Presentation on the transit situation. I have not got an update on what happened at the meeting on Monday, but I hear they have been having troubles getting a contract with a technology contractor.
Item #7, Approval of Contracts, another $700K to Pavilion. This place is constantly bleeding money. I heard recently one of the main reasons they have been able to break attendance records is because they would put on a frequent FREE event at the arts center. Imagine that, letting people in for FREE would increase attendance. Who knew? Maybe they should try that – wait.
Item #29, Deferred license for C-Store by Dudley House. I’m not sure how this will go. You know my feelings, we should not have allowed the shelter to be built at that location.
Item #36, Williquors is applying for a a delivery license. I wonder if other liquor stores have this? For instance, when you order grocery delivery from Hy-Vee can you get a bottle to?
Items #45-47, 2nd Reading, Ordinance. This is the Railyard Flats purchase. I find it interesting that the name of the developer and the project has been left off the agenda description. Why?!
Item #50, 1st Reading, Ordinance. Here we go, the first of a series of bonds for the water reclamation plant upgrades. Isn’t it fun watching the city borrow millions of dollars, it gives me kind of a tingly warm feeling inside. NOT!
Item #51, 1st Reading, Ordinance. Here we go with farting around with our old skool system of liquor licensing. Even with a reduced price, it really still leaves no room for family businesses to compete. It think the city should take a more proactive approach and lobby the legislature to change the system, and the Lincoln and Minnehaha County Commissions should jump on board to.
Item #57, City will approve a preliminary plan for Sanford Sports Complex expansion. I wonder if they want to put up any more nets?
Item #58, Annexation agreement. I find it a little ironic that the city would choose to make this the last agenda item on a very long meeting. Remember when they wanted to shove public input to the end of the meetings because ‘business’ needed to be taken care of with ‘business’ first? Funny how these things work.
To tell you the truth, I couldn’t answer this question, I post this out of curiosity;
The City of Sioux Falls, SD, requests formal bids for Minnehaha Country Club and The Country Club of Sioux Falls Pond Improvements.
Now I know the city has helped with retention and detention ponds in the past on private property, but I’m NOT sure how the costs are worked out with the property owners. I’m really kind of clueless how that works. But I find it interesting that the city would be using decorative course ponds as detention ponds. I guess you are killing two birds with one stone. But also remember, these are private recreational clubs who benefit from having those ponds. It reminds me of the massive levees we built with Federal and local tax dollars conveniently along the country clubs.
Hopefully someone from the city will explain how this all works.
I’m going to break his comment up into pieces since it is kind of long, and I will add my commentary. This is from Planning Commission member Larry Luetke responding to a post Councilor Stehly had on FB about the Bunker Ramp;
Larry Luetke I really think there is more to this story. The city cuts off communication with their partners two weeks before their deadline of 30 days to respond to changes with the project. It is stated in the contract that the city must respond within the 30 days. Either ok with the change, a modification or build what they were supposed too. There was no response back to them and contract was cut. It is fine if you don’t agree with the company that got it but there was a contract that was signed. Which puts us at citizens liable. Reading through the contract I don’t see where the city will win this one (I am not a lawyer). Which will put us liable for a lot of stuff beyond the 1.5 million that is short.
I’m with Larry on this one (I am also not a lawyer) but I do agree that modifying a contract is NOT unheard of, and when you cut off communication early, some wonder if something else was going on behind the scenes (not like that ever happens in city government 🙂
I think what is best for us is to allow the modifications to the project and allow the developer to start building. The lawsuit will cost us so much more.
He is absolutely correct, but we should have never taken out the bonds to begin with, and we should have halted this until we had substantial proof that the investment dollars were there from the developers. All we got was a lousy piece of paper that basically amounted to a IOU note in your piggy bank similar to when one of your older siblings stole from you.
Once finished it will bring in sales tax revenue and property tax to the city and county. Currently as a parking ramp it will pay no sales tax, no property tax and we will collect a minimal amount of parking fees.
As taxpayers, I never thought we would make much on this anyway, completed or NOT. This is why the city needed the 2nd Penny for collateral, because like most other projects we have bonded for over the past 20 years, we have had to have the 2nd Penny pay the mortgage. We have a very solid track record of multiple projects that will NEVER pay for themselves, such as the Pavilion, Events Center, MAC, Orpheum, etc.
I feel that it is our best interest in allowing the developer to move forward with their project. Some questions I would ask our city officials. If there was a meeting at one of the country clubs about another downtown hotel project in which a person said that we need to keep this quiet for a couple of weeks (which is the same time frame of when the city was not responding to their partner). Also a rumor is that the hotel project that I was just talking about was also in question of not being done because of the Village on the River project would be finished first and the other hotel would saturate the downtown hotel market. So because of that a certain project downtown would not move forward. The information I just stated is third hand but really has made me question what the real issue of why the city did not respond to their partner Village on the River.
I have no idea what project Larry is talking about, but if I was going to bet my ass on a guesstimation it would be the hotel and convention center Sioux Steel in partnership with Lloyd is proposing on that redevelopment project. But at this point, just pure speculation.
