Category: Headline
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Navigating the Real America Birthday Bash: Rapid City Closures, Parking, and What you Need to Know
Rapid City is hosting the “Real America Birthday Bash,” a multi-day downtown festival celebrating America’s 250th anniversary from July 1 through July 5, 2026. With 10,000 to 20,000 people expected downtown at any given time, knowing where to park — and where not to leave your car — could be the difference between a good…
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A Developer, A TIF, and A Landowner – A Rapid City Zoning Tale
Paul E. Evans didn’t mince words.On June 18, one week before the Rapid City Planning Commission was scheduled to consider five simultaneous rezoning requests covering 127.95 acres of undeveloped land north of Mall Drive, Evans — president of McMahon Investment Inc. — filed a formal written protest with the City’s Department of Community Development. It…
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Before You Count Your Eggs: What Rapid City Hen Owners Need to Know About Ordinance 6723
The April Victory In April, the Rapid City City Council voted to allow urban hen keeping, and the Sentinel was there to walk you through what that meant — six hens, no roosters, backyard only, coop 25 feet from neighboring homes. A win for residents who fought hard for it. What most people don’t know…
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The Runoff Plurality of Silence: The Gubernatorial Questionnaire They Ignored
On June 15, 2026, The Rapid City Sentinel submitted a formal press questionnaire to both campaigns competing in South Dakota’s first-ever gubernatorial runoff election. The questions were sent to Governor Larry Rhoden’s spokesperson Ian Fury and to Toby Doeden’s campaign at their public press address with a follow up email sent June 20,2026. The deadline…
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The Droehdon-A-Saurus – An Editorial Cartoon
The Runoff Plurality of Silence: The Gubernatorial Questionnaire They Ignored
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A Different Kind Of Vigilance – Fathers Day 2026
It’s grey over Memorial Park this morning, a thin drizzle that hasn’t decided if it’s committing to rain. The geese don’t seem to mind. The ganders are out in full force right now — necks low, eyes sharp, putting their whole bodies between their goslings and anything that moves too fast. Watch them long enough…
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The Opaqueness of Transparency – Editorial Cartoon
Rapid City’s Ordinance 6717 folds an existing Code of Conduct into municipal law, but complaints against elected officials stay sealed in executive session by default, with no guarantee the public ever learns the outcome.
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Smoke and Mirrors: An Award-Winning Performance at City Hall: An Editorial
There is a dangerous kind of alchemy that happens at City Hall when the cameras are rolling but the microphones go quiet. On Monday night, navigating a grueling 34-item agenda, the Rapid City Council pulled off a masterclass in municipal sleight-of-hand, demonstrating exactly how to shift liability and bury history in plain sight. The tone…
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What is Burning Next to Rapid City’s Neighborhoods? Inside the GCC Zoning Void
The Collateral Damage of Small Town USA Growing up, the shadow of the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant was a constant, quiet hum in the background of my childhood. You learn early on what it feels like to live next to an environmental wild card—a facility where the true cost of “production” isn’t always something…