Category: Local politics
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Rapid City Council Elects Tamang as President, Meyer as Vice President
RAPID CITY SD — The Rapid City Council entered a new leadership era Monday evening, electing Ward 1 Council Member Stephen Tamang as Council President and Ward 5 Council Member Callie Meyer as Council Vice President. Tamang was nominated by Bill Evans and Callie Meyer. Kevin Maher was also nominated, by Lindsey Seachris and John…
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Rapid City: Your Scouting Report for the July 6th City Council Meeting
Rapid City S.D. City council doesn’t get a pre-game show. It doesn’t get a hype video. But Monday’s agenda has more moving parts than a playoff game—a roster reset, a final buzzer on a months-long investigation, a brand-new zoning playbook opening up, and 40-some routine items running underneath it all. Think of this as your…
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The Roster Resets: Rapid City’s 2026 City Council Lineup
Five Rapid City Council seats turn over Monday, July 6, as the winners of the June 2 municipal election take their oaths of office for new three-year terms: They join five members continuing their terms from last year: Stephen Tamang (Ward 1, current Council Vice President), Bill Evans (Ward 2), Greg Strommen (Ward 3), Lance…
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Buren Properties Appeal Hits a Wall: Public Works Committee Sends It Back For Two More Weeks
Rapid City S.D.- On June 30, the Rapid City Public Works Committee took up Exception 26EX042 — a request from Longbranch Civil Engineering, on behalf of Buren Properties LLC, to skip dedicating right-of-way and building a collector street across a 42-acre unplatted balance north of Deadwood Avenue and I-90. Staff had already denied it once.…
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Three Things Worth Noting on the July 1st Rapid City Legal and Finance Committee Agenda
The Legal & Finance Committee meets Wednesday, July 1st at 12:30 PM in Council Chambers — the day before Rapid City’s Fourth of July parade and drone show. The agenda is fourteen items long. Most are routine. Three are not. A “Clerical Error” in the Division That Manages TIF Item 14 is Ordinance 6733, described…
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The Exception That Has An Exception: The Public Works Agenda Anomaly
Rapid City, S.D. – On Tuesday, June 30 at 12:30 p.m., the Rapid City Public Works Committee will hear what the agenda describes as a routine appeal. The item is listed as Exception 26EX042 — a request to not dedicate right-of-way or construct a Collector Street for the Deadwood Avenue Commercial Subdivision and Farrar Business…
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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