Sioux Falls

Kudos to the SF School Board

l3wis May 7, 2009 8Comments

Okay, it’s a rare occasion that elected officials in Sioux Falls make educated and correct decisions, especially working together as a governing body. But last night the Sioux Falls school board did just that;

The Sioux Falls School Board said Wednesday it will spend $6.3 million to renovate Howard Wood Field unless someone else gives it $15 million to $19 million to build a field elsewhere, making room for a new arena.

Bravo! The school board last night showed they know what their job is; educating our youth and protecting the interests of property tax payers. They proved they respect both by rejecting the Event Center task force fantasy proposals. I have said a million times, the task force needs to secure fiscally responsible funding FIRST then talk about the building plans.

School Board member Doug Morrison said it best;

“If we did have more money down the road, we’d invest on education, not stadiums,”

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Why does a majority of the Sioux Falls city council and Mayor want to subsidize the Feds?

l3wis May 6, 2009 0Comments

Say what you will about South Dakota when it comes to Federal money, but it is no secret WE ARE a welfare state (we receive more back then we pay in). Whether you agree with that or not, one fact remains the same, we are at least entitled to what we pay in. That is why it puzzles me that the city is chopping at the bit to get the levee projects done. Federal projects  should be paid for through Federal appropriations not local tax dollars. Not only is it the proper and right way to pay for the project it is inexcusable to take local tax dollars away from city owned projects to pay for something the Feds own and are responsible for.

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The levees are owned by the Feds (Corps of Engineers) and regulated by the Feds (FEMA). It only makes sense that Federal money be used to build them. The city claims that the Feds will pay us back. That may take 20 years, if ever, all the while we are paying interest on the loans. Even if they do pay us back the principle we will never see the full amount.

What’s the solution? I’m not sure, but I will say this; I think it is a complete load of crap that the city is claiming our hands are tied. Not only do we have several qualified department heads that have worked with the project and the Corps for years on this, we have eight city councilors, one that is married to the SD Senate majority leader. We have a mayor and a city attorney that is a former judge. We also have Herseth-Sandlin who is in a leadership role with the Blue Dogs in the Congress, Johnson who is a senior Democrat leader in the Senate and Thune who ranks 5^th in the Republican leadership. With all of those people working on it, there is no fricking reason why FEMA and the Corps can’t or won’t pony up.

You might say we have a leadership problem (well we do) but I think this is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. I think Munson and the city like taking out loans and handing contracts over to private contractors. One wonders if we let the Feds handle the project if they would be so generous?

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This whole thing stinks, especially since Munson is gearing up to ask for the money from the council who will probably bend over for him because they don’t want to seem like a bunch of dicks by raising people’s insurance rates.

I think there needs to be a full-scale investigation into why we are not getting the money, I also think that FEMA needs to back the f’ck off about the floodplains if they don’t want to pay to fix them.

This isn’t about flood control and 100 year floods it’s about political games and it is becoming more obvious every day.

New Flamingo Barns, Monkey Crappers and Football fields is considered 'moving forward' in Sioux Falls. WTF?

l3wis May 5, 2009 0Comments

Thanks for the new crapper Sioux Falls taxpayers!

I have long known that our city leader’s priorities are not in line with a majority of the citizens, the circus that occurred at the informational meeting yesterday proved this.

Sioux Falls officials are seeking an $18.5 million quality-of-life bond for four projects ranging from a new west-side library to Big Sioux River greenway improvements.

 

The improvements between Sixth and Eighth streets along the river have the highest price tag at $5 million, followed by a 15,000-square-foot library at $4.3 million, a junior football complex for $4.2 million and $2.5 million for zoo master-plan improvements.

Porridge trailer The library is the only part of this spending that makes sense. One of the biggest reasons this bond should not be approved is that the city is withholding information to the councilors on what the money will be spent on and details of the projects. Here are some of the (few) details that came out of the informational meeting;

– The library gave a fine presentation on what the money would be spent on and how the city determines when it will build another branch. It was a very detailed and well thought out presentation.

– The Zoo also gave a good presentation, but like I have said in the past poor use of taxpayer money.

– The Greenway project is a mess. Not sure if Director Cooper knows what they are doing with the project, or if he is just gonna wing it when he gets the money but the only thing he really could give details on was that they are removing the RR bridge at Falls Park and replacing it with a pedestrian bridge. Obviously that won’t cost $5 million. Staggers questioned Cooper about the rest of the projects planned in association with it and Cooper got a little nervous. He said he would get back to the council on that. So you are asking for $5 million but have no plan on how to spend it? Nice.

– As for the football fields, the city does have a plan on what they want to build, but the Jr. Football Association hasn’t raised the $1.4 million they promised to provide, and on top of that they haven’t signed a contract with the city saying they would provide that money yet. Only a handshake. I think until the Jr. Football Association signs a legally binding contract with the city saying they will provide $1.4 million by a certain timeframe we shouldn’t start or fund this project. We need to know for sure they are going to uphold their part of the deal, and we need more then a lousy handshake. There is also a gigantic mystery swirling around about the Hockey Rec center. When Staggers questioned the city about it, they all dummied up. That makes me suspicious that there will be more organizations asking for handouts in the future in this proposed sports complex area.

Whether you are for or against this bond doesn’t really matter, the council deserves to know what the money is being spent on before they approve the spending. Once again a bunch of blind mice following the Mayor to the money pit.

Highlights from the SF City Council informational meeting

l3wis May 4, 2009 0Comments

I’ll get you more info in the morning, but these comments made me laugh, then cry;

(Paraphrasing)

“The city has been very financially responsible” – De Knudson

I think I need hernia surgery after that comment.

“There is a lot of citizens in this community that are confused about the city debt and how it is paid back, I think there needs to be some clarifications in graphs and charts.” – Gerald Beninga

Gerald was clearly trying to downplay the city debt (currently $320 million with a possibly of growing to $400-500 million by the end of the year). He was trying to downplay it by saying some of it was paid back thru separate fees and not retail taxes. While this is true it really doesn’t fricking matter because;

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#1- It has to be paid back by taxpayer’s and property owners no matter how you slice it and,

#2 – We have to pay huge interest on it.

Nice try Gerald. A spade is a spade. $320 million dollar debt, is $320 million dollar debt.