The one thing PTH has NOT kept secret; his total disregard for open and transparent government.
You would think after the failures of the bunker ramp due to the lack of financial transparency they would have learned something. Nope;
The city won’t say if or how many developers have expressed interest in buying or leasing the unfinished downtown parking ramp on 10th Street.
“Ultimately, this is how we set up the process,” said Dustin Powers, community development coordinator for the city.
Dustin, just who is this ‘WE’ you speak of? It certainly wasn’t the public that requested this process, or the legislative body, the city council. Maybe it was the mayor’s COS, who is a former executive for one of the largest developers in the city and state. Her former employer has ‘mysteriously’ received millions in tax breaks, land deals, TIFs, etc. since she was appointed. Are they on the short list? We will never know.
It’ll be a lot of behind-the-scenes work until the city chooses a potential buyer/lessee and makes that information public.
Yup. And once again we have learned nothing about the benefits of open government.
Item #47, A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS RECERTIFYING THE COMMUNITY RATING SYSTEM (CRS) PROGRAM.
Background & Objective: A required annual report from the CRS program on the Hazard Mitigation Plan. The current plan is at the end of its usefulness and a new plan is in the early stages, so no new efforts have been put into adding new items to the existing one. This is why the report is so short this year.
(I have never seen this program before, so I would be curious how long it has been since this has been updated considering we have been hit by tornados, severe storms, and flooding over the past few years requiring FEMA reimbursement. Would have been nice to have an informational meeting presentation.)
Item 6, Sub-Item 22; Entertainment Facilities, Washington Pavilion Building Improvements – Balustrade and Cornice Remodel; To award a bid, McGill Restoration, Inc., $5.9 Million, There is available budget to award this bid out of the Washington Pavilion CIP budget. (this is code for ‘entertainment tax’ the slush fund the Pavilion and city have been using to make repairs to the city owned facility. I have argued for a long time that they could just remove the bad balustrades and plug the holes for a lot less, even though the contractors say otherwise. No one would know any different if they were removed permanently. This should have been done 20 years ago when the problem came up, but now we are looking for a $6 million dollar fix while the Pavilion’s management sits on over $5 million in a savings account. The image below is a photoshop rendition of what the Pavilion would look like without the balustrades. While the city decries tax cuts in their legislative priorities, they seem to have plenty of money for glamor and appearance projects.
Items 20-86 (there are several VL lottery requests in the wake of the recent cap. I implore the council to pull each license and vote on them individually).
Item #96, 2nd Reading: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY AMENDING CHAPTER 37: TAXATION. Sponsor, Mayor, Background & Objective: The proposed changes are a result of the work done by Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. on the Main Street Sioux Falls Business Improvement District Growth Plan. The Plan proposes additional and enhanced services to best position downtown for growth and to address common issues. Additional funding would be generated by these proposed amendments to achieve the additional and enhanced services. (After this was explained to me, I support the amendments even, but you have to wonder why the mayor is sponsoring a tax increase? The council should have been the ones to bring this forward, but maybe they need 3-4 more full-time employees to assist them with their very difficult job of creating policy. I still think a better approach would be for the parking department to be in charge of the maintenance DTSF since they do collect a majority of parking fees in the downtown area and let DTSF concentrate on marketing, programming and business services with fees collected. DTSF shouldn’t have to beg for tax code changes to water plants and sweep the sidewalks, the city has plenty of money to take care of the maintenance and beautification of downtown).
Item #98, 1st Reading: AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS, SD, AMENDING THE REVISED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY BY ESTABLISHING AN ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION BOARD. Sponsor: Mayor Background & Objective: The purpose of the Sioux Falls Active Transportation Board (ATB) is to advise the city council, city departments, and city boards regarding bicycle, pedestrian, and other active transportation and accessible pedestrian transportation modes. (While this is a great idea, this should have been initiated by the city council, like the homeless task force. The council will ultimately have to vote on any changes and they should be actively involved in shaping these policies moving forward. Just another fancy task force the mayor and his staff have cooked up to make it look like they are doing something. I heard in the first meeting they will spend the first 45 minutes rearranging chairs in the conference room. As an all season bicyclist and active street rider since the early 90’s in Sioux Falls, I would love to sit on this board and give my perspective of what I have seen. I would apply, but most likely my application would end up where my other city board’s applications have ended up
Item #99, A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE MINNESOTA AVENUE CORRIDOR PHASE I LAND USE REPORT. Sponsor: Mayor, Background & Objective: That the City of Sioux Falls adopts the Minnesota Avenue Phase I Land Use Report to provide policies and guidance for future rezoning proposals, conditional use requests, redevelopment grant funding, and other redevelopment proposals. (I have been watching this construction play out, and from what I have been hearing from residents and business owners in the affected area is that while the city has been having listening/learning sessions they ultimately are doing what they want to with little to no regard from private recommendations. Minnesota Avenue should have started this process 30 years ago. I remember De Knudson and Dr. Staggers recommending changes to this corridor with no avail. I guess better late then never.
