RAPID CITY, SD — Results have been finalized by Rapid City Officials, who have declared the citizens of Rapid City have voted against the establishment of the “Destination” TIF District, with a final tally of:
All 25 precincts in:
Yes 3,415 (30%)
No 7,965 (70%)
22.32% Turn Out (11,380 out of 50,995 Voters in Rapid City)
Absentee results
Yes 961
No 2,479
It surprised me there was so many absentee, seems a lot of snowbirds voted 🙂 which is ironic considering some of the people behind the petition drive are against mail in voting.
The success of this vote doesn’t surprise me, I think if citizens have an opportunity to vote on ‘economic development’ TIFs they will vote them down, they just don’t have any payback to the average Joe and actually cost us in higher property taxes and retail taxes. Notice our legislature keeps trying to shift tax burdens onto the consumer, it is regressive and idiotic and for every penny paid in retail taxes one penny gets taken out of the local economy. Horrible way to fund government.
So with the petition drive going on with the Data Center, it may be time to keep those clipboards warm for another one.
Yesterday at one of the City Council meetings there was a gentle mention that this development was coming back. If you read what I posted, you will notice that the TIF for this development was ONLY approved by the Planning Commission and that was in July of 2024. The project got stalled so the city council NEVER approved a TIF or final development plan, that means if they are resurrecting this project it will have to go thru the same process as it did 2 years ago. They will have to present a new development plan and TIF proposal. If the TIF proceeds are for any NON infrastructure upgrades we could challenge the TIF with another petition drive and I think we should. Citizens really should be deciding on their own property tax increases and not letting a vote by a meaningless board decide. So I hope the new development doesn’t include a TIF, but if it does, I smell a petition drive.
Oh, and the developer is from out-of-state, so we would essentially being subsidizing an out-of-state developer welfare queen. We can’t even launder money locally anymore 🙁
Something just smelled too fishy about this data center rezone the other night. I was astonished that not at least ONE councilor voted this down. Their asses were so puckered up Tuesday night you could have stuck a piece of coal up there before the meeting started and it would have been a polished diamond by the end.
Go back a few weeks before Christmas when Poops’ Christmas card included eviction notices to non-profits across the city (It was one of the most Christian things he has done 🙂 Most of the NGO’s cut service immigrant. I said that this was a threat from DC to cut ALL of our Federal funding (health, infrastructure, parks and rec, police, fire, housing, landfill, public transit, etc.)
This has been going on across the country, Trump has been cutting Federal funding to cities that don’t follow his agenda on immigration and AI and data centers.
It was NO coincidence that the developer of this project was associated with Peter Thiel who is a close advisor and investor with our president. Oh and the lobbyist who used to work for the former ND governor and now Secretary of Interior then In comes royalty from Castlewood, Kyle Peters who is married to one of Noem’s daughters, and the list goes on, even a professional link between the lobbyist and Mayor Metro-Yeti Karen Poops.
You know why the legislature is proposing a sales tax break to Data Centers? Because new Federal Regulation requires it and NO roadblocks to data centers or they will sue and cut Federal funding.
The sad part is that if this is what REALLY happened, the council needs to hold a press conference and be truthful with the public. This has all the signs of a shake down. Believe it or not, if the citizens see our local elected officials being bullied by DC, we WILL defend you. F’ck Em anyway, they can keep their dirty tariff money for more orange makeup, or is it hand cream this week?
The interesting factor will be if this makes it to the ballot? And if so, the citizenry votes it down. Will Sally still slice our tomato in half? We will see.
And where is Ironic Johnny, Marion and Dustbowl telling El’ Dictator he can’t dangle this crap in our faces?
Out to lunch.
Rounds was on Barfrage the other morning trying to justify the murder of a lesbian mother poet who was trying to help officers push out their stuck vehicle, then he went full hypocrite. He says that the corruption in MN state government needs to be reigned in and blamed Walz. That is real f’ing rich Marion! Mr. EB-5 and Gear-Up murder cover ups? A five foot branch, a murder suicide with a fire proof safe melting and millions in Federal funds missing? Let’s just say Janks may have invented state government corruption but you perfected it. You should be calling Walz and advising him on how to bury the bodies better, we hear you are a specialist, or at least that is what the wall of yarn tells us.
UPDATE: So DN decided to do another story about the Data Center, and they got it right this time;
The issue is what could happen to this land. Two items were decided for a data center. The vote to approve rezoning for the land paves the way for the data center. In another item, the preliminary plan for the gemini addition was originally voted down, then reconsidered, and passed with another vote.
