Sioux Falls

Downtown Sioux Falls Railroads Sioux Falls

UPDATE: Quiet Zones for Condo Dwellers in DTSF

l3wis July 26, 2022 14Comments

UPDATE: Instead of expensive quiet zones with concrete barriers and crossbars, maybe the city could work with current city ordinances and the state RR board to create ‘quiet times’. In other words limit the time of day trains could pass over city roads and thru neighborhoods. Let’s admit it, when a train is NOT moving over traffic they are quiet. So why not find a way to limit train traffic thru the city? My suggestion would be to have these as active times;

8:30 AM-11 AM, 1 PM-4 PM and 6 PM-9 PM

This would give the Railroads 8.5 hours in the day to move thru the city. I have never understood why the trains need to run at 3 AM or during morning and evening rush hour, it is ridiculous. I think the state and the city could implement local laws that would limit train traffic and keep the whistles to a minimum.

The railroad has had its reign on us long enough, and if they don’t like the designated times, they can certainly do what we have wanted for decades, move the damn trains on the outskirts of town and stop running them thru our city.

While I certainly support quiet zones on 6th & 8th streets, it is pretty obvious it is for the wealthy condo dwellers;

The City of Sioux Falls is looking at setting up quiet zones along Weber Avenue, at the Sixth Street and Eighth Street intersections of downtown. The plan is to make improvements to the railroad crossings so train engineers won’t have to blow their whistles as often, if at all.

If they are successful setting up the quiet zones, they really need to them also at Cliff between 12th and 14th (most of the DT train traffic comes thru here all thru the early morning and day) and across 14th by the credit union.

While I am supportive of this, it seems like they want to set them up where expensive condos are being built and NOT where they are really needed. But it seems the RR is NOT to keen on the idea;

But a spokesperson with the railroad industry urged the state railroad board to proceed with caution about quiet zones, saying that blowing a train whistle is always safer than not blowing one, especially when drivers aren’t paying attention.

I have a feeling there will be a fight about this, and the railroads rarely lose, just look how this project was negotiated, the railroads got millions of dollars to move but didn’t move at all, in fact traffic has increased DTSF and they now stage the cars right by the steel company and Avera.

I have argued for a long time the DT RR relocation project was poorly negotiated and when it comes to frequent train traffic, nothing was solved.

When Mayor Dave Munson and Senator Tim Johnson first proposed the idea, it was to remove the train traffic from DTSF, or make it very minimal. We got duped.

Planning Commission Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Building Permits need Clarity

l3wis July 25, 2022 4Comments

The horns are a tootin’ and the noisy makers are out;

Sioux Falls set a record by surpassing $1 billion in building activity last year, setting the mark in late November. This year, the city hit $1 billion in less than seven months.

I have argued for years that I while this is a good thing, we really need a realistic breakdown.

I would first start with a simple breakdown;

• 100% Private investment vs. Institutional & Public

I couldn’t even guess what that would be, but I think private is probably the bigger percentage

I would also like to see this breakdown;

• Density vs. New development

In other words what percentage is building and rebuilding in our core and established neighborhoods and what is new land acquisition?

A more detailed breakdown would be;

• Public (city, state, county, school, federal, military, etc.)

• Institutional (Hospitals, non-profits, churches, etc.)

• Multi-Housing (Apartments, duplexes, etc.)

• Single family residential

• Commercial (100% private investment)

• Commercial (partial public investment like tax rebates and TIFs)

I think this data is important because it gives us a big picture of how we are breaking these records. I have asked for this data for years and never get anywhere. I did download the building permit spreadsheet from 2021 and tried to break it down but it was nearly impossible since many developers have multiple mysterious LLCs they are using for the permitting.

If the Planning Department wants to really boast about the permits, why not give us a picture of what that looks like.

Elections Sioux Falls

Why won’t Smart Growth Sioux Falls tell us who is funding them?

l3wis July 25, 2022 3Comments

You know that old saying, ‘Follow the Money’. It was true when it was originally stated and still true today. If a candidate or ballot initiative is worthy of voters support they should be transparent about who is funding the campaigns.

