Five hopes for the new year

By Sioux City Journal

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The five members of our editorial board offer, in no specific order, five local hopes we have for 2012

The rise of a downtown casino complex

Before the year is up, we hope to see Missouri River Historical Development, holder of the gaming license for Woodbury County, reach agreement (with either Penn National Gaming or someone else) on a new land-based casino and related amenities in downtown Sioux City.

In fact, we hope to see construction started on the complex.

As we have said before, Penn National should be given first shot at building the kind of casino complex MRHD wants and this community deserves. If, however, those talks fail to bear fruit, MRHD should open this process to outside bidders.

Tear down this ... wall ... fence

As the rebirth of the old stockyards into a business park continues to unfold, we hope to see the unsightly wall ... fence ... whatever it is along Interstate 29 torn down - completely. The transformation of the entrance to the city from the south, complete with the addition of green space and the subtraction of the old Morrell plant, will render the need for the wall or fence unnecessary.

Simply put, it's gotta go. All of it.

Missouri River stays within its banks

We hope the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers learned valuable lessons from flooding along the Missouri River last year and makes the adjustments necessary to prevent a repeat of the nightmare.

The report in December of a panel of hydrologists and water management experts notwithstanding, we join critics who believe the Corps - whose responsibilities include management of the Missouri River dams and reservoirs - should not escape some blame for the flooding.

To the agency's credit, we heard encouraging words from Corps officials after a series of hearings last fall, including one in Sioux City, with respect to earlier release of water from dams. A pledge by the Corps to change its approach to management of the river leaves us cautiously optimistic the Missouri will remain within its banks this year.

A King-vs.-Vilsack debate

This year's Steve King-Christie Vilsack campaign for Iowa's Fourth Congressional District is intriguing for a couple of reasons. One, the district boundaries are new. Two, in Vilsack, King faces a candidate with strong name recognition, important political connections and the ability to raise the money necessary to compete with him.At the risk of sounding politically naive, we hope this race remains clean and issue-driven. We also hope to see, finally, at least one debate between King and Vilsack. How about two of them? One in Sioux City and one in Ames?

We have been a frequent critic of King during past election campaigns for his refusal to engage in public, side-by-side debate with his opponents. This time, with a new district and a stronger opponent, we hope King accepts the challenge and participates in at least one such debate with Vilsack.

If he does, the voters of the Fourth District will be the winners.

More sellouts at Tyson

We hope to see at least seven sellouts at the Tyson Events Center.

In 2011, the Tyson hosted a record six sellout shows. They included Nelly, Sugarland, Elton John, Tim McGraw, Jeff Dunham and Lady Antebellum. As we have said in this space before, Aran Rush, Erika Newton and the rest of the Events Facilities staff deserve credit for this impressive achievement within a competitive industry. The popular, diverse menu of entertainment options provided at the Tyson, one of our community's crown jewels, contributes significantly to local quality of life.

Building on momentum at Tyson this year takes on added importance given plans for a new $115 million, 12,000-seat events center in Sioux Falls.

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