Union Crossing petition denied on clerical error

NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. (KTIV) - The North Sioux City city council held a special meeting Thursday night to discuss a failed petition looking to put funding for the new Union Crossing development up for a public vote.

The city council passed an ordinance at their February 18th meeting to approve the TIF district that would allow for $10 million dollars to help fund the Union Crossing development.

On March 17th, the city council announced they had received a petition that would put to a public vote whether or not to move forward with TIF funding to fund the new housing development.

“Just to approve the TIF, because that affects fire protection, schools, those kinds of things,” said Dennis Haag, one of the North Sioux City residents behind the petition. “I don’t want a select few making that major of a decision for all of us.”

Residents had 20 days from the publication of the resolution to file their petition to the city, that deadline came on Wednesday March 19th. While they received enough signatures, a clerical error led to the petition to be rejected by the city. The error: the residents who submitted the petition did not have the date that the resolution was passed on the documents, which is required by South Dakota state law.

For that reason, it was denied. Since the petitioners are now past the 20-day window, they can no longer file that petition. A special meeting was held Thursday night by North Sioux City’s City Council to discuss the petition’s rejection.

“The purpose of the meeting was to make sure everybody knew why it was being rejected and that it was rejected in a public setting, that’s not typically required but the council wanted to do that so that everybody knew what the situation was; and it was just an error,” said North Sioux City’s city administrator, Jeff Dooley. “That’s why you have 20 days to refer it so that if you refer it on day 10 you have time to work it out, but they brought it in at the last minute.”

The Union Crossing development will continue to proceed as planned, with that TIF funding, and no vote will be held on that issue. The developers hope to see houses starting to be built at Union Crossing by the end of 2025.

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