Just look at the little trick the Mayor pulled giving $17,500 to a non-incumbent candidate thru his PAC and cleverly hiding it from the voters by giving the money AFTER the final reporting period before the election. But, Hey, I have never accused PTH of being transparent.

Fast forward to the folks trying to stop Wholestone (they will fail). They say they won’t release the names though many have speculated it involves a certain business mogul who owns gobs of housing development land around the proposed packing plant. They can only run for so long since the finance report is due in September.

Why not get a head of the hubbub and just tell people now who is funding the campaign? Oh that’s right, because it has partisan Republican hacks running the campaign and funding it. Robert Peterson who is the son and basement dweller of Bill and Sue Peterson (former and current legislators) is running a childish and non-transparent campaign. While telling voters and petition signers this is about the stench of a packing plant it is really about land investment. I have said all along of Peterson and his cabal of campaign investors were really concerned about the smell of dead hogs they would have written a petition that bans ALL large scale packing plants in Sioux Falls which would send the Chinese Communists running the S-Hole plant downtown literally packing and would have also stopped WF from building or expanding.

There has all been a lot of crying from the campaign that the city council and mayor are not helping them. Let me clue you in as to why. If the city government would make even the smallest attempt to stop WF, they would get their asses sued (in other words the taxpayers would get sued). The land is already owned by WF and zoned properly according to Shape Places. The city has no options in stopping it.

There is also another factor the campaign won’t tell us about, immigrant workforce. WF has already said they will likely build housing for an immigrant workforce adjacent to the packing plant.

One thing I have learned from being a part of a petition that was thrown out by the city is that you should always have the lawyers look at your petition before you move forward and make sure it is rock solid. I saw issues with this before they even collected one signature.

Like I said, it will likely pass over 75%, but it won’t really matter, because they found a loophole and all the crying in the world won’t stop it now.

Bunker Ramp Downtown Sioux Falls Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Another Bunker Ramp update. Let me guess, we have winner!

l3wis July 24, 2022 7Comments

It has only been a couple of weeks since we were told they were going put lipstick on that gigantic concrete pig, now we are getting another update;

• Downtown Parking Ramp Update by Erica Beck, Chief of Staff

More than likely this is an update with the mural selection process, but you never know, they may have an interested party. A few months ago I heard a rumor that Councilor Neitzert was telling some constituents he wanted to do an investigation into how the Bunker Ramp got so messed up. I almost died laughing. I told this person we could save a lot of time if we just handed Greg a mirror.

They will also be amending the Shape Places;

• Shape Places Ordinance & Proposed Amendments by Jason Bieber, Senior Planner

I find the expedited timeline of getting these changes in place interesting. This means many of them have been in the works for months without the knowledge of the public or council.

Denny Sanford Premier Center Event Center Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls

Another Event Center Campus Committee, another study on the dusty shelf

l3wis July 24, 2022 7Comments

I’m trying to figure out why we didn’t do something about the last study?

“We were getting ready to launch a market study to look at what’s the right sizing and scaling,” said Shawn Pritchett, director of finance for the city of Sioux Falls.
“Unfortunately with COVID, the market disappeared entirely, and there was nothing left to study.”

True. But why not just pick up where the committee left off? Why, once again, reinvent the wheel?

“You have to have the right type of expertise and professional experience to give truly meaningful outside perspective,” he said.

So are you saying the 1st committee didn’t have that? Not sure how a bunch of bankers and doctors are going to be much different?

When you look back on the first term of the administration, it’s hard to figure out what was accomplished accept a bunch of studies thrown in the garbage and a revolving door of directors at city hall. How do these people get elected and re-elected. Baffling.

UPDATE: Quiet Zones for Condo Dwellers in DTSF

Sioux Falls Building Permits need Clarity

Why won’t Smart Growth Sioux Falls tell us who is funding them?

Another Bunker Ramp update. Let me guess, we have winner!

Another Event Center Campus Committee, another study on the dusty shelf

You Missed

UPDATE: Let Sioux Falls Vote! Sign Data Center petition!

Trust

I have been telling council this stuff for over a decade

First Ave Doc, many memories