See, when you actually WATCH the meeting, you see what happened, but the headline was misleading;
Out of order: attendees react to city council vote on data center
The only people out of order at that meeting was the city council for approving this and the TV media who didn’t even bother covering this. I also noticed the city has been telling the media this;
A spokesperson for the city says proper and legal protocol was followed.
Who is this ‘spokesperson’? The janitor at Carnegie Hall? I think it is funny that the city attorney can’t even be honest about being a source. Loser. Sure the law was followed, but it was fast tracked. This land should NOT have been annexed for another 16 years! And it gets done in a matter of months. Was it legal? Sure. But it sure is shaky as HELL and someone with deep pockets and lawyer friends could challenge this. And before the 1st reading I also questioned the legality of the compatibility study;
Notice it says N/A. That means there is no legal grounds to pass this. NONE! ZILCH! ZERO!
Reminds me of a fight at Carnegie in 2015 when they had an opportunity to approve a solar farm in this same area and at that time it was in the joint jurisdiction area and NOT annexed into the city. There was a huge pissing match about it between council and commissioners. It would have failed by ONE vote anyway, even if the city wasn’t involved because tie votes with the commission results in a failure. I think about this, because right now we could be enjoying electricity from this plot of land instead of sucking juice. Such a huge missed opportunity. At the time there were all these promises about building houses in that area and that is why they opposed it. Never happened, now we are facing a data farm.
I often tell folks that local politicians are HORRIBLE at predicting the future.
There is also a rumor swirling that more land adjacent to this site is being bought up to build an even bigger data farm. Folks are checking into this. If true it means the developer of this project hasn’t been honest with the public about expansion. I know shocker. Ironically he probably wanted to tell the public but maybe his bodyguard talked him out of it. Yes, the developer of the project had a bodyguard following him around at the meeting. That should tell you what kind of person this is. If you have to hire a bodyguard to go to a public meeting, it is pretty obvious what you do for a living 🙂 Chew on that one!
In other news, I may be bringing back the DaCola podcast. I may be recording a PILOT with some other podcasters in the coming weeks about the upcoming city election. Wish me luck. They built a studio so the podcast will also have video and posted on YouTube. If I told you who built the studio, you wouldn’t believe me 🙂
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I think it is time to recall them.
There is a discussion going on in the background (I am NOT involved) about doing a petition drive to overturn this, which is good. But getting 8K sigs in 20 days is a heavy lift that will take hundreds of volunteers, BUT, if they decided to do this, they should circulate multiple petitions, you are out there collecting anyway so here they are;
• Revoke the annexation of the Data Center land
• Revoke the rezone
• Revoke the site plan
• A recall petition on every city councilor and mayor
I think on the last one we have 90 days to collect.
It is time to send a message to the city’s elected officials, you are not doing your job and actually hurting citizens personal finances. It is one thing that they are getting bad advice from the city attorney but the corruption is overwhelming. Transparency could fix this crap overnight but they are so deep in the chamber honey wagon that will never happen. And when a city government can’t function and is corrupt it needs to be booted from office. I think it would be hilarious to see two of the councilors get voted out of office that never received one single vote to get in that office. Poetic justice.
And let’s talk about the corruption, like annexing land just so a data center could be built, this was in the works for months and the council knew it. Or when councilor Spellerberg recused himself on Tre after voting on all the other items related to it. HUGE ETHICAL violation, but the rest of the council just turned the other way. Or when Marshall Selberg perjured campaign finance forms and was ILLEGALLY living out of his district for a year!!!! They didn’t do a damn thing and now he is running for Mayor (we know how this will end for the Harford resident). I even was working with them on some code enforcement solutions and getting all public meetings on YouTube. And they just ignored me after I offered suggestions. This council and mayor have no interest in representing us, so it is time for them to go and they can go serve on the Chamber board where they belong.
WHY IS TRANSPARENCY AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IMPORTANT?
This is the thing that bothers me the most about the council. Sure they do a ton of corrupt deals that grease their own wheels, but that is typical small town politics, it is the lack of transparency that fuels this corruption. The council knows they can’t be honest with the public because they would see all the backroom deals they are doing, and that scares them to death!!! I will give you a couple of recent examples of the council and city employees purposely covering up data in surveys so the citizenry doesn’t see how bad it is.