Item #100, A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO ENTER INTO AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF SIOUX FALLS AND WASHINGTON PAVILION MANAGEMENT, INC. FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE WASHINGTON PAVILION OF ARTS AND SCIENCE, ORPHEUM THEATER, AND THE MUNICIPAL BAND. Background & Objective: Resolution to approve entering into a five-year management agreement with Washington Pavilion Management, Inc. to manage the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science, Orpheum Theater, and the Sioux Falls Municipal Band. Agreement covers the years 2023-2027. Details of the new proposed Agreement were presented at the City Council’s Informational Meeting on November 22. (While there was a presentation on the renewal, the Pavilion talked very little about their financial status. Do they really need an operating subsidy from the city when we dump millions into the place each year in maintenance? I think with $5 million in savings – growing a whopping $2 million last year – it is time the Pavilion put on their big kid pants and operated on their own coin considering NOTHING is FREE to use in the building except the toilet and water fountain. It certainly hasn’t become the place for ‘everyone’ but is has been costing ‘everyone’ in Sioux Falls a pretty penny.)
• Legislative Priorities. Their priorities seem to be PRO-TAX for citizens while advocating for a tax break for themselves;
4. We support efforts to eliminate double taxation on public projects through the state use and contractor’s excise taxes.
I would agree that making citizens pay excise taxes on public projects is silly, BUT it is the contractors who build the projects that pay the tax. If this tax is eliminated, would the contractor pass those savings onto the city?
5. We oppose any legislation that would reduce or repeal any municipal or county tax.
This of course may apply to the food tax. I think it is incredibly short-sighted to support a food tax cut statewide but not municipal. I think if we eliminate the food tax in Pierre, it needs to apply to cities also. I have also argued for a long time, the city is overtaxing us. If you have over $70 million in your reserves (a savings account) you have to ask yourself if the city is collecting too much in taxes. I don’t care how large the city’s budget is, there is NO justification of having that much in reserves.
7. We support tax increment financing (TIF), an economic development tool that has led to millions of dollars in increased property value, benefitting both the state as a whole and the local entities sponsoring the districts, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of the process.
Integrity of the process? Benefits? As I have stated over the years, there has been NO comprehensive independent study of what those benefits are and the process. I recently received a tip that one of the more recent TIFs the city council issued was based on NO financial review of the recipient, or at least not a comprehensive one. Did we learn anything from the bunker ramp fiasco? Maybe Neitzert is right, maybe we need to do an investigation to see just how bad city government screwed the pooch on that one.
Speaking of process integrity, I was made aware last week that a current city director is being asked now to run two separate departments that have very little to do with each other. While he is an educated, qualified director for the one department he currently runs he has zero qualifications for running the other department. While we could surmise why PTH makes such idiotic decisions (he has NO leadership skills) you have to wonder why this director would agree to such a thing, even with a significant pay increase? I guess when he quits in frustration or gets fired the administration will just chalk it up as par for the coarse. I think Amazon management has a lower turnover rate.
Item 5A, Petition:CU-017246-2022: Conditional Use Permit to allow for a Full Service Restaurant within 250′ of a sensitive land use. Operations will include On-Sale Alcohol with supplemental video lottery located at 7601 S. LOUISE AVE.
What I find interesting about this item is how some entities will come to the planning commission asking for conditional use permits without even having a business name. If you review the documents you will see this is basically a 3 tiered casino that has a pizza oven.
He envisions a restaurant centered around brick-oven pizza and with pasta dishes, salads and other family-friendly menu items.
Nothing says family friendly like 30 video lottery machines and a pepperoni pizza. “Where’s dad?” Asks Johnny. “He’s hopefully winning this month’s rent in the other room.” Mom replies.
UPDATE: I wanted to clarify something, I think that well over 90% of voters DID know what they were voting on, but there is always those stragglers that don’t research the ballot before they vote and make a decision in the ballot box without knowing the context. I do believe a small number of voters were confused. How do you go from polling 78% this summer to losing this fall? Before the opposition gained steam the only ads we were seeing were for vote YES, then suddenly every ad a month before the election were vote NO and vote YES, constantly, which added to the confusion. I was personally happy with the results.
