[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsuVuw5JO4[/youtube]
Ellis wrote his weekly rant about giving the money back to the FED’s and betting bottles of my favorite gin;
And to get the negotiators in the right spirit, I’m personally willing to put up a case of Bombay Sapphire gin and some vermouth. Martinis have a way of facilitating the free exchange of ideas.
For the longest time, I have often been for the project, and wondered why it has taken so long to get to this point (or wherever we are now?). But there is also a part of me that thinks if we don’t remove the tracks 100%, what’s the point? It just kinda seems to me that taxpayers (Federal and Local) will be footing the bill to help a private company (The Railroads) get a better switching yard and developers an opportunity to develop some cheap land. In other words, what is the benefit to citizens? Once again, we are left writing the checks with nothing in return. F’ck Em!
And J.E. may be onto something;
Sioux Falls has been no more money-grubbing for federal handouts than other cities. In fact, the city paid the federal government’s share for building a stronger levee system. The city has an agreement that the feds can pay back the money, but don’t count on it.
Why not just take that $35 million set aside for the RR relocation project and use it to pay the city back for the levees and say the Hell with the project. Seems fair to me. If private developers and RR companies want action, they need to get their checkbooks out for once and stop bilking us.
