City Engineers and the Mayor are being sued in an affordable housing debacle.;
Sundance believes that Mayor Paul TenHaken or one of his staffers with the City was retaliating against them for seeking to terminate the restatement agreement as it conflicted with TenHaken’s “2026 Housing Action Plan” focusing on accessible housing, a key element of his 2022 reelection campaign and one of the four areas of TenHaken’s One Sioux Falls framework, the lawsuit states.
What do we mean by “accessible housing?” #OneSiouxFalls
Posted by Paul TenHaken on Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Ogborn echoed this.
“They (the City) wanted to get back at Sundance leaving the program because the mayor had not met his goal of providing affordable housing,” he said. “Sundance pulling out of the deal was another hit to that program, and at the end of the day, the City was going to exact retribution.”
TenHaken, according to The Sundance Group’s lawsuit, allegedly directed city officials to prevent the company from selling the units to force them into default with lenders. This, allegedly, was done to allow the City to acquire the project below Sundance’s development costs, enabling the City to sell the units under its affordable housing program and meet public housing targets promised during TenHaken’s campaign.
I have been salivating about a jury trial against the city for years, it may happen. I’ve been told by sources familiar with the suit that the judge may have agreed to a jury trial a few weeks ago but awaiting confirmation of that.
If this does go to trial, I think I will attend the proceedings, it is rare when the city gets sued that it goes to a jury trial, so this will be an exciting one to watch. It also scores just how corrupt this current mayor and his minions are. The city may just pay the settlement to avoid a trial, but I would demand the trial anyway, even if you may lose. The public needs to see how this administration operates, and it would be on full display in this case. I hope this leads to other corruption and fraud suits. Corruption must be punished, severely.