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’.
Before I get into a half story about a strange dynamic going on right now in city government that involves rich powerful people and money grubby politicos let’s talk about what we want to see next year.
I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hopefully next year at this exact time I will be blogging about how our new mayor transformed government access and integrity within the halls of city hall. Our city council is actually writing policy that benefits citizens over businesses, the Dems sweep the House and Senate and eliminate the filibuster to overturn most of Republiscum’s horrific policies. The irony is this will be a cakewalk for Dems if they win. Why? Because the dipsh!t GOP hasn’t passed any legislation only waiting on Trump to do EO’s which can be overturned by the Congress pretty quickly by codifying it.
I will also celebrate my 19th Anniversary of DaCola on June 24th. My intention has always been to try to make it to 20 years before my blogging career (at least in politics) ends. In retirement I plan to do a video blog about my travels. There have been almost 15,000 posts on DaCola since it’s inception.
MONEY IN SIOUX FALLS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
While most people would think we are divided by the Left/Right in this community when it comes to politics, that couldn’t be further from reality.
MONEY. That’s what divides this town. If you have moolah, it doesn’t matter if you are Repug or Demorat, as long as you have the greenbacks. It’s the Rich Party vs. the Poor Party. And while there is more of us in the Poor Party, the Rich Party has more buying power.
There’s an interesting dynamic going on right now behind the scenes that involves a mayoral candidate a possible gubernatorial candidate and a little rich weasel in our community playing defense and offense, all with different political affiliations. I would love to tell you what I know so far, because this stuff is as juicy as it gets, but I want this to ferment a little longer before I serve that glass of whine.
For the record nothing ILLEGAL is going on here, that I can see, I wouldn’t even classify it as corrupt or unethical, it is just typical money politics in Sioux Falls with the same cast of characters trying to play games with the Clems to get what they want. I hope they ALL F’ING LOSE at the ballot box 🙂 We can only hope. I know I ain’t voting for either of them.
I make a few bucks on my site from Google advertising. I have little control but I can add filters, but only add a few because I am a monster free speech advocate. As long as it is not online gambling or mail order brides I’m cool.
What I have noticed is my site is popular for political ads, 100% GOP. So this ad doesn’t surprise me. But honestly, Hansen’s communication folks should really stop advertising on a site that thinks your campaign is a total POS and your candidate is a clown. No lie.
The first thing I will say is it seems the chair of the meeting, Anne Hajek was the only one who knew what was going on as she had to tamp down the rhetoric from the city attorney and Rick Kiley and as other members said things that made no sense.
Right out of the gate, Kiley decides to take on Anne, um . . . mistake. But he is so arrogant he really took a go at it. First he thot he could just propose crap on the fly since he is a member of the CRC (he thinks the mayor should get paid $200K and councilors $40K. Zylstra thinks the mayor should get $250K, we will discuss in a moment).
Hajek reminded him that he needed to bring his proposal forward like the public and the attorneys office by sending a written proposal in advance of the meeting. Kiley realizing he couldn’t win the argument tried to get Fiddle-Faddle to defend him, he tried and also failed. Then Kiley pulled the ‘former councilor’ card and said ‘well this is how we did it when I was on council.’ and Anne quickly quipped ‘The council and commission have different procedures and duties.’ I always knew that Kiley wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and he didn’t disappoint tonight.
CRC DOESN’T EVEN BRING A FLOOR VOTE ON TWO CITIZEN PROPOSALS
To add insult to injury the two proposals by citizens didn’t even get a second motion for a floor vote. I’m sure it had to do with Fiddle’s tired old advice he gave again today that basically proposals from citizens that make major changes to the charter should be voted down by the CRC. Yet Fiddle is proposing a change in the charter (next meeting) to eliminate the mayor’s salary from the charter which is a parlor trick that gives the council and mayor the ability to give themselves raises without citizen approval. Kind of sounds like a major change Fiddle? He basically said only UNELECTED staff can put proposals on the ballot.
The two proposals that were voted down were removing the mayor from council meetings and advanced TIF rules. I supported both of them, but I told Zitterich on his TIF proposal it may be a little early since the legislature is probably going to implement new TIF rules this session, then we can fine tune them to Sioux Falls next year and that was the exact reason the CRC voted down the proposal. But I will give props to Mike, all of rule changes are in line with what the legislature is proposing. It wouldn’t eliminate TIFs but they would only be for very specific projects like affordable housing and not 5-star hotel parking ramps.
CRC APPROVES CITY ATTORNEY PROPOSALS w/A FUTURE MEETING ON SALARIES
There was some language changes to the charter that have to do with budgeting and election dates due to the change in state law.
But Fiddle has another proposal, he wants to take the Mayor’s salary off of the charter. Like I said above, this will let them decide their salary instead of the folks who pay them. There are also other proposals. Joe Kirby proposed a 20% increase as a course correction, Kiley wants to pay even more as does Zylstra. I told Anne tonight after the meeting they should just do a COLA that matches the COLA of the city employees (non-public safety). Problem solved.
I also told Anne that in the middle of a recession this is HORRIBLE time to ask voters to approve raises, it will fail miserably like it did last time. They really are that TONE DEAF! If you don’t think council and the mayor get paid enough then why did you run for office? You knew what it paid, it was clear in the charter.
Zylstra brought up the argument of the CEO running the city. So tired of that stupid f’ing argument. The city is NOT a for profit business that designs over-priced square space websites or a predatory credit card company, it is non-profit, taxes in, taxes out in services. It’s NOT hard accounting. He felt that the mayor (elected) should be paid like a CEO or the School District Super (they are extremely overpaid BTW). Here’s why his argument is silly. When we elect a graphic designer to be mayor, he doesn’t have the expertise of a public administrator. This is WHY hired administrators like city managers or supers get paid more, they likely have a PHD in public administration. They get the job and that is why they get the salary they do. Since an elected mayor doesn’t have the knowledge or experience of a Public Administrator they rely heavily on staff and directors, which is fine. In other words, delegating the work instead of actually doing it. I think the mayor’s salary is just fine where it is at. The financial opportunities the mayor receives thru business relationships make him more coin then a silly salary ever would (you know, like getting $1 millon over appraisal on a building you sold). I also think we need to move to a city manager form of government and have a professional run a town of this size while the council is free to form policy with the cooperation of the city manager instead constantly fighting the mayor.
I also find the argument for a raise tone deaf because of this chart;
If you recieved those kind of scores in your yearly review do you think your boss would give you a raise? They would probably sh!t can you on the spot.
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 
