFs and close out the current ones our taxes would actually go down. Did you know that 80% of property taxes paid in the school district and city are from single-family owner occupied homes. So yes, we are paying for these TIFs. And for what? A parking ramp? Public art? Tequila Bar? Seriously! If we eliminated ALL the TIFs we have on the books now the school district would take in MILLIONS in revenue from the big commercial developments. Why are homeowners asked to pay the majority of taxes in Sioux Falls? It should be a 50/50 split between homeowners and commercial property. TIFs never have much of a ROI, studies for decades across the US have shown they don’t stimulate growth and produce very few jobs except when being built. TIFs are a boondoggle and the average Joe is taking it in the shorts. In memoriam of a certain developer who passed recently, the council should make steps to eliminate TIFs from our city, once and for all.
Big thanks to Mike Z for finding me this video. (FF: 14:00) It lays out why we need to get rid of the 50% councilor race approval. The facts are on our side. But will the current council look at them, or brush them aside to save the integrity of a former city councilor who had the ethics of a street rat. (I could write a book about the vindictive nature of the former councilor who implemented this insane rule.) So do you do the right thing and change this back, or will you continue to defend a councilor who didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. We know what will happen. Power is cancerous, and if you continue to defend this stupid rule, you contribute to the cancer of local government. Do the right thing for once. You may not get accolades and flower bouquets, but you will feel good. KILL THIS RULE!
*Also, this former councilor has been on a VINDICTIVE tour after he left the council. Trying to get former political foes fired from their jobs on trumped up charges. I will say this, if I ever see this person in Sioux Falls, they best prepare themselves for a long convo.
So a foot soldier sends this ring camera video to me today, with the title ‘SF WTF?’ Yeah, not sure why a teenager dressed as the green lantern is walking around your yard with a selfie stick. Maybe he is looking for enriched uranium?
l3wis 