Rapid City SD- It doesn’t take a cloak and dagger to be underhanded. A rezoning can clear every procedural box — proper notice, staff recommendation, clean votes, mandatory oversight conditions — and still represent a use of the system that doesn’t survive a second look.

Legal, but Is It Right?

Here’s the timeline that matters. At the June 25, 2026 Planning Commission meeting, Commissioner Kelly Arguello asked staff a direct question about the outer limits of General Agricultural zoning: “What is the ultimate threshold of end use… does a general ag designation allow like an industrial scale operation, like a hog farm or a slaughterhouse or processing plant? Is there a threshold where gen ag does not allow — you know there’s residential there, commercial — can you just walk through the general ag as it applies to this?”

Community Development Director Vicki Fisher’s answer, on the record at 1:25:17: “So there are some larger acre parcels in Rapid City that are zoned general ag, used for grazing, haying, that type of thing. For the most part though, as we see general ag — and it says so in the zoning designation itself — it serves as a holding cell. The property owner isn’t ready to develop it yet. They’ve got a minimum of 40 acres, they zone it general ag, it helps with the taxation.”

Two weeks later, on July 8, James V. Bailey signed a Letter of Intent to the city asking to rezone six parcels — spanning General Commercial, Business Park, Light Industrial, Medium Density Residential, and Low Density Residential zoning — to General Agricultural. In his own words, the purpose was to “align the current usage to Agricultural Zoning.”

Whether or not Bailey was in the room on June 25, his network became the first applicant on record to take Fisher’s description of how the system works and run it at scale across an entire corridor.

That’s the story. Not a scandal of hidden votes or secret withdrawals — the process here was clean, by the record.

The story is that the city’s own planning director described, on camera, exactly how General Ag zoning functions as a tax-holding mechanism for landowners not ready to develop — and one operator’s LLC network became the test case for using that description as a playbook.

What actually happened procedurally

For the record, because it matters for accuracy even if it’s not the point: this wasn’t a mass withdrawal, as initially understood. The official city record (rcgov.org agenda-item pages for each case) shows:

• Five parcels — 26RZ024, 26RZ025, 26RZ026, 26RZ027, 26RZ028 — were approved by the Planning Commission on July 23, each in conjunction with a mandatory Planned Development Designation (PDD).
• One parcel — 26RZ023 (136 Krebs Drive) and its companion setback variance, 26VA018 — was continued on an 8-0 vote to August 6, over a defective notification letter, not withdrawn.

The five approved parcels had First Reading at the August 3 City Council meeting — Ordinances 6739 through 6743 — and passed. Second Reading is scheduled for August 17. 26RZ023 goes back before the Planning Commission Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m.; if approved, it moves to Council First Reading August 17 and Second Reading September 8.

Clean process. That’s exactly the point — this isn’t a story about the system breaking down. It’s a story about the system working precisely as designed, for a use its own staff has described as a workaround.

The County’s Catch – 22

At the August 3 City Council meeting, Fisher went further, and complicated her own “holding cell” framing in the process. Speaking on the same six parcels:

“When visiting with the property owner — and all of these properties that you’ve just read in that are going to Gen Ag, they’re all owned by a gentleman with the name of Jim Bailey.

We too had a similar question: why are you doing this? The explanation was that over time he has purchased this property with the underlying zoning for the most part in place as it is today, but he wants to hold it as green space — he doesn’t want to develop it right now.

In visiting with the Director of Equalization, they have indicated that for them, the taxation of the property is based on the use — they don’t look at the city’s zoning.

Their qualification for it to be considered Gen Ag does not align with us calling it Gen Ag. For us in the city, we see General Ag as a holding cell, but because the Gen Ag district does allow for the operation of cattle and other farm-type uses, we wanted to make sure that if we’re going to take something that is an otherwise developed area and put it back as General Ag, and maintain it as green space.

We didn’t want to see herds of cattle being brought onto the property and be disruptive to some upscale commercial or residential — he was completely in line with that.

He has 41 head of cattle that he currently allows to graze a large area, that part of it will be allowed through this Planned Development designation.

If he were to want to expand that operation, or do any other structural development, it will require a Final Planned Development brought forward so we can see whether or not it’s appropriate in this area of the city.”

Fisher’s June 25 remark frames General Ag as a mechanism that “helps with the taxation.” Her August 3 remark says the county already taxes by actual use, not by what the city calls the zoning — meaning the rezone itself may not move Bailey’s tax bill at all.

If that’s accurate, the “holding cell” isn’t primarily a tax dodge; it may be more about formalizing legal protection for a non-conforming agricultural use than about lowering an assessment.

Bailey’s Footprint Confirmed

Previous reporting traced Sweet Creek LLC, Bailey Associates Inc., and Eternal Black Hills Memory LLC to James V. Bailey through 20 years of South Dakota Secretary of State filings, all sharing the 1730 Samco Road address.

