Is Senator Rounds obsessed with Little Green Men?
l3wis You gotta wonder after reading this, and this, and watching the below videos. With all the crap going on in DC, at least Chuck and Mike have their priorities 🙁
November 2025
TIFs get first major electoral challenge in Rapid City
I have been watching this with intrigue.
This is the first time a TIF has been put up to a vote EVER in the state. I think any TIF over $10 Million should get voter approval, it should also get county approval. I find the coalition of right/left leaning folks who gathered the 5K sigs in 20 days remarkable. If they can get that many sigs in RC in 20 days, that tells me the voters will kill this by a large margin. The astonishing thing is EVEN if the $125 million dollar TIF is eliminated by the voters, this f’ing amusement park will still receive over $60 million in other tax incentives, yet the state couldn’t figure out SNAP or TANF. TIFs have gotten ridiculous, but they have always been. Where were these lawmakers 10 or 20 years ago? The research was out there that they don’t work, yet you let taxpayers get rolled for decades while bailing out developer welfare queens. I guess I am happy there is FINALLY opposition to TIFs statewide, but what took yah so damn long!!!!!!?????
UPDATE: Was the Sioux Falls homeless encampment ordinance passed with pressure from the Feds and Governor?
UPDATE: Speaking of the homeless, last night a DTSF business owner who has been frustrated with the city’s response to homelessness spoke at the council meeting (FF: 34:10). She explained to the council she did a FOIA request with the city and her findings were astonishing. Basically the city has spent millions over the past few years putting transients in this cycle of citations without providing assistance. If we simply housed these folks with housing first initiatives we could actually save taxpayers money while addressing the issue and providing housing.
Her biggest suggestion? Have a coalition of services, in other words TALK TO EACH OTHER and coordinate those services thru different non-profits, the city administration and the Police Department. I have often said managing this issue isn’t rocket science, it just takes a conversation, transparency and the will to spend the money (or should I say ‘re-direct’ the money). I have even suggested such housing programs could be sponsored by local business donations. As far as I am concerned, it has gotten so bad, anything at this point is improvement.
Screenshot of some of the ‘citations’ our SFPD is wasting our time with;
A few weeks back the homeless coordinator for the city was at a public meeting. She was asked how the new ordinance is working out. After a brief pause she admitted that they haven’t implemented it yet because they are working out logistics. But you could tell from her nervousness she was probably making up an excuse.
What I found baffling about her answer is that when they pressured the city councilors to pass this there was a sense of ‘urgency’. So did that urgency go away? Not at all. I rode to all 4 corners of the city on Sunday, and while there is more transients in the downtown area, I saw groups of them (6 or more) wandering the sidewalks, bike trail, etc. all over town. I counted at least 10 different groups and many individuals.
If the city has realized this wasn’t the best solution, then why not rescind the ordinance?
So today, Jordan Deffenbaugh was on a city government rant, and there was a sentence in his rant that caught my attention;
Repeal the encampment ordinance – a failed policy making vulnerable residents surveillance targets.
Jordan was talking about the Feds accessing out extensive camera system in Sioux Falls to catch homeless immigrants and his concern.
Was this ordinance sponsored by the Police Department and the Mayor’s office just a pass thru with pressure from the Governor, AG and Feds?
It just seems odd to me this ordinance was needed just around the time of Prairie Thunder then never implemented after ICE was finished harassing us. So now we have the White House influencing our local laws and policies. Nice 🙁
Speaking of Sally Tomato, I have often rejected the comparisons to Hitler, but it seems they have more in common then we thought, just ask Stormy.
Sioux Falls has had ZERO sales tax growth over the past 7 months
I have not learned much from Shawn ‘Fireball’ Pritchett’s finance reports over the years, and yesterday’s wasn’t much different. Before he started his presentation he said he was presenting them finance numbers from September instead of October because the state hasn’t released the October numbers yet because of the government shutdown. Not sure why our state revenue department would have trouble creating financial reports about state collected taxes during a Federal shutdown? It would be like our state DMV shutting down due to the government shutdown, which didn’t happen because it is a state agency. Either way, they did release the October numbers, yesterday.
A local economist, Mark Weber, comes to the finance report meetings every couple of months and gives the council his version of the financial report he puts together by using the state data. He included the October numbers in his report (FF: 57:45). The council was so intrigued by his report they let him go almost a minute over his time (tsk, tsk – don’t let Poops catch you giving away free seconds).
While there was a lot of bad news in both Fireball’s report and Weber’s report, the part that shocked me was when Weber said that retail sales tax growth has been flat for the last 7 months and some sectors are negative in Sioux Falls. So where does the 2% growth come from? Internet sales. If it were not for them we would have negative sales tax growth right now. You almost have to thank god we have a diversification of services in Sioux Falls to prop up our sales tax collection. I have often thought sales taxes and tariffs are regressive and we should tax income only because of the volatility of the tax and no guarantees or expectations. Or better yet, start taxing advertising.
Weber said he hasn’t seen this kind of negative sales tax growth for this long in Sioux Falls.
Here are some screenshots of Weber’s report;
