Sunday, November 6, 2011

The Right Vision for Sioux Falls?

A Guest Post by Kevin Nyberg, reposted from Build It Downtown Facebook page:

Just like over 2,000 of you, I joined this Facebook Group because of its
mission and vision for the city of Sioux Falls. Tuesday's election will
decide if this vision stays alive or vanishes forever. We still have hope
if this plan fails. To me that hope represents the best vision for Sioux
Falls for decades to come.

I have not heard much about the future of marketing our city during this
campaign. Marketing is just not about conventions. I believe we have more
financial opportunities in attracting and focusing on visitors to our city
than conventions. How do we want our city to be marketed in the future?
How do we want to be remembered as a city? 

Well, if you haven't driven downtown between 6th and 8th streets and viewed
the new Downtown Riverfront Greenway I suggest you do so. And take your
friends and family before Tuesday's election. This project along with many
other Downtown announcements (Raven's facelift, Hilton Garden Inn), recently
should give obvious reason to why we are not focusing on the one resource,
the river, that could make our city stand out and be remembered by visitors
for decades to come! 

Yes, I know location is not what we are voting on Tuesday, but there are
dozens of other reasons why the current plan is not acceptable and should not be approved. You have heard them all, but the two that stand out to me is a flawed financial plan and an economy that is
unstable and unknown at this time. 

I grew up in Sioux Falls and have witnessed many city elections. This one
will be remembered for years to come. It has been a long campaign that
started out with a divided city council and now a divided electorate. In
my opinion no other election in our city's history has seen more drama than
this one.

Sioux Falls we can do better than the proposed plan! As some proponents of
the plan suggest, "we will go backwards or become a second class city if
this proposal fails." These are desperate comments and simply not true of
the Sioux Falls I know.

We can do better Sioux Falls! If you believe like me, please encourage your
family and friends to vote NO.

12 comments:

  1. Great piece by a guy who gets what Sioux Falls can do to seperate itself from it's peer cities.

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  2. Excellent, well-reasoned post by Kevin Nyberg. I couldn't agree more. If approved, the effects of the flawed financial package will be compounded by our faltering economy. We cannot spend ourselves into prosperity. We should focus our resources on education and working ourselves out of debt. This smacks a bit of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

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  3. Support for a Downtown location has steadily increased each time a poll has been done (something like 11% > 18% > 23%). If Jamison and Brown get the down-payment set aside, and we get donations (like the Qwest Center did), I think we can easily get a downtown events center passed (considering there are a large portion of people who just want it built), especially with the steady (devoted) support of BID.

    There's an election slogan for ya. The 4 Ds. Down-payment. Donations. Devotion. Downtown.

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  4. I have gone from NO Event Center at all to YES, let's re-examine a downtown one the right way and do it right! We don't have a state income tax to bail this sub par design out.
    We can put that councilor who said this would be a 2nd class city in his place by getting Victory Motorcycles to do naming rights, The Victory Center"

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  5. What a wonderfully positive message from Kevin Nyberg..."encourage all your friends and family to vote NO!"....just the type of leader every city needs (not).

    Let me remind everyone that this Mayor proposed a down payment and still supports one, it was none other than Greg Jamison, Vernon Brown and the city council that said NO and spent what would have been the first $4M installment of a potential $15M down payment by 2014, and they did this just earlier this year, go ahead and ask them. Naming rights - guys, the consultants themselves said that NO ONE gives $$ before something is approved, what your missing by using other cities as examples is that those city council's simply voted to move forward with a project, and yes, many of those buildings were named before they opened, just as this one will too, but NOT BEFORE the council/community voted on the project. Jamison, Brown, Nyberg and the other critics don't know what they are talking about, they are just making it up as they go because of personal politics. Brown has failed to get elected Mayor twice and Jamison & Nyberg are wannabe's, can't you guys see that??? I hear this repeatedly in the community, they get it but readers of this blog apparently can't.

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  6. I think it is absolutely ridiculous when supporters of the current EC plan say that people are voting NO because of personal politics (i.e. they don't like the mayor). Get over yourselves!

    My NO vote is not about the mayor. My NO vote is a vote against a flawed plan. I'm voting NO with the hope that we can BUILD IT RIGHT and do what is best for the city of Sioux Falls and its taxpayers. I believe that Jamison, Brown, Nyberg, and other "critics" are trying to do the right thing by this city rather than saddle our citizens with yet another facility that won't generate enough economic return to pay for itself.

    We need a new EC, no question. This is not the right plan, nor is it the right location to build one. BUILD IT RIGHT or don't build it at all!

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  7. Good luck building it downtown, I've been around politics in this city a long time and folks, polling numbers have never been above 20%, period. You need atleast 15,000 Yes votes in a local election, BID got no more than 2000 facebook friends and many of them weren't even from SF. Now consider that most over 65 don't support a downtown site by a 3-1 margin and most of the facebook friends are not over 65. In other words, you'll be waiting a long time for a downtown events center, a very long time and probably never. If you think waiting 30-50 years is progress, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

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  8. I have a difficult time giving any creditability to statements made by Anonymous (on either side of the issue) those that are willing to take a stand and then care enough to sign their names to their comments, well that speaks volume about them and their position.
    John Bennett

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  9. I agree with Nyberg. Wonderfully put. I think Brown, Jamison, and Nyberg are very educated on the issue and definitely have fantastic viewpoints on building it downtown, at the appropriate time. It's too bad that adults in this community have to cut down others on a personal level when it comes to such matters. Come on, this city and region are known for their kind communities. No matter your opinion, sometimes it's better to keep negativity to yourself. Thanks for everyone's hard work on this issue, and those who are willing to speak out!!! Now lets go vote!

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  10. @6:27PM. The latest poll out has downtown with 23% support. So I guess there goes most of your argument. Secondly, while that 23% is staunch for downtown, the support for it at the arena is not. Most of those people would be willing to build an arena OVER/ON TOP OF the Falls if it meant this city would be getting a new venue. By the way, 2000 FB friends absolutely DESTROYS the 250 that Build It Now has attracted. BID made it to 2000 in a couple weeks. It's been FOUR MONTHS since BIN launched.

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  11. i got absolutly no information here. This is just a "you can do it" speech about nothing at all.

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