That circumstantial case is no longer necessary. Bailey’s July 8 Letter of Intent states outright: “as President of Bailey Associates Inc. and as a member-owner of the LLC’s owning land in Rapid City, we are asking to rezone to Agriculture where not already zoned to Agriculture.”

His signature block lists him as member-owner of Eternal Black Hills Memory LLC, Lilac Flower LLC, and Sweet Creek LLC — a fourth entity, not previously identified, organized in 2014 and also registered to Bailey at the same address. Lilac Flower’s 2026 annual report affirmatively states the entity owns agricultural land.

Ghosts of Past Zoning

Eternal Black Hills Memory LLC’s name has long paralleled a 2017 Bailey Associates project: a private granite sculpture park near Hanson-Larsen Memorial Park (M Hill). That parallel is no longer just a name match.

The Planning Commission’s case history for 26RZ026 — 81.81 acres east of the Commerce Road terminus, one of the six parcels in this batch — shows a Planned Development approved March 10, 2016 for “a parking lot, trail, and sculpture park” on that exact parcel, now defunct (“no longer operating on the property”), sitting directly against the M Hill Overlay Zoning District. The same land carried an earlier, unrealized 2006 planned residential subdivision before that.

Where the Trail Leads Next

None of the following is confirmed yet. All of it would move this from pattern to case:

• The tax delta — and whether it exists at all. Given Fisher’s own account that Equalization taxes by use rather than zoning, this needs a direct answer from the county, not an assumption in either direction.
• Why the city is being unusually cautious here. Archived Planning Commission agendas (2021–2023) show that pairing a rezone with a Planned Development Designation is common — but almost always going the other direction, out of General Ag into something more intensive, where the PDD reins in new uses. A straight rezone into General Ag with no PDD (23RZ001, 2023) carried none. Five of six parcels here move into General Ag while still carrying a mandatory PDD — the opposite of the usual pairing, which suggests staff itself doesn’t see this as a routine AG downzone, whatever the clean vote count says.
• Deed history. Pennington County land records remain down with no restoration date given, following the cybersecurity incident, so it’s still unconfirmed whether GCC Dacotah or any other entity ever held title to these parcels before Bailey’s network did.
• The GCC Dacotah timing. Item 18 on the identical July 23 agenda was 26RZ029 — the City of Rapid City’s own rezoning request on behalf of GCC Dacotah, Inc., moving cement plant land to Mining and Earth Resources Extraction District. Both rezoning packages moved through the same meeting, the same corridor, the same week. Whether that’s coincidence or connected zoning strategy is not yet established either way.

Planning Commission August 6th completes the block

The Planning Commission reconvenes to rehear 26RZ023 and 26VA018 with corrected notification letters.

If approved, 136 Krebs Drive completes the six-parcel set, and the whole corridor — Samco Road, Krebs Drive, Commerce Road — will carry the same General Agricultural / Planned Development designation, six ordinances deep.

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Sources

• Kelly Arguello / Vicki Fisher exchange, Rapid City Planning Commission meeting, June 25, 2026, timestamps 1:24:45–1:25:33 (rapidcitygovernment YouTube channel)
• Vicki Fisher’s Equalization remarks, Rapid City City Council Meeting and Public Hearing, August 3, 2026 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwVTYDD2PRE. Noted live at approx. 34:10–36:16, but the YouTube stream didn’t begin recording until roughly 5 minutes into the actual meeting due to technical issues, so that timestamp will not match the archived video’s internal clock — locate the quote by content on rewatch rather than citing the noted timestamp as precise
• James V. Bailey Letter of Intent for Rezoning, dated July 8, 2026, addressed to City of Rapid City Community Development Dept. — Current Planning Division; part of the public case file attachments for Case #26RZ023
• South Dakota Secretary of State business filings: Bailey Associates, Inc. (Business ID DB035132, incorporated 1994); Eternal Black Hills Memory, LLC (Business ID DL045650); Lilac Flower LLC (Business ID DL039566, organized 2014); Sweet Creek LLC — Articles of Organization/Incorporation and annual reports, 1994–2026
• City of Rapid City Planning Commission Project Reports: 26RZ024 (July 23, 2026, Item #15); 26RZ023 and companion variance 26VA018 (continued to August 6, 2026, Item #2); 26RZ026 (July 23, 2026, Item #8, including Relevant Case History for 06PD061 and 16PD004)
• City of Rapid City official agenda-item records, rcgov.org/agenda-items — individual case pages for 26RZ024 and 26RZ023, confirming Planning Commission action dates, vote counts, and City Council First/Second Reading dates
• City of Rapid City meeting schedule, rcgov.org/agenda-items/planning-commission-agenda-items.html — confirming Planning Commission meets 7:00 a.m. Thursdays following Council meetings, and Council meets 6:30 p.m. first and third Mondays.

The Samco Road Fire Sale: Inside the AG Zoning Rush Along Cement Plant Road