Unless we are willing to make a concerted effort to close ALL packing plants in town, this really seemed like they were picking on Wholestone. I still think this ends up in court, but the biggest failure was our city council not acting on this in January or February. If we still had conditional use permitting, we could have required WF to follow a higher standard (especially when it comes to water and waste water). I’m a huge believer in the initiative and petition process, but only after all government solutions were exhausted, the city didn’t lift a finger and forced an expensive election that could have been avoided.
I knew the Rec MJ decision was going to be close, however it turned out, but it would be decisive. I can’t say that about the slaughterhouse vote. While I did vote ‘NO’ and fully agreed that if a developer or business follows the rules set in place when it comes to property and property rights they deserve to move forward. I also think there was a lot of games played along the way on both sides that would have made it hard to stop this development (including the inaction of the city council when it comes to zoning). Either way, this will still end up in court.
What I do scratch my head about is if the ballot language contributed to the confusing outcome? How is it that something can be polling 60-70% then fail on election day? Just look at polling for Medicare, Rec MJ and Noem, all polls were almost spot on (though Noem did do a lot better than expected).
Think about it. If someone tells you to vote ‘NO’ you would assume that means ‘NO’ to new slaughterhouses and a ‘YES’ vote means ‘YES’ to new slaughterhouses. Well guess what? It is vice versa.
I’m not even sure how you would clear this up, you would almost need to do an exit poll to see how people voted and how they felt. This is impossible at this point.
We may never know.
I did know who Kameron Nelson was, and that is why I voted for him. District 10 is the only place in the state where the magic happened (and District 15). I actually was let in on the ground game this summer of what Democratic District 10 candidates were doing to win that district, and they had a good game, the results don’t surprise me a bit. There was also a rumor swirling that John Mogen and Tom Sutton were personally recruited by Noem to be placeholders in District 10 so she could appoint someone if they won.
I live in an Oasis. Now where can I get some good black market weed? Asking for a friend
Speaking of the evil weed. I see the opposition’s game of ‘what about the children’ worked, and once again, Mayor TenHaken set a precedent, now influencing ballot measures and questions. I still have a glimmer of hope that peeps from the IM 27 campaign will file ethics and campaign rule complaints against those peddling lies about the measure.
Slaughterhouses are a horrible fit for our community. Affordable housing and workforce availability are already huge concerns. The idea of adding lots of difficult, low-paying, low-skill jobs, the type that have traditionally been a drag on our progress and success, makes no sense to me. And expanding the presence inside our city of an industry which has long caused pollution problems in our river and air makes no sense. I simply don’t understand why we would want more of this in Sioux Falls.
I agree, I don’t want another slaughterhouse built, but I would much more prefer there was an effort to not only STOP Wholestone but to close down Smithfields.
The issue with this entire fiasco has nothing to do with Wholestone vs. the Citizens vs. the City, it has to do with South Dakota voters, including right here in Sioux Falls who vote against their own interests. When the City Council passed Shape Places, several citizens said this was a bad thing and wanted to see some changes to the zoning ordinances, so they referred it to a vote. The development community along with some councilors said nothing to see here, move along, and the voters ultimately passed the original plan.
The argument then is still the argument today, Shape Places took power away from the council to make conditional use decisions, and when you take power from our citizen representatives, you take power from us.
I think if the council still had that power instead giving total control over to the developers Wholestone would have been denied by the Council or scaled way back and it has little to do with water quality or air quality, it has to do with water supply.
Where do you think WF will get their water? The reason WF is building within the city limits has nothing to do with the labor market, it has to do with using city resources, they will be using a lot.
Besides letting the developers take over almost all branches of city government we have also let them plan this city instead of the government and citizens;
Granted, the city does a lot of planning. It has a parks plan, a capital spending plan, a downtown plan and much more. But I am not aware of any sort of comprehensive plan for our city with direct participation of the mayor and council. In support of that, some council members and candidates have told me they wished they could be involved in that sort of big-picture, strategic planning. If there was such a plan, I doubt it would have included the phrase, “add more slaughterhouses”.
This is something Janet Brekke stressed in her entire 4 years on the council. Her colleagues on the dais ignored her and did nothing. I think if she would have gotten re-elected and we would have changed a couple of other seats, Brekke would have been successful moving it forward.
Once again, in Sioux Falls and the rest of the state we continue to vote against our own best interests, and until that changes, you will see NO change in the status quo; DEVELOPERS RUN OUR CITY.
l3wis 
