Tag: Community
-
How Rapid City Homeowners Unwittingly Subsidized a Global Cement Giant for 25 Years
When a city department leaves a massive industrial footprint unmapped for a quarter-century, it’s not a clerical oversight—it’s an unrecognized tax subsidy. A deep dive into Pennington County property records reveals a glaring disparity between how local heavy infrastructure companies are taxed versus how a multi-national cement operation, GCC Dacotah, is assessed. The Anatomy of…
-
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…
-
Who Decides Rapid City? A Ward-by-Ward Look at Primary Turnout
On June 2, Rapid City held elections in all five wards to determine who would represent residents on the Common Council — the body that sets zoning policy, approves franchise agreements, and controls the city budget. Fewer than one in four registered voters participated. Citywide, council race turnout was 22.8% of registered voters. Statewide primary…
-
At the Edge of Time – Rapid City Buries a Century’s Promise at the Place it all Began
Fifty years from now, when the residents of 2076 pry open the time capsule buried Friday afternoon at the base of M Hill, they will find the usual markers of a city frozen in time: photographs, newspapers, and local artifacts. But the true weight of the ceremony wasn’t just in what was put into the…
-
Ward 2 Candidates Utility Employment Raises Recurring Conflict Questions
A candidate seeking to represent Ward 2 on the Rapid City Common Council holds a full-time senior engineering position at Black Hills Energy — a utility company with active franchise agreements, infrastructure contracts, and major capital projects currently before the council — raising questions about how often state law would require him to sit out…
-
The Day Speaks For Itself : Memorial Day at Memorial Park
Sometimes you don’t need to say something profound. The day speaks for itself. It spoke through the older woman in the wheelchair, whose voice carried the weight of a Memorial Day prayer across the silent crowd. It spoke in the unexpected, impromptu moments — like Mayor Jason Salamun briefly, honestly touching on the heavy reality…
-
A City Shows Up For Itself at the Rapid City 2076 Time Capsule Community Photo
When time ceases for a moment, the present presents itself to the future. A Rapid City 150 years in the making showed up Friday for the Rapid City of 2076. Sesquicentennial proclamation Earlier this month, a mayoral proclamation officially recognized this sesquicentennial year, tracing Rapid City’s roots from an 1876 “Hay Camp” to a “resilient…
-
Tuesdays at 10: Downtown Rapid City Launches Hands-On STEAM Series This Summer
The final school bell is ringing, and parents across Rapid City are staring down the double-edged sword of summer vacation: three months of freedom, inevitably followed by choruses of “I’m bored.” If you are looking for a way to keep school-aged kids engaged, curious, and learning without breaking the bank, Downtown Rapid City is rolling…
-
When Words Become Weapons: Accusations, Accountability and the Cost of Getting it Wrong
On May 18, 2026, a federal jury in Nashville ordered YouTube personality Ryan Upchurch to pay $17.5 million to the father and grandfather of Kiely Rodni — a 16-year-old California girl who drowned in Prosser Creek Reservoir in August 2022. Her death was ruled accidental. No foul play. Multiple law enforcement agencies, the FBI, and…