Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, May 21
New strategy needed for city streets
Is street maintenance the “the elephant in the room” as one city councilor recently put it, or are the residents of Rapid City overreacting as the mayor suggested Thursday?
It was just two months ago that a report requested by City Councilor Jerry Wright said streets are in dire straits and the city needs to increase its annual maintenance budget from $13 million to $38.5 million to get them up to speed.
“We have a number of roads below average and some that have completely failed,” Public Works Director Dale Tech told the Journal at the time.
“I’ve turned the lights on and said ’Let’s talk about the elephant in the room,’ ” Wright said after the report he requested, “Status on Bridge and Street Funding Needs,” was discussed at a Legal and Finance meeting.
As a result, city councilors began talking about raising taxes, using Vision Funds or even creating special assessment districts so residents can pay for their own street repairs in addition to property and sales taxes that help feed the city’s $160 million budget.
It was like going from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds.
Mayor Steven Allender countered Thursday by saying slow down, citing a 2015 study that said 90 percent of the city’s streets are either fair (9 percent), good (18 percent), very good (31 percent), excellent (21 percent) or like new (11 percent).
In a letter to the council, Allender said: “All in all, my assessment of the pavement condition report does not match the public and political outcry for immediate attention to Rapid City roads.”
In an interview with the Journal, the mayor said a rush to improve even the 10 percent of streets considered poor or very poor could come at the expense of libraries, parks and important services.
“You can’t commit tens of millions of dollars of other people’s money because you’re getting nagged by your constituents,” the mayor said.
He then said the city will conduct another study this fall as part of a process to rate the condition of streets.
Allender has a point when he says the overall condition of city streets is hardly an emergency. But city councilors who listen to constituents’ concerns are hardly part of a hysteria campaign to press the issue. Many streets, especially in older residential areas, are in bad shape, seemingly held together by ribbons of asphalt or are crumbling while withering in our punishing cycles of hot, cold and wet weather.
The city’s current practice is to only repair a street when the infrastructure below it needs to be replaced, which are costly projects. The city needs to consider a more middle-of-the-road approach. For example, why can’t the city implement a resurfacing program for the streets that have fallen into disrepair but don’t need an infrastructure overhaul while still addressing the more urgent projects?
The mayor is right when he says the city needs a new strategy for streets. It is long overdue. But any new plan needs to recognize that streets are a priority for those who live and work here.
___
American News, Aberdeen, May 25
Sully County leaders should say yes to drug dog
Why wouldn’t Sully County officials want every tool available in the battle against drugs?
Sully County commissioners have been refusing to