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Downtown Sioux Falls

Downtown Sioux Falls Elections Sioux Falls

So what candidates are ‘qualified’ to be mayor?

l3wis 1Comments

I was pondering this today, what if I didn’t know any of the candidates running for mayor? I didn’t know them personally or even knew what they looked like and I was asked to review their professional resume (non-government experience) who would I lean towards? Well, just based on resumes it would be Joe Batcheller.

I know this sounds odd, because Joe has NOT announced yet, but it sounds like he is running, and he checks most of the boxes;

• Non-partisan moderate (not even sure if he is a Dem, Repug or Indy)

• Lead a non-profit for several years

• Worked as an urban planner (his degree)

I think the last point sealed the deal for me, because we had no mayor since Hanson that had any government experience, especially planning.

This is NOT an endorsement of a fella who hasn’t announced yet. It’s just something I thought I would look at. Joe is going to have to show some enthusiasm and some pizzazz when he is out on the trail, and I’m not sure he can pull that off, BUT on paper, he’s a winner.

We know how it rolls in SF, it comes down to looks and personality, and if you ain’t got it, you are toast.

I am encouraging citizens to actually research the professional resumes of the candidates running instead of just looking at a wink and a nod from another salesperson.

The next mayor will be handed a giant stinking turd; half the directors will be gone, the operating expenses on all the new play palaces will drain tax dollars and we will likely be in a ‘light’ recession by the end of the year, and like the last one in 2008, it will take several more years for the middle class to get caught up in Sioux Falls. I still know people who are still behind the 8-Ball from that recession.

We are going to need a leader who knows city government and how to pull it’s levers.

Developers Development Downtown Sioux Falls Road Funding Sioux Falls

As predicted, Developer builds new apartment building and leaves half the street a wreck

l3wis 2Comments

I know, NO surprises here. So the developer spends over a year building this place while wrecking the street and when it comes time to re-surface the road, they just do the half adjacent to their building and have the other half full of potholes. When the developer bought the property from the city and presented their plans, the city should have put a condition in there that they would fix the street once the construction is finished. Developer welfare queens strike again, “Yeah, we are the brand spanking new apartment building downtown right next to the street that was hit by mortar rounds. Should be easy to find, when the front end of your car falls off, you will know you have arrived.”;

1st Amendment Downtown Sioux Falls Elections SF City Council Sioux Falls

Mayor TenHaken has approved $100 million in professional contracts w/o an RFP (request for proposal)

l3wis 5Comments

So amazing when you hear a councilor spout off about something NO ONE in the public was aware of. So Curtis the Blurtist decided to go off about how the council was left out of negotiations on the ambulance service, and to be quite honest, this is a bad path, and I 100% agree with him. We need to implement a municipal ambulance service. We are already doing it (SFFD) and we are getting F’ing zero ROI of assisted calls. This isn’t rocket science. You equip all the fire stations with ambulances and EMT’s. You give them union benefits and pay, and you hire a 3rd party insurance collector for revenue. It baffles me we have a contract with a company that literally relies on taxpayer funded EMT services to assist them and we get ZERO in return. Even councilor Soehl brought up that we should explore this, because the current setup with the fire department is f’d (because they are the first responders to calls, and basically hand off the patient to a taxi service. Oh, and I have witnessed it. Rode past emergency situations and the only EMT’s on scene are SFFD. And they literally prepare the patient for transfer and the ambulance shows up, and the SFFD puts the patient in the ambulance. It is a f’ing joke.)

But back to the RFP’s. Tonight while Soehl was ranting about RFP’s and other contracts he said this;

“Mayor TenHaken has approved $100 Million in NON RFP contracts since he has been mayor.”

WOW! And you waited seven years to tell us this!!!!!!???

First, some clarity. RFP’s are proposals sent out to potential professional contractors, they submit their bids and low (but qualified) usually wins. But in a weird rule in the charter (Munson was guilty of this a lot) the mayor can override any RFP and pick the contractor of their choice. I’m ok with this rule, BUT, you must first put out a bid for qualified contractors.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about city government is NOT corrupt. But when our mayor hands out millions to his buddies without constituent knowledge, there is only one word for it; CORRUPTION! and maybe a couple more like integrity and ethics?

Poops, I have always known you were corrupt, but this puts the nail in the coffin. WOW!

And Curt, thanks for the Rex Rolfing dented siding moment. And if you knew the mayor was this corrupt, what did you do about it? Chirp. Chirp.

Also, there was a city council joint meeting with the Laughing Waters County Commission. Doesn’t matter what happened, but this hot mic from a commissioner made me laugh after the commission approved the denial and awaiting the council to do the same. Well apparently the discussion irked a county commissioner as you could here her say into a hot mic, “If the council votes against this I am going to lose it.” (or something like that, it was fuzzy, but understandable.)

And folks, these are the Clems ruling us. They make Trump look like Ghandi.

Speaking of poor folks getting screwed, my favorite Steve Earle Song (it’s my life story);

Downtown Sioux Falls Property Taxes SF School Board Member SF School District Sioux Falls TIFs

Instead of Op-outs maybe we need to make TIFS harder to get

l3wis 2Comments

Ever since the State Morons in Pierre changed the rules for TIFs (can be for economic development now) They have exploded. I suggest that we limit them to severely damaged lands and low-income housing. The school district just did ANOTHER opt-out, and lied to the public about our taxes increasing. A foot soldier left this comment about the opt-out on Turdbook;

As regular taxpayers are asked to fish into their pockets for $2.1 million of additional money, each year for the next 10 years, be reminded that just for the TIF package given to the developers of The Steel District, the Sioux Falls School District will forego (aka not collect) $1.05 million in real estate tax revenue from those parcels in 2026. For the TIF package given to the developer of Cherapa II, the Sioux Falls School District will forego nearly $1.2 million of real estate tax revenue from those parcels in 2026.

In other words if we started eliminating TIFs and close out the current ones our taxes would actually go down. Did you know that 80% of property taxes paid in the school district and city are from single-family owner occupied homes. So yes, we are paying for these TIFs. And for what? A parking ramp? Public art? Tequila Bar? Seriously! If we eliminated ALL the TIFs we have on the books now the school district would take in MILLIONS in revenue from the big commercial developments. Why are homeowners asked to pay the majority of taxes in Sioux Falls? It should be a 50/50 split between homeowners and commercial property. TIFs never have much of a ROI, studies for decades across the US have shown they don’t stimulate growth and produce very few jobs except when being built. TIFs are a boondoggle and the average Joe is taking it in the shorts. In memoriam of a certain developer who passed recently, the council should make steps to eliminate TIFs from our city, once and for all.

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