While the petitioners did the right thing by putting this to a vote of the people of the affected area, the TIF should really be voted on by the entire state. Why?
So this is how TIFs work in SD; The developer’s property is valued at a new higher rate once the project is completed, this rate is used to fund city, school and county government, except that new valued tax revenue goes back to the developer for improvements (in other words he gets a tax refund to build his personal project). So while these values are up, the money isn’t coming in so the county and school district must make that revenue up by taking it from the state which is funded by sales taxes paid for by the entire public body of the state. So while there may be a TIF in Pennington County, Minnehaha County residents are funding this TIF thru sales taxes to make up for the lack of school and county funding. TIFs are not only BAD for the effected communities but they hurt every resident in this state! Some would argue we pay these taxes anyway, and you are correct, but instead of bailing out school districts and counties we could use the revenue to improve state infrastructure. What a f’ing concept!!!!!!
Right after Mr. Kloucek did this video, it got some traffic. The pundit really doesn’t know my cuz Frank when he said something like ‘Red State Farmers turning their backs on Trump’. Frank has never been a Republican and never will be, he is just calling spades.
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I am speculating that GOED (Governor’s Office of Economic Development) is pushing this project.
We know that the data center will drive up water and electrical costs for consumers in that service area. It will also NOT create hundreds of jobs. For example, ADP has a data center in Sioux Falls. Do you know how many people work there? It’s about a dozen. It will only create jobs for out of state contractors to build it. A friend who works on data centers all over the country (technical builds) told me you could actually operate the facility remotely and have a local contractor if they have to actually show up and do repairs etc. In other words it could create ZERO permanent jobs. Most data centers run this way throughout the world with a central command center instead of having individual command centers at the actual physical locations.
So why do I think GOED is behind this? I found it odd that Brandon rolled over almost overnight, so did the Sioux Falls city council and planning commission. Yes, they are all famous for rubberstamping, but I have never seen this kind of unification behind a project unless someone has the foot on the pedal and a boot up their asses, and my guess it is Rhoden pushing this (and he wears boots).
Ironically, it sounds like this may not have been even a project that was on GOED’s radar, but once dumped in their laps they are probably trying to claim a win.
I’m not naive, WE NEED DATA CENTERS and they have to be somewhere, but don’t approve a project because of pressure from the governor based on false promises from a shadow foreign LLC, especially a governor that is even dumber then the person(s) who appointed him. What a Larry!
UPDATE: During the informational today there was NO apology from the Parks Department over the detour debacle. But, Councilor Sigette questioned who planned the detours. They replied ‘They did.’ Which seems like a Don Kearney Swanson kind of fib. When I attended the last PTAB meeting the same question was asked of a different parks rep and they replied sheepishly that the contractors actually planned it. So who is telling the truth? It is still disgusting to me that A CITY EMPLOYEE went on TurdBook trying to blame riders for the poorly planned detours. When people say city employees have our best interest I just point to something like this or the runaround and transfers you get when you ask a simple question from a city customer support person on the phone, and they NEVER get back to you.
At the Fiscal meeting, only one committee member was opposed to increasing reserves, Merkouris, and his short and sweet rationale made perfect sense. Why have this money that we haven’t spent in the past (because of State and Federal assistance) and now we want to increase it? He didn’t see the emergency, and neither do I.
IS THIS JUST ANOTHER TAX SCAM TO BUILD THE CONVENTION CENTER?
During the discussion of the reserve increases it was mentioned that if we do this our bond rating will go up. Well wouldn’t that be convenient when you need to fund a Convention Center Bond without a new tax revenue source. This appears to be just another f’ing scam from Poops to get his Convention Center in a railroad swamp built . . . and the council will clap like seals.
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There have been so many ‘tidbits’ over the last week that I will just give a brief review.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING SUIT GOING TO TRIAL
I was told yesterday that the affordable housing development suit AGAINST the city is moving to trial. Ironically, the judge that signed off on the trial just retired. So a trial date has not been set, and they still have to determine if it will be a jury trial. The city and it’s legal counsel tried to get the case dismissed (it was dismissed out of Federal Court but referred to state court). If it is a jury trial it will be a slam dunk for the plaintiff. Basically the city is allegedly holding a development hostage over a affordable housing dispute and NOT allowing them to sell the properties (giving occupancy permits). The city has been up to some real shady/vengeful crap and it will be exposed in the trial. Hopefully they will park a food truck in the court room so some of the media shows up.