I filled out a copy of the Citizen Community Survey. I had one mailed to me, so I was a part of the scientific portion of the survey. They did another one online that anyone can take. I think they sent out around 4k surveys and had about 300+ respondents which is a pretty good percentage. I have been reading the final results of the surveys for the past 20 years. The city usually posts the reports online. This year was different. The comment section was missing. In the past they usually print some of the comments, positive and negative. This tells me most if not all were negative so they pulled them from the survey. I contacted the massive polling company that did the survey and requested the comment section. They have been giving me the runaround because they think I’m going to use the data nefariously. Nope, just gonna post it on my site. I told them 3 times in an email that I am a citizen of SF who took the survey and paid for the survey and I would like to have a copy of the comments. Still no response. In my last email I told them I was just going to contact management. I will get those comments 🙂
Another example is the missing survey files for the future of Frank Olson Park. I guess most surveyed said while they would like a new pool at Frank Olson, nobody wanted a bond (they said just pull from reserves) but instead the council bonded it even though the neighborhood was opposed, you know, like buying an old rec center that no one wanted. As I have said in the past, the bonding companies and contractors in town throw a bonding number at the city each year and makes them find a project to fit the dollar amount they want. They don’t care what it is. So the city conveniently hides surveys that paint a different picture. Don’t believe me, look at the budgets for the past 16 years, there is always a bond in there or a couple of projects we don’t need. Nobody wanted a rec center at Frank Olson except the bonding companies. And the survey says . . . .
Also, remember the GIFT of $1 Million from the Kirbys? At the presser the parks director said they could not spend the money to offset the bond. Guess why that is? Because the way the bond ordinance is written is that they cannot spend less then what the bond is only more, usually thru change orders. So basically the Kirby’s will be covering the cost of a nice sign and change orders. Thank you. But would they ever tell the public that bonds are not flexible? Why do you think we were forced to build the bunker ramp? We were bound by contract in the bond. We could have lawyered up and paid some fines and got out of it, but that would have required our mayor having something between his legs besides a fanny pack.
OUR LOCAL TV MEDIA IS IN THE BAG WITH THE CITY
After my rant last night at the city council meeting about our mentally challenged TV media I expected a story about the Data Centers, except they didn’t have anyone at the meeting, that was obvious when you read this sentence in the DN story this morning;
When the meeting resumed, a few votes had changed, but it was not enough to keep the measure from being approved.
LOL. Um, that is NOT what happened, but OK poli-sci major!
I just replace ‘Winnipeg’ with ‘Sioux Falls’ and it makes soooo much sense. The last line in the song nails it;
And up above us all, leaning into sky A golden business boy will watch the North End die And sing I love this town Then let his arcing wrecking ball proclaim
I hate Winnipeg (Sioux Falls)
So a foot soldier who actually reads regional news sent me this article about TIFs. Talking points are always the same and I encourage you to read the entire piece;
Politically, TIF is seductive. It allows elected officials to claim they are “doing something” about development without raising taxes today. The costs are deferred, opaque and spread across future taxpayers. But the long-term consequences are real: higher property taxes, underfunded schools, distorted development patterns and growing dependence on subsidies for projects that should stand on their own.
Pretty common sense stuff. Right? And the folks who wrote this article are not a couple of jokesters;
Julie Risser is an Edina City Council member. She previously served on Edina’s Planning Commission and Energy and Environment Commission. David Schultz is Hamline University Distinguished Professor of Political Science. Previously he served as a city director of planning, zoning and code enforcement and also as a housing and economic planner.
I have read hundreds of articles over the past decade about the destructive nature of TIF’s and have never understood why local governments get sucked in, besides the fact they are getting their personal palms greased, but I have never heard the word ‘SEDUCTIVE’ used. It makes SOOO much sense now. Not only are our national politics ruled by money and power (The taxpayers of this country just paid for a military operation to take the oil resources of an independent nation, wrap your F’ing head around that!!!) but now our local politics are now too. I think the upcoming city election is an opportunity for citizens to stand up this money machine and elect folks who won’t tolerate it any more. Don’t be ‘seduced’ by snake oil salespeople.
MY HOPES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION (Mayoral)
Somebody asked me last night what would be my ideal outcome of the next city election, and I gave a longer answer then I expected;
Greg Jamison as mayor, Christine Erickson as Public Information Officer, Joe Batcheller as his Planning Director and Jamie Smith as his Housing and Community Development director AND I would hire a trained monkey to be the city attorney. Notice I said ‘trained’.
I can guarantee you the reason funding was cut from the MCC was because DHS and the Feds threatened ALL Federal Funding to the city if they didn’t cut immigration services funding to orgs like LSS. This has nothing to do with making ‘tough choices’ this is just blatant racism from Sally and his cohorts and the city could have lost millions in Federal grants for infrastructure projects. Will the city ever tell us this? Highly unlikely.
I’m telling you, the RICH PARTY in Sioux Falls stays on TOP because they control the money and they take the money.
l3wis 
