The Board of Regents is moving the School for the Deaf six miles across Sioux Falls, from its current green, leafy location in a residential neighborhood to a high-traffic commercial area that is dangerous for adults with good ears, not to mention kids with hearing problems, to access on foot or bicycle.
The Regents made what looks on paper to be a good trade: they paid $5.1 million for the TCF Bank call center at 4101 West 38th Street, then got $6.8 million from the Sioux Falls Ministry Center for its campus at 2001 East 8th Street. But they are trading 14 acres of lovely green property for 43,000 square feet of one-story box construction surrounded by box stores, motels, treacherous intersections… and a strip club:
Senator John Wiik, a Big Stone City Republican, showed several other committee members a map on his laptop. For Senator Ryan Maher, an Isabel Republican, it was the first time he saw there was a strip club and a motel nearby.
“It is an interesting location,” Maher remarked.
The site is north of Scarlett O’haras, a men’s bar at 3201 Carolyn Avenue. There are various motels in the neighborhood between I-29 and South Louise Avenue. South of 41st Street is the Sioux Empire Mall and more motels.
…Several other people from the deaf community also spoke against it, including Ben Soukup, chairman emeritus of Communication Service for the Deaf, the non-profit that purchased the west side of the School for the Deaf campus two decades ago.
“This is not an ideal location,” Soukup said. “That’s not a school area.” He mentioned the strip club, bar and motels. “I think they just shoved us under the table and did this deal,” he said. He too mentioned what he perceived as a transparency issue: “There was none.”
Representative Steven Haugaard, a Sioux Falls Republican, seemed to agree about where the new school and offices will be. “It’s a commercial location. It’s not far from that strip club,” Haugaard said [Bob Mercer, “South Dakota Will Spend $1.8 million Converting ‘New’ Deaf-School Campus,” KELO-TV, 2019.06.11].
Now frankly, my dear, I don’t give a darn about Scarlett O’Hara’s. The proximity of the strip club is the least of the new location’s problems. The hours of operation of the nudie bar and the School for the Deaf won’t coincide, and kids won’t ever walk by that establishment anyway, because the new location is too far from any residential developments and too dangerous to access by anything other than motor vehicle… and even then, getting in and out from 41st Street or Louise during rush hour will be a hairy experience.
Minnesota-based TCF Bank abandoned this call center last year, laying off 145 workers and moving operations to Minnesota and Illinois, which have state income taxes.
Follow the money
What the hell was the Board of Regents thinking? They weren’t thinking about the kids, that’s for sure.
Leslie is right. What a wretched deal for the people who now have to use that building. That dump call center is surrounded by the drive-up lane of Saver’s, the weirdo seedy motel behind Fryin’ Pan, AND Assemblies of God’s corporate office.
There is a regent commissioner, gevernment official or department, family member or friend to backscratch and do a favor in return who likely will benefit from a swap for this architecturally designed, located and landscaped deaf building, like the sweet former deaf building in Rapid City, that will benefit from the swap. An emolument you might say.
These commissioners have the time and guile to engineer such hidden corruption, i am betting. The opportunity to sit on such a powerful board present the opportunity for cheating which may be considered to be pay back for public service.
Hard not to be pretty cynical after 46 Republican years, gerrymandering, hiding behind lawyers and courts, and packing the courts and legislature and attacking elected Democrats.
How much did Noem get in a campaign contribution?
Leslie’s spot on – follow the money. It’s apparently all about exploiting disadvantaged groups.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-17/how-housing-finance-enriched-whites-at-expense-of-black-borrowers?srnd=premium
Think about what they did in Aberdeen. Demolishing the present school for the blind so NSU could build a new football field. Now they had to find a place for the school for the blind so they had to demo a 1960’s dorm and build new dorms. All the other universities are using 1960’s era dorms. Oh did I mention that NSU along with the city and school district rebuilt the present NSU Swisher Field about 15 years ago. On top of that I hear very few students are actually enrolled at the school for the blind.
Oh come on…..this is South Dakota. There is a Repub “good ol boy” who stands to make a few bucks in the deal.
Sorta sounds like the row upon row of new privately owned apartment building’s at USD that are being built while the University is closing dorm’s.