CANNEIGHBORS SUE THE CITY OVER REZONES FOR VIOLATING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN?
So someone in the community who knows a lot about planning and development (not a public employee or politician) informed me of something interesting. They said, “Yah know, neighbors can sue the city over violating the comprehensive plan when approving rezones that are not compatible with that plan.”
So what does this mean? Basically if you are a homeowner and an adjacent homeowner wants to rezone their property to something else, like commercial, they have to go thru a compatibility study (see ex below)
If this study shows that ANY of the compatibility numbers are under 5, it puts the rezone into question. So if the PC and City Council approve a rezone when the compatibility numbers are NOT ALL 5’s and the adjacent neighbors are opposed, this gives them the legal authority to sue over the rezone since it didn’t meet the requirements of the comprehensive plan.
FISCAL COMMITTEE MEETING FOR WHAT?
As we know, this administration and council have NOT been transparent often playing games with agendas in order to mislead or confuse. Committee meetings are usually random with this council, and they decided to have another random Fiscal meeting with a random agenda that says ‘Overview of Proposed Ordinance’ with no attached documents. My assumption is they are going to talk about the reserves and other fiscal items, but why not list what you are going to discuss? Why the secrecy? Makes you wonder if they are concocting some kind of tax scheme to get us to pay for the new Convention Center?
WILL THE SIOUX FALLS PARKS DEPARTMENT FINALLY APOLOGIZE FOR REC TRAIL DETOURS?
Recreation Trail Planning & Maintenance by Josh Johnson, Park Operations Manager; Mike Patten, Park Development Manager
At this point I really don’t care that you f’kd up, and I really don’t care about your f’ing excuses and finger pointing. Admit you screwed up with planning and apologize to the folks that pay your wages. I took a ride this morning on a spur towards family park that got a fresh squeeze of oil this summer over the top of horrible cracks. It is so bumpy if you go over 5 MPH in one of the sections you have to wear a mouthpiece or you teeth will rattle out of your head. I was reading a story this week about how Howard Dean is helping to build bike trails across the US on old rail lines, glad to see that no one from our parks department is involved.
GOLF CART TOURS ON THE BIKE TRAIL?
I told you a few weeks back about a friend who took a golf cart on the bike trail (he is disabled and cannot ride a bike). He told me that his mom drove him in the cart and they got a lot of strange looks but it was permitted due to his disability. When he first started researching this the parks department had to look into Federal statutes to see if it was legal. I guess they decided that they would take a shot at it because I saw three, 4-seater golf carts being driven by parks employees on Friday afternoon on the trail. I looked on the city website to see if I could sign up and found nothing about the rides. I wonder if this is recent? They did have permits taped to the hoods of the carts. I have been trying to get people to take bike trail tours on my Rickshaw and have only had 4 couples so far. It’s a beautiful tour. (my trike is a Class II so it is legal on the trail).
THE BOARD OF REGENTS IS TURNING USD INTO A ‘TACO’ UNIVERSITY
USD said Hook’s deletion of the post and issuing an apology were enough to stay at the school.
The Board of Regents were probably told by legal counsel that you will lose this 1st Amendment case, and after you lose your reputation as an institution will go in the toilet. This was a fiscal decision to keep the professor NOT a constitutional one. I hope this professor goes on a speaking tour in SD about the 1st Amendment. When handed lemons . . . And always remember, when referring to someone as a NAZI always say WHITE CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST instead, it is the more WOKE, DEI version of NAZI the radical right has adopted.
WHY DIDN’T WE PUT THE PRISON IN VERMILLION?
Speaking of the institution in the middle of nowhere, with the recent move of the USD medical school to Sux (and the law school probably coming soon after) it makes you wonder if it is time to mothball USD in Vermillion. One suggestion would be to make the Vermillion campus a vocational school and put all the undergraduate studies in Sux. My suggestion would be to convert it into the new prison (like we did in Springfield years ago) and move the entire university to the SE Tech campus.
l3wis 
