Mayor Huether has paid off debt by taxing us to death

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Hizzoner was on the B-N-B show this morning spreading his own special kind of love. He started telling his victory lap story he has been telling over the past month that he will be on to bigger and better things right after taking a break, because as he put it, his daughter wants him to be ‘fun again’. I don’t even want to know what that all entails but I’m picturing a speedo and a couple of empty Coors Light Silos.

Either way, besides serving up his own special brand of BS this morning, now claiming people hate him, or hate progress, or hate something, not sure where he was going with it since he always prefaces these kind of statements with ‘I better be careful about who I am talking about’. He made another one of his Half-Truth statements;

There is NOW less debt than when I became mayor.

Well folks, that is absolutely true. In fact I think when MMM leaves office there will be around $10 million less debt then when he rolled in in 2010. So you ask, how is this so? First off, the obvious; many of the debts that were incurred during the Hanson and Munson administrations have come to fruition. This has nothing to do with Huether, just the way the repayment was set up. In fact, if we wouldn’t have borrowed ANY money during the Huether administration our debt now would probably be around $100 million instead of 3x that.

So you ask, what about all the debt MMM incurred? That still exists, and will for about 20-30 years.

But this is where Huether gets even more dim on his great debt payoff. Many of the infrastructure debts were re-financed and paid down due to the increase of fees in the enterprise funds, front end property tax assessments, property taxes, building and platting, and the list goes on. In fact the Mayor’s office with the help of the rubberstamp council has increased fees and taxes over 50 times since 2010.

So while the mayor may brag about not increasing the debt on the city over the past 8 years, he has certainly put that burden on property owners in Sioux Falls in higher fees and taxes. Don’t believe me? If you still live in the same home you lived in 2010, pull your property taxes from that year and compare them to 2017. Tell me what you figure out?

It’s too bad wages haven’t increased by that much in 8 years?

He also finally admitted that you essentially can’t get things done in government unless you make the decisions behind closed doors with a minority of support from the council and key business players in town. He said that open meetings and forums with the public just drag out the conversation and nothing gets accomplished. While his statements might piss you off, I was happy to finally hear him say publicly that he never gave a rat’s ass what the public thought.

Full steam ahead.

I hope when the mayor decides to be fun again, it will be on another continent.

Did Mayor Huether, Finance Director Turbak and the City violate state law?

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As I mentioned yesterday, the city put this press release out rebuffing TenHaken’s 100 day strategy. Since this press release came from the city, is it a violation of state law?;

Universal Citation: SD Codified L § 12-27-20 (through 2012)

12-27-20. Expenditure of public funds to influence election outcome prohibited. The state, an agency of the state, and the governing body of a county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state may not expend or permit the expenditure of public funds for the purpose of influencing the nomination or election of any candidate, or for the petitioning of a ballot question on the ballot or the adoption or defeat of any ballot question. This section may not be construed to limit the freedom of speech of any officer or employee of the state or such political subdivisions in his or her personal capacity. This section does not prohibit the state, its agencies, or the governing body of any political subdivision of the state from presenting factual information solely for the purpose of educating the voters on a ballot question.

Source: SL 2007, ch 80, § 20.

The city cleverly will point to the last sentence;

presenting factual information solely for the purpose of educating the voters on a ballot question

But is a ‘CANDIDATE’ the same as a ‘BALLOT QUESTION’? I think not. I hope someone holds the mayor accountable for once.

Ironically, TenHaken accepting donations from minors is within the letter of the law;

The children, ranging from ages 6 to 15, each contributed the maximum yearly contribution of $1,000. McDonald, who created the medical software company in downtown Sioux Falls in 2000, also gave the maximum amount.

Those contributions don’t break any laws, city officials said, but they do point to the way savvy supporters can lend a little extra help to political candidates, especially if the kids are on board.

“They’re technically not signers on the account, but there (were) six separate checks with a memo with their name on it to keep it clear,” McDonald said.

But is it ethical?

Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University, said contribution limits are intended to limit the influence a single individual can have on candidates and elections. But when someone is politically savvy and invested in a candidate, they’ll almost always find a way around those limits.

“For better or worse, that’s the idea,” he said. “So when people are using children, there’s a possibility that people are avoiding the intention of the law – even if it’s not technically illegal.”

Yeah, Savvy. LOL.

Does building growth matter?

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Notice in this new video of MMM where he is trying to reinforce his legacy, he mentions the city’s record 5 year building permit growth.

First off, I have often questioned the actual records being broke. Between 25-40% of the those building permits were from public projects (that we have to pay for, maintain and don’t collect taxes on) or Non-Profit projects (that we don’t collect taxes on) and than there are the number of projects in the private sector that receive TIF’s, tax abatements, other discounts and millions in new infrastructure and upgrades paid for by taxpayers. In fact, all this growth is costing us dearly in these new infrastructure upgrades, and if you don’t believe me, look at your property tax bill and assessment from 2013 and compare it to today.

Some records are fine NOT being broken.

Here is the City Council meeting from Tuesday, 4/17/2018

We don’t need another ‘salesperson’ for mayor

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There is a lot of people running for mayor this time around. And a lot of them are trying to ‘sell’ us their ideas. We don’t need another ‘salesperson’ for mayor.

Besides the backroom deals, the private investments with developers and the total lack of transparency and honesty from 8 years of Huether, ever notice he was always trying to ‘sell’ us something. If it wasn’t the Events Center it was an indoor pool, if it wasn’t the administration building it was the RR redevelopment, and in his final hoorah he sold us a parking ramp that costs double of what it should, doesn’t provide enough parking and puts us in cahoots with someone that is facing civil and Federal charges.

ENOUGH!

With all the debt he piled up with these purchases he cleverly tried paying down some of it with increased fees and taxes and sneaky ‘enterprise’ accounts. From May of 2010 – August of 2017 the administration initiated and the council passed over 50 fee and tax increases.

Now that we have a housing shortage, contractors will tell you that one of the biggest hurdles to providing more housing (even those that can afford it) is regulations. In the same time period above the mayor and council passed over 70 new code ordinances.

And what about the debt? Also in this same period there was 50 supplemental appropriations passed (extra budgeting) and 15 revenue bonds.

Our next mayor needs to stop selling us stuff because it is costing us dearly. It is actually hurting growth, mostly in sales tax revenue. People don’t buy things when they are immersed in personal debt and high taxes and fees.

Our next mayor needs to hold the brakes on spending, increasing taxes and fees, and passing more regulations (we actually need to work on eliminating some). We need to get back to providing reliable public services at an affordable rate. The monument building needs to put on hold, and we need to focus on the most important thing in our city – IT’s PEOPLE!

Mayor Huether Got ‘SH*T’ Done

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I couldn’t agree more with that statement. During his last hour long ‘Ask the Mayor’ they did a tour of his office, on one of the shelves was this book next to a couple drink tumblers. They never commented on the book.

But one of the more astonishing moments was when Reed asked Mike if there was any disappointments during his term, or things he didn’t get done. He said he could only think of one, but said he tried to fix it, and that was Public Transit. Really?!

I wasn’t expecting him to throw himself under the bus, but you couldn’t think of ANYTHING ELSE?! Nothing!?

While I could comment on a host of things in his final propaganda show, the one thing that sticks out is he never really mentions that being an elected official is really about SERVING the PUBLIC. You will notice it was all about HIM and GETTING THINGS DONE. I’m glad he will go back to ‘Being Fun Again’ for his daughter.

40 days left folks. 40 days!