Tre Ministries 18:19, TIFs, and Kinfolk

When will the madness stop?

4/28 Post updated (see material in parentheses below)

Recently there has been a lot of deceptive projects going on in cities and towns around the state whether it is Aberdeen, Rapid City, or Sioux Falls. These projects have fancy names, fancy buildings, and fancy sales materials, but what is going on behind the scenes seems a bit deceptive.

Today we will be taking a deep dive into Sioux Falls, our largest metro area, since it seems to be a testing ground for what people elsewhere will accept. There are a number of strange taxpayer funded projects that are being undertaken in this community. Some are led by non-profits (NGOs) that do not pay taxes, but thrive on taxpayer handouts. Others are being undertaken by private companies that are given tax handouts. And some are government projects that are funded with taxpayer money.

Sioux Falls has a well developed non-profit sector, many of which seem adept at finding ways to take advantage of the taxpayers. A new entry is Tre Ministries. This NGO recently began a strange project, called 18:19 (on the corner of 18th and Minnesota Avenue). It is some type of residential program for young people between the ages of 18 and 30. While it wasn’t billed as a halfway house, the organization did not to answer an email asking questions about who would be staying in their 36 apartments and if they would be receiving grant money to fund their operation. When we called them the person who answered the phone refused to answer direct questions. We specifically asked about whether there would be people with criminal records. Radio silence by email and repeatedly avoiding the questions by phone! So I guess we know the answer.

(4/28 update: The email that was sent to Tre Ministries by one of the residents in the area was answered today. Thank you Tre Ministries for the follow-up. There still seem to be questions about long term funding for the 18:19 project, tenant background, why tenants need development plans and if they would be paying rent, whether tenants would be evicted for causing disturbances in the neighborhood, long term assurances regarding the use of the facility and the tenants, and why an entire block of historic structures was leveled. Also residents seem very nervous about this quote, “It doesn’t matter what your past is. What matters is where you’re headed, and we’re just here to support that,” Berven said.)

It is especially interesting that this group bought a piece of property in a historic area of Sioux Falls and was able to level a block of historic commercial and residential buildings. Why on earth was this allowed? So they pay no tax and based on their lack of response to our questions, appear to be importing crime into the historic All Saints and McKennan Park neighborhoods. Who could have possibly thought this was a good idea? .

To add insult to injury, Sioux Falls has seen a proliferation of cookie cutter tenement-like housing in the downtown area, partially funded by making areas TIF districts. If you haven’t read about these crazy, jack up the property taxes and give the money to developers deal, check out TIF24 and TIF 25. Then ask who has been pocketing the taxpayer handouts.

On these two developments, it is Pendar Properties, led by Jeff Scherschligt, and Lloyd Properties, led until recently by Craig Lloyd. Then check out the long list of TIFs on page 5 of TIF25. Yes, there are 15 of these wealth transfer projects. After handing taxpayer money to the developers they have increased everyone’s taxes by tens of millions of dollars (some say hundreds of millions when you consider the surrounding areas).

I guess this is a great deal if you are a developer, but not if you are a resident in the surrounding areas and saw your property taxes go through the roof (especially if you are close to the poverty line and can’t afford the escalation). People argue these taxpayer funded projects are a good way to “clean-up” the downtown area, but in reality it appears to just be an attempt to take another beautiful city through a soulless, Seattle-like transformation using tax handouts.

Then we have legislators trying to add more prisoners to downtown Sioux Falls through a renovation to the Citibank building or an expansion to the State Pen/Jamison Annex. I am not sure what people are thinking, but this means another 600+ prisoners and their families in downtown Sioux Falls. About 70% of the children of prisoners are in the justice system and other family members are often involved in crime as well.

The downtown area already has crime problems, so this just sounds like a way to make downtown Sioux Falls unlivable. Rather than fancy prison buildings, perhaps Kellie Wasko, Secretary of the Department of Corrections, needs to deal with the 40+% recidivism rate and get the out-of-state people out of our prisons. Solving these two issues would mean we don’t need more buildings.

So Sioux Falls families of four struggle under an average tax/fee load of close to $50,000, yet we seem to be dead set on doing things to make life more challenging for them. Rather than MORE CRAZY NGO projects, more tax handouts and property tax escalations, and more prisoners and their families, maybe Sioux Falls (and South Dakota) needs LESS INSANITY.