Make it easy for your customers to shop directly from their feeds. Sprout’s social commerce solution integrates social media into your sales funnel to offer faster customer service and sell instantly.
They specialize in social media marketing for major retailers. When will our city leaders figure our that city government isn’t a business? And if I have one more rich POS in Sioux Falls tell me government needs to run like a business and we need a CEO as a mayor, I am going to just remain silent and walk away.
I am not celebrating. When I hear about West Virginia or Georgia getting defense contracts, I say, good for you, you can have them.
I agree we need more manufacturing in Sioux Falls and across the country, but we should be building things that actually improve lives instead of destroying them.
There is also the economic factor. Since these folks are making weapons for the Pentagon the final product won’t even be available for sale on the open market so we will get NO tax revenue from the facility. Besides maybe 100 local jobs, most of the profits will ship directly out of state and never recycle in our community. Plus, once the contract is fullfilled in two years, will the government order more or will they just pack up and leave while laying off those workers?
We are ALSO paying for all of this with our Federal Tax Dollars so the facility is actually COSTING us. This isn’t free market capitalism manufacturing. This is your tax dollars buying WMD’s that kill foreigners, and little else.
I would have loved to been a fly on the wall when city council was told about this privately and their reaction. I’m guessing not all of them were happy about it. I also think GOED and Rhoden pushed this onto us like the prison and local leadership didn’t have much of a choice in the matter or the courage to stop him. Last I checked with Home Rule Charter we decide on our local zoning, so the council could stop this, but they won’t.
I have been enjoying my almost weekly response to Jodi’s Journal. For full disclosure Jodi and I have a ‘news’ relationship. We talk when we see each other in public and we email frequently about things going on in the community and if you ever have a chance to speak with her in person, you are fortunate, because she is a loaded with information about our community, business and the economics of it all. So I found her article about shopping local intriguing, but the same old tired holiday journalism. I guess I am of the opinion that I would shop local if I could get what I wanted. I can’t. And most agree with me, just look at the latest financial report from the city;
The only retail sales that have weathered the storm is online remote retail in Sioux Falls (which I am thankful for). If this part of sales tax collection was NOT this strong in town, we would be so under water right now, it would be silly.
So why is this? Like I said, finding certain products at local retailers is a challenge, but it is NOT just that. There is the convenience of online shopping, also the speed of delivery is insane. Had a friend recently order a gadget he needed from Amazon and it was in stock at the SF warehouse. He had the piece in 45 minutes. There is also the cost factor. I have bought stuff on Amazon (same quality and brand) for a third of the price of a local retailer.
This is plain and simple economics. People are going to find the best deal. And if I can buy a case of Ramen noodles for a third of the cost of buying the same product at HyVee, which will I choose?
I think local retailers should specialize in unique items you can only get here and stop chasing some Little House on the Prairie merchantile.
But the article gets more juicy when our mayor, who is apparently a Metro-Yeti (c) says this (when talking about participation at the new refrigerated ice rink);
The numbers are “good but not great,” TenHaken said. “And it’s South Dakota. We expect this.”
Well, we should expect it. We also maybe need to be a bit better at powering through it. I’ll acknowledge it’s more convenient for me to sit inside, do phone interviews and write on days like we’ve had lately. But I also criss-crossed the town several times on our snowier days recently and was reminded it’s really not that difficult to go about the day more or less like normal.
“I grew up in Minnesota, and Minnesota learned to embrace winter. It’s in their culture. It’s in their DNA,” TenHaken added. “They have snow vests and Surly Brewing tasting events out in the snow. I think Jacobson Plaza is our first attempt to really embrace winter, and we need to go outside in the winter, whether it’s Great Bear or Jacobson Plaza or the downtown Holiday Plaza. You don’t have to stay inside.”
I know it is rare, but I agree with Paul 1,000%! When it comes to outdoor winter rec in Sux, peeps are gigantic p……………..!!!! GRAND CANYON SIZED!!!!
But, knowing that, why would you dump $16 million into a facility that would rarely get used? I think an indoor/outdoor ice facility would have been a better route and you could have ditched the playground, piss park, dog toilet and hamburger shop for a facility that people would actually use. But that takes vision. Doesn’t it?
The ‘Shop Local’ mantra makes me chuckle, because there is only a handful of developer welfare queens that run this town while stealing your money and making your lives miserable with low wages and crappy taxpayer services.
When I hear the mayor, any mayor, say ‘Shop Local’ in Sioux Falls, I just feel like saying, ‘DUH’ then look for my Amazon login.
With no ribbon cuttings or fan fare the city of Sioux Falls finally fixed and turned the stoplights back on at 17th and Cliff. When they were taken out by a car in 2021 I really didn’t care and figured it would just get fixed in a few months. After a couple of years, the owner of Mr. Goodcents showed up to a council meeting and asked them to turn the lights back on. This was about 2 years ago. Notice this story from almost 2 years ago;
Strictly speaking, the intersection doesn’t meet the standards, but a traffic signal at the intersection of Cliff Avenue and 17th Street will return, said Heath Hoftiezer, an engineer with the city of Sioux Falls.
This just shows me how incompetent city government is. It takes 4 years to replace a stoplight! FOUR YEARS! And we wonder why the online meeting service has been broken for 20 years!?
I would be inclined to call the people involved with this replacement (traffic, planning, city council, SFPD, SFFD, Mayor) losers. But that would be too nice.
Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, from The Republic, describes prisoners chained in a cave since birth, seeing only shadows of puppets cast on a wall, mistaking these shadows for ultimate reality. One prisoner escapes, sees the real world, understands the sun (representing the Form of the Good) as the source of all truth, and realizes shadows are mere copies; he then returns to enlighten the others, but is met with disbelief and hostility, symbolizing the philosopher’s difficult role in leading humanity from ignorance (the cave) to true knowledge (the Forms).
This farmer explains the Echo Chamber in political talk radio, mostly right-wing, by bringing up Plato’s story about the man in the cave, he really goes into detail, you can watch more of his videos here. I call him the Phamily Pharm Philosopher.
Strangely enough this video about the isolation of North Korea is like an entire country living in a cave. The most astonishing part is after a foreign volunteer surgeon repairs the vision of 1,000 patients in 10 days (cataract surgery) and they don’t thank him, they get on their knees and praise a photo of their leader. Reminded me of a MAGA rally.
I think if we continue down the path we are on in the United States, we will all be living in caves eventually.
l3wis 
