Entries Tagged 'City Administration Building' ↓

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Stop the Funding gave our appreciation plaques to the 8 current and former Sioux Falls city Council members on January 17, 2016 during the Public Input section of the meeting. Some members of the dais were not very happy.

Thank you to Greg Jamison, Dean Karsky, Kermit Stagger, Christine Erickson, Greg Neitzert, Marshall Selberg, Theresa Stehly and Patrick Starr for all you did with your votes and support for the 6,404 signers!

The video has no audio because of Sioux Falls City Attorney ruling just prior to the the meeting so to hear the entire video as it was to be played click here: Romantix Annex Groundbreaking https://youtu.be/vXCDb1_3PzU or www.southdacola.com.

All it takes is one voter to win, as long as it is the right voter and Mike Huether is the voter. If it were not for a self-serving servant of his own mind, this unnecessary building day would have never happened.

In a world of streamlining office concepts ostentatious office buildings for city government are becoming a thing of the past. Our spender in chief can only find value in spending money, not his, yours.

When you look to the future and wonder why you can’t get your sewer working, more than a dribble from your faucet or potholes fixed remember January 9, 2017 when this show of mayoral gloating occurred.

Mike Huether masterminded the building of the Romantix Annex city office building and cast the all-important veto to win the day. The 6,500 petition signers will never forget this betrayal of public trust.

I’m just putting it out there, is it fair to compare the two buildings in cost and size and what would be accomplished?

Washington Square with a price-tag of $28 million;

Washington Square will feature 22 luxury condos, 7-thousand square feet of retail space, 22-thousand square feet of office space and nearly 200 additional public parking spots.

The city administration building is $25 million;

The city this week unveiled details surrounding a proposed 79,000-square-foot city administration building in downtown Sioux Falls that would include three stories and a basement level featuring 34 underground parking spaces.

I guess if I was comparing apples to apples, Washington Square is getting more bang for the buck.

Groundbreaking (looks like a lot of city employees got to take an afternoon break)

PRESS RELEASE for IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In 2016 citizens organized an effort to hold the Sioux Falls administration accountable. We were asking questions. No one wanted to answer. To this day no one including the mayor of Sioux Falls Has adequately answered the most important question, “Why is this building so important?”

No one was or still willing to question the need for this building. So As the building is constructed we will be more involved in over seeing the process. We citizens Of Sioux Falls want a fiscally sound government, not a government operated on a high interest credit card.

In April of 2014 the Sioux Falls City Council was presented without notice a building plan. This plan was rejected several times by the City Council. The only person who insisted on this building was the mayor of Sioux Falls, Mike Huether. The Mayor set the stage for a final act of defiance toward the citizens by pushing this building onto our infrastructure budget.

We wish to thank five of the eight members of the City council who opposed this building. For the lack of one vote to override the veto, we could have had  a sane and clear meaning to this building.

As of now, we will have another dent in our credit without roads to drive on.

January 9, 2017

For more information contact:

Bruce Danielson

(605) 376-8087

bruce@citizens4integrity.org

Thanks to councilors Starr, Stehly and Erickson for NOT showing up to the ground breaking.

While the city plans to build a new $25 million dollar city administration building that was only approved by ONE person, the mayor, the SFPD has to fight for decent COLA raises.

We were told the new building would help morale with city employees. Getting paid a decent wage with good benefits and appropriate raises helps morale more than anything.

The building is merely being built to appease promises the mayor made to contractors and bond salesman. That’s it. While the taxpayers of this fine community are stuck with another mortgage as our crime rate continues to grow.

But the mayor paints a rosy image of everything;

“The last time we celebrated something like this was way back in 1936. Serving Sioux Falls citizens is serious business, and our new City Administration Building will take us to a whole new level of performance,” says Mayor Mike Huether.

We have built dozens of administration buildings since 1936, and I never remember anyone celebrating spending tax dollars on city office buildings.

I encourage any councilor that opposed this building to NOT show up to the ground breaking.

Don’t take my word on it, just look at the presentation (DOC: city-admin)

They are basically moving departments from buildings that already exist to ultimately move the attorney’s office from a leased building ($100K a year lease – to a $1 Million a year mortgage).

On top of that, they have no plans for the emptied buildings still owned by the city (Parks & Utilities). I think the comment made was ‘conference areas’. They want to keep them.

When I think of fiscal prudence, this isn’t really what I would consider a very good fiscal decision, in fact, it borders on idiocy.

During the ‘Mayor High Crimes’ interview on the Belfrage show this morning, the mayor (bragged) that when the bonds sold last week all he heard was crickets, and the reason NO ONE was saying anything because people are in support of the building. He would say that, that’s like saying voting against an outdoor pool means the public wants an indoor pool, even if an indoor pool wasn’t on the ballot.

How quickly he forgets all the roadblocks he put up preventing the public and even the council from weighing in on this building, and he was successful to the end, there wasn’t much more we could do to prevent the sale.

Here is the chain of events that led up to the bond sale;

• Mayor breaks the tie with the council twice to approve the building construction and bond sale

• Mayor vetoes a majority of the council to repeal the bond sale

• Advisory vote fails to pass the city council

• Petition drive successfully collects 6,400 signatures and gets thrown out due to technicality that the city clerk didn’t notice when he stamped the petition

• Judge agrees with city clerk and city attorney that the technicality is enough to throw out the signatures

What about the what ifs?

• Even if the advisory election was approved, it may never of happened unless the mayor delayed the bond sale, the only person who had the power to delay the sale besides a judge.

• Even if the judge approved the petitions or the technicality DID not occur, a judge still would have had to intervene to stop the bond sale until an election, AND the council would have had to certify the petitions and set an election date, in turn getting a judge involved again to delay the sale.

While the mayor bragged about the crickets and couldn’t understand why more people were not fighting to stop the bond sale, there wasn’t anything left to do. He successfully roadblocked everyone who tried to stop this building, and expended tax dollars to do so (in legal fees, etc.).

It was the epitome of ethical corruption by the executive branch. One of the dirtiest sequence of tricks he has pulled since he has been mayor. That wasn’t silence you were hearing mayor high crimes, it was disgust.

One of the biggest mistakes of the Huether Administration

Only Mike could twist advocating for a new administration building we don’t need, vote against the council wishes 3 times, deny a public vote, add $25 million of debt and act like this is good thing for the citizens;

The interest rate of the bonds is 3.09 percent, which City officials say is an outstanding deal for Sioux Falls taxpayers.

“This incredible borrowing rate is a testament to our city’s financial strength and the insatiable demand for investing in Sioux Falls. The timing of this bond sale couldn’t be much better, and it turned out to be a home run for Sioux Falls taxpayers,” Mayor Mike Huether said.

The only thing positive about this is a good interest rate on a loan we should not have taken out to begin with. I’m not against better office space for city employees, but there are much more prudent ways to do it. But like I have recently said, when you steal your parents credit card, it’s easy to spend, spend, spend.