Tag: City council
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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 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…
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The 25 Year Precedent: SATIRICAL EDITORIAL CARTOON
For Immediate ReleaseRapid City, SD –From the Desk of the Press Secretary, Office of Waterfowl Affairs, Memorial Park Division “The Office of Waterfowl Affairs notes the historical precedent set by the 25-year oversight of the aforementioned 563-acre mining operation. We applaud the city’s long-standing tradition of looking the other way when it comes to expansion…
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RETRO-ZONED: Rapid City is Changing the Map to Match the Ground
RAPID CITY, SD – On June 4, 2026, the Rapid City Planning Commission considered four simultaneous rezoning requests covering 562.68 acres of active mining and cement plant operations within Rapid City limits. The petitioner on all four requests was listed as the City of Rapid City Community Development Department — acting on behalf of GCC…
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Permitted but Unzoned: How Rapid City’s 25- Year Zoning Gap Survived a $105 Million Expansion
The 2016 Groundbreaking On the morning of March 18, 2016, Governor Dennis Daugaard stood at 501 North Saint Onge Street in Rapid City and broke ground on a $90 million expansion of the GCC Dacotah cement plant. Mayor Steve Allender was there. The Associated Press covered it. An international cement industry trade publication covered it.…
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The 25-Year Blind Spot: How a 563-Acre Mining Operation Escaped Rapid City’s Oversight
At 7:10 on Thursday morning, most Rapid City residents were still asleep. The ones who showed up to the Planning Commission meeting came because the ground beneath their neighborhood had been shaking before dawn. What they learned—and what the city itself had only recently discovered—was that a foreign-owned cement company had been extracting minerals from…