The Sales Tax decrease WILL NOT

-          WILL NOT Affect the 2009 Budget (It would not take effect until January 1, 2010. In the spring of 2010 the city will have 3-4 new councilors and a new mayor that most likely will want to go over the budget with a fine tooth comb and make adjustments. There couldn’t be a better time to implement this decrease.

-          WILL NOT Affect the operations budget (Police, Fire, government services, etc.)

-          WILL NOT Take money away from Lewis & Clark (this is actually being paid for thru your water bill)

-         WILL NOT  Take money away from new road construction (Developer fees can pay to build new roads)

-          WILL NOT Take money from road maintenance and infrastructure projects

-          WILL NOT Hurt growth and development

The Sales Tax decrease WILL

-          WILL Reduce the tax on food and utilities

-          WILL Put approximately $5 Million back into taxpayers hands to spend on what they want (this will actually help the local economy because the money will be spent on good and services and promote local business which actually helps growth).

-          WILL Force the city to make cuts from the Capital Improvements Budget (which currently includes giveaways to downtown businesses, unneeded upgrades to entertainment facilities and other WANTS)

-          WILL Be responsible to taxpayers

We will also have petitions available to anyone that wants to help.

I did this toon in response to an Amendment that councilor Staggers proposed on changing the language in a budget appropriation. He wanted it to state that raising property taxes is a ‘tax increase’ (which technically it is). The council was split, which surprised me, and Munson voted against the proposed (transparent) language. Very dissapointing.

Here it is from the minutes;

A motion to amend was made by Council Member Staggers and seconded by Council Member Anderson Jr. to amend the title of the ordinance to comply with City Ordinance 2-22 (d), to read “An Ordinance of the City of Sioux Falls, SD providing appropriations and the means of financing them which includes a property tax increase of 2.9% or $1,101,930 of tax levies for the Fiscal Year ending December 31, 2009″.

 

Vote to amend:  Roll Call:  Yeses, Litz, Staggers, Anderson, Jr., Beninga, 4.  Noes, Brown, Costello, Jamison, Knudson, 4.  Mayor Munson broke the tie with a no vote.  Motion Failed.

I saw this in McKennan park today. Thought the Al Franken sign was a nice touch - I wonder if Daugaard lives there?

LMFAO- Saw this video today, I think the kid nailed it. “I hope you hit a whale on the way to France.”

Seems the McCain campaign is spinning the Hockey Mom status of Palin a little further . . . I always thought she was a VPILF instead?

The school board decided to not let extremists distribute their crap in the schools anymore, but the Gargoyle Leader has even a better idea . . . junk mail and spam. Yeah, that’s a GREAT IDEA! this from the same people who endorsed Vernon Brown and the sales tax hike.

"Perhaps there still is some way for the school district to help those groups whose important missions revolve around helping children grow and learn. Electronic communication quickly is becoming universal. Some sort of opt-in e-mail distribution list might make sense. The schools could then turn that list over to organizations that ask for it, thereby escaping the middle-man role. The same could be done with mailing addresses."

Like a good Munson soldier, Gene tells us that paying more taxes is necessary (Argus Leader);

I would like to put this discussion in context. In March 2008, the mayor and the City Council commissioned a citizen survey that reached 3,000 households in Sioux Falls. Citizens were asked to rate the statement, “I receive good value for the city of Sioux Falls taxes I pay.”

Gene, why didn’t you mention there was only aproximately 1,000 respondents? That’s right, city hall is making decisions with your taxdollars based on the opinions of aprox 0.66% of the population. But if you include the metro area (which will be affected by the arterial roads that percentage drops to 0.44%.) Not a good guage if you ask me. On top of that, we still don’t know who these surveys were sent to, which should worry us even more. Mailing lists are very accurate and specific. You can order a list to go to any demographic within a city. I would be curious what demographic this was sent to. One indicator was a large number of people saying they felt unsafe Downtown at night. This tells me that the survey was sent to 1) Senior citizens 2) yuppies who never come downtown and are generally scared of downtown areas because they watch too much Fox News about inner city crime.

I also take issue with this statement;

That leaves $139 million in our budget.

$27 million is for railroad relocation. This is money coming from the federal government that we need to show as part of the budget due to accounting rules even though the citizens of Sioux Falls are not funding this project. This money cannot be used for arterial street construction.

What Gene isn’t tell you is that SF Taxpayer’s are footing this bill and we will (hopefully) get repaid by the FEDS. In most cases when cities or states foot the bill first, it is rare that the FEDS pony up. and if you think after this $819 billion dollar bailout that they are going to be handing out checks like this, you are freaking nuts.

This is also misleading, and he should have given a breakdown;

That leaves $90 million in our budget.

$43 million is in other funds that are restricted for specific purposes such as transit, community development, storm drainage, etc. This money cannot be used for arterial street construction.

Most community development dollars are loans that are merely originated by the city. But lately you will notice that the city has been giving handouts in the form of TIF’s and Facade programs. I would be curious how much of that $43 million is for community development handouts.

Once again the city has told us how they are spending our money, but not how they are trying to save us money. That is what is fundamentally broken at City Hall and the department heads that work there. They are not looking out for us.

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