Guest post: "Libertyland’s Lies are Wrapped in an Advertising Campaign"

Editor's note: Rapid City, South Dakota barker, Mike Sanborn began The Decorum Forum in 2009 which enjoyed a significant following for several years. Other local notables, Bill Fleming, a Democrat and Bob Newland, a Libertarian have been authors there. Sanborn is responsible for some of the most sexist and misogynistic Deadwood and Sturgis Rally billboards littering I-90. A perennial loser, Sanborn was destroyed in Rapid City's 2015 Ward 3 runoff election that kept incumbent Jerry Wright on the City Council. Today, Earth hater Sanborn writes an occasional column for the Spearditch-based Black Hills Pioneer and like Pat Powers' Faceberg page Sanborn's FB site is plastered with his own image — a sign of deep insecurity but any issue that divides their party is progress.

The proposed Rapid City Destination District (Libertyland) tax increment financing district (TIF) has, due to its epochal $125 million price tag, generated news stories from around the region and nearby states. Certainly, no adult resident of Rapid City — and no Black Hills television viewer or radio listener — has been able to avoid seeing or hearing campaign advertising in favor of this gargantuan project, which has been sold as a necessity to make the unchallenged sports complex (Catalyst) TIF work.

The Catalyst District TIF will receive a whopping $84 million in financing. According to a Sept. 19 summary article in Government Market News, Libertyland USA will include a theme park, restaurants, retail shops, a Western-themed resort hotel, an interactive living history attraction, a water park, a campground, a residential district with 400 homes, a conference center and event spaces.

Proponents of the Libertyland TIF have sought to tie its fate to the sports complex. Among them is an organization called Team Rapid City, which tells Rapid City voters the Libertyland TIF is needed or infrastructure costs for the sports complex could rise as much as $10 million. If you find it odd that infrastructure couldn’t have been included in the Catalyst District TIF, you are not alone.

Sports complex visitors need Libertyland parking, they say. They need the restaurants. They need the hotel.

But what about Rapid City’s existing restaurants? What about existing hotels? And remember those of us who said there wasn’t enough parking for the Monument expansion? Parking would take care of itself, we were told. Doesn’t the same apply to the sports complex? Voters might ask: Why not?

Libertyland.com tells us there will be no cost to the taxpayer. They tell us there is no risk. Both statements are admirably confident. Both are false.

On Libertyland’s website, proponents say Libertyland funds essential public infrastructure. But according to the city’s own TIF project plan, the city is a partner in the TIF, and city taxpayers will fund the very infrastructure upgrades Libertyland claims it is on the hook for. It isn’t. You are.

Libertyland proponents also tell us Rapid City has had multiple TIF successes. They list a number of projects they say “prove that TIFs are a smart, effective tool for growth.” They would have been more accurate to say “prove that TIFs can be effective tools for growth.” Some don’t work as planned. Some do.

They also claim TIFs pay for themselves by using the new sales tax revenue they generate, thereby reducing property taxes. Have you noticed a reduction in your property taxes as a result of the successful TIFs Libertyland lists on its website? ...Neither have I.

Out of the eight “facts” Libertyland lists on its website, the most egregiously deceptive is the claim that the $47 million grant for discretionary funding included in the Libertyland TIF must be used for the “public good” and cannot be used to develop housing.

What the project plan actually says:

“$46,517,513 of the request is structured as a grant. This is in compliance with SDCL 11-9-15 under item (8):

‘( Payments and grants made, at the discretion of the governing body, that are found to be necessary or convenient to the creation of a district, the implementation of project plans, or to stimulate and develop the general economic welfare and prosperity of the state. No payment or grant may be used for any residential structure pursuant to §11-9-42.

‘Discretionary Costs and Grants will be used for the development of the Commercial and Entertainment Zone and amenities of the Resort Village. These funds will also be used for professional service costs, including costs incurred for architectural, planning, engineering and legal advice and services. Grant funds cannot be used to developed (sic) residential structures.’”

In other words, if the governing body — the City Council — wants to grant (give, not loan) Libertyland a large sum of cash to build a pool at its resort village, or a tavern or retail store in the commercial and entertainment zone, it will be free to do so, and taxpayers will be powerless to stop it. And it will have a $47 million slush fund of taxpayer dollars to play with.

Personally, I doubt Libertyland can succeed. The idea is as full of flaws as a feasibility study written on a cocktail napkin. If it were my money — and under this TIF, it is — I would euthanize the idea. Libertyland investors have the right to lose their money. When they’re risking mine, we part ways.

Voters have the power on Jan. 20 to mercifully put this one to sleep.