Also based on the contract the contractor is the one responsible for the performance bond. What I have heard from a partner of the developer is that this project is still a go with the modifications once the city agrees to their modifications. With the modifications they have more hotel rooms then proposed even without the extra two stories. Just as a disclaimer I have nothing to do with this project but feel based on my research and hear say we as citizens will be the burden of costs if we don’t allow this project to move forward.
Well, I hate to break it to you Larry, but the taxpayers were and are getting stiffed on this project either way. We were never going to get the parking spots we needed publicly, we paid too much for the spaces and foundation, the lease was a steal, and it is being built in the wrong place.
I will stay with my original emotions on this project – it was a bad idea out of the gate and should have NEVER even made it to a city council agenda. Thanks to Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut, another money sucking project he cooked up that is screwing over the constituents.
We have presentations on Microblading & The 3rd Phase of the River Greenway Project. This should be interesting to see how they will spend around $10 million on this project.
Item #7, Approval of Contracts, apparently it costs $79K to design and manage the construction of a very small Dog Park Downtown. I think I need to get into the dog park design business.
Fire Chief Goodroad also provides some information on what the design process will include for the public safety training center;
The Architectural Services will provide programming services and final space requirements for the following: • Main Classroom/Office Building • High Rise Training (Burn Tower) • 2-Story Training Building • 2-Story Mixed Use Training Building • Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) • Hazmat/Rail • Outdoor Live Fire Props • Propane Fuel Farm • Police/Fire Emergency Vehicle Operations Course (EVOC) (high and low speed) • Outdoor Classroom • Tactical Gun Range • Site Development and Landscape
Item #69, 2nd Reading, Bee Keeping ordinance. I think will have the support of at least 5 councilors. But it will be interesting to see what amendments get tacked on.
Item #74, 1st Reading, Clarifying the duties of the City Attorney as advisor to certain citizen boards. While I support the change, it should have been put on the ballot in the Spring for citizens to vote on it.
Item #79, Resolution to increase the funding for the Bunker Ramp by $1.5 million. It’s too bad this is all the way at the end of the meeting. I suspect the discussion about this should be HOT. I think they have at least 5 votes to pass this, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this actually gets 7 votes. Hopefully though we will get some answers as to what this is for, but I’m guessing we will just get a lot of runaround with directors telling councilors during questioning, “I’ll get that info for you tomorrow and email it.” (so the public can’t see it tonight before it passes). I have often thought that a vote should be automatically deferred one week if city staff can’t provide an answer in the public meeting, or at least try to find it before the vote takes place. What’s the point in answering a question after the passage of legislation?
Item #80, Resolution to appoint citizen board members. The mayor gets to appoint two members to the State Theatre Board (since we THE TAXPAYERS gave them money). I can feel the warmth of the popcorn already.
The killing floor continues at the CRC meetings. They will take up several items including;
• Removing Mayor from Council, Super Majority to approve bonds & plurality or ranked choice voting. I suspect they will all be killed by the CRC. In the graphic below you will see the timeline they are working with in this slaughter of good legislation and changes to the Charter.
Item #6, Approval of Contracts. I find it interesting that the city is going to pay $300K for a school park? I have no idea what this plan is or if it is in coordination with the school district. Hopefully we will have more details at the meeting. It also looks like the money is JUST for ‘planning’ the site. We are also dumping another $45K into the indoor pool for something called ‘window fans’. I remember when they were designing the place, we were told they would take extra care in ensuring we would use durable materials and equipment to keep maintenance costs down. I find it interesting that after only a couple of years we are installing new equipment.
Item #35, 1st reading, Renewing franchise agreement with Midco.
Item #36-37, 1st Readings, Kirby downtown dog park and gifting agreement of $600K.
Item #5B, Bob’s Chicken Casino. Planning department recommending denial due to neighborhood opposition.
Item #5C, Another casino on North Cliff, while some of the neighbors oppose, the Planning department recommends approval.
Item #5E, It’s a Pizza party! They want to build a pizzeria in a residential neighborhood by USF, they would serve beer. Some neighbors are opposed to alcohol in the neighborhood.
Item #5I, Looks like the Sanford Sports Complex is considering building a baseball stadium. First time I heard about this.
Item#2, A-C, The city plans on some rezones to create a bunch of detention ponds.
Item#2D, okay, I’m no home designer, but in order to qualify as a ‘Twin Home’ shouldn’t the houses be attached to each other? Just look at the plans, only the garages share a wall. Weird.
Item#2E, I guess Lloyd Companies bought the old Bowden Youth Center and are going to covert into apartments and offices.
Item#5B, A property owner is trying to convert the old Bob’s Café building into a Casino. Not only is it a bad location next to neighborhood homes, we don’t need anymore casinos in this town. When is the state legislature finally going to repeal this scourge on our society?
Item#5D, you know the house across from Avera that Avera said needed be torn down? John Koch is converting into apartments for temporary nurses for Avera, and Avera is loaning 3 parking spots to the complex. Funny how these things work out.
Item#5F, another casino, this time at Lake Lorraine. What retail mega-plex in Sioux Falls wouldn’t be complete without a casino! This one the planning department says is OK. Besides, it’s close to an assisted living center, they shouldn’t have to take an Uber or Paratransit to gamble.
Item#5G, the old Shopko on East 10th is becoming a car lot. I know, shocking!
Item#7, The Planning Department came up with a new flowchart to let us know how redevelopment works.
Planning Director Eckhoff is asking for an advisory opinion on Thursday, July 25, from the Board of Ethics if it is appropriate for him to continue to serve on the board (he has for over 8 years, and receives a stipend). He says he will forgo the stipend. (Last page of document)
IMO, even if Jeff forgoes the stipend, I don’t think it is appropriate for him to serve on the board, especially as the planning director of the state’s largest city. This is an easy one for the BOE.
I’ve been hearing Jeff has been doing a great job for the city and works well with constituents and councilors, unfortunately he should have known to resign this position before accepting the city job – it is a major conflict.
Item#5B, neighbors are resisting a re-zone from residential to C-2 Commercial for a mini-mall retail center.
Item #5C, permit for alcohol for a casino in the former Bob’s Café. The neighborhood is strongly opposed. They are looking for a deferral.
Item #5D, another permit for alcohol for a casino in a former gas station on N. Cliff. Planning department recommends denial due to not meeting alcohol requirements.
Item #5G, Adjusting the 2040 Comprehensive plan growth tier map.
I also noticed that many exhibit maps were missing from items in SIRE. Hopefully they will be up for the meeting on Wednesday.
Item #15, Applications, Arc of Dreams dedication party moved to July 24th. I hope they have a few bones left over from the $2.6 million dollar ego expenditure for crackers and cheese at the party.
Item #40, 1st Reading, Ordinance, Leine’s isn’t popular anymore, we have to go back to the old standby of Coors Light. Yeah, this is some of the stupid crap the city council has to endure. Speaking of stupidity, I guess more and more people are turned off by the ax throwing venues. Besides the obvious that they are trendy and expensive, the number one complaint is ‘They are noisy’ and not in a good way like dance music or live rock bands . . . thump . . . thump . . . thump. I went into the one next to Book COOP about a month ago, and I lasted about 2 minutes before I left. Sioux Falls, we need more poetry readings and less axe throwing. Now if West Mall can get on the Coors Light Express.
Item #41, 1st Reading, Ordinance, Cable Tax increase. This should be an interesting discussion. But no worries, the RS5 will make sure your taxes go up!
Items #42-43, Resolution, So this is interesting that we are going into OVS agreements with this telecoms BEFORE the tax increase has been approved. HMMM.
Item #46, Resolution, Approving more diagonal parking on Main. I find it curious there was NO informational on this.
Item #2, Consent Agenda, items C & E, Looks as though Councilor Erickson is looking to change a couple of nice McKennan Park residences into another Air BNB properties. I hear her and her husband have been snagging up properties around the hospitals for short term rentals to temp nurses and other hospital staff. The question is if Erickson is using her position on the council as a way to help the people she serves or herself? I talked to a person who lived a couple houses away from one of the properties and they had no idea that it would become an Air BNB. I find it a little curious also that the Planning Department put these on the consent agenda instead of the regular agenda to make sure this goes under the radar of the public when there is clear conflicts.
Item #5B, new restaurant on North Minnesota Ave.
Item #5C. my new favorite restaurant, Abelardos is seeking a beer and wine license. I find it interesting the property is still owned by Jim’s Burgers. Someone needs to figure out ‘curb appeal’ because the weed fest they have going on outside isn’t drawing in the customers. The food however is fantastic!
Item #5D. Garbage handlers being possibly denied a new parking lot.
Tonight should be a quiet night as a cold front approaches KELOLAND from the north. Skies should be mostly clear with overnight lows dipping into the 20s with a light wind. Clouds will thicken on Sunday as cold air filters in from the north. Most areas, especially in northern SD, will see the daily high […]
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — SCOREBOARD FOR FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6TH, 2019 NBA Oklahoma City 139, Timberwolves 127 (*Final in OT) NBA G-League Austin 116, Skyforce 107 USHL Stampede 3, Omaha 2 College Volleyball NIVC 2nd Round @ Vermillion, S.D. USD 3, UNLV 0 Central Region Semifinals @ Kearney, NE UN-Kearney 3, Northern State 0 NAIA Tournament […]
Kearney, Neb. – The 2019 campaign concluded for the No. 8 Northern State University volleyball team on Friday evening from the NCAA Central Region Tournament. The Wolves fell to host No. 2 Nebraska Kearney in the region semifinal match. THE QUICK DETAILS Final Score: NSU 0, UNK 3 Records: NSU 25-6, UNK 35-0 Attendance: […]
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — There's no reason for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on New Hampshire's “Free the Nipple” case, the state attorney general said this week.
