Sioux Falls, S.D. (KELO AM) – When the City of Sioux Falls threw the dice and provided the federal government money for levee upgrades, chances were good that money would not be seen again. Last week, word came down the line that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be repaying 10-million dollars to the City of Sioux Falls for the project.
“This is a testament of how governments at federal and city level can work together,” Said Mike Huether, Sioux Falls Mayor. “This is one example where the federal government did work. We had to borrow some money to make our people safer, the federal government said they would pay us back and they soon will.”
Huether said, he expects the money this week and is entertaining ideas of how to use it. His preference is to pay off the bonds, but the issue is, there is a call protection on these bonds and we can’t pre-pay them early. So now we can invest the money to do other things with the interest, we could spend it on quality of life investments such as roads, but the great news is, we are in no emergency to just spend it.
“Another bit of good news, we were honored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as one of seven cities recognized for our growth and low unemployment numbers,” said Huether. “We have recently been seen in the national media such as Fox, CNN, the Atlantic and now this recent honor. We were selected on how our city is run, how fiscally sound we are and how we partner with other organizations to raise the money we need.”
Huether said that the crux of this award was how Sioux Falls and the other seven cities can help ailing cities in America get themselves back into prosperity. The other seven cities named are very strong and prosperous and do a lot of thing right.
“The questions we were ask, were what we are doing for other cities to benchmark and replicate to get them strong again,” said Huether. “It was a lot of fun to be a part of the conference and an honor to represent Sioux Falls.”
Mayor Mike Huether was a guest on the Greg Belfrage Show, September 24, 2013.
The podcast for this interview can be heard at: http://kelo.com/podcasts/greg-belfrage-show/935/mayor-huether-optimistic-10-million-dollar-federal-repayment-may-arrive-this-week/