Denny Sanford Premier Center

“We kind of knew that this was our one shot,” Dykhouse said, “and that if we got all the positive people out to vote and could overwhelm them, we could do it.”

And there is a lot of irony in the things Dana is saying. He is right, they had to get a high voter turnout to win this thing. People who have never voted before or who rarely vote in municipal elections.

Ironically, many of those first time voters who cast their vote in the EC election HAVE NEVER VOTED AGAIN in a city election. That’s right, a shiny new dented up building was and has been more important to them than actually electing people who represent us on local issues, like taxes and fees, infrastructure repair, clean water and public safety.

Oh, and the other irony in all this;

Dykhouse said he was part of four task forces and many fits and starts leading up to the 2011 election in which Sioux Falls residents voted 58-42 percent to approve the construction of a $115 million arena.

Voters never really ‘approved’ anything. It was a vote of the city council that authorized the bond sale for the Denty. If it would have been an actual bond vote, it would have had to pass by over 60% of the public vote. That was the ‘trick’ played by Dana and his little promotion group. It was an advisory vote that had no legal standing, that is why the council had to approve the bond sale.

Oh, but what about all the success?

Dykhouse said the arena was immediately successful and sold out 23 shows in its first year.

While that is true. Most of the money pulled in from those shows went straight to the artists and promoters, out of town. The Denty has acted as an entertainment revenue vacuum. It also doesn’t pay for itself, not by a long shot. After operating expenses, maintenance, and the mortgage, taxpayers lose between $6-7 million a year, that comes straight from our roads fund. I guess I would measure success with a building that at least would break even while generating tax revenue. And we don’t even want to go into the problems with the siding and secret settlement that we will be paying for dearly for decades.

My ONLY advice to Rapid City is when you vote on this, make sure it will be 1) equitable to your city 2) be a legal bond vote and 3) Find a different contractor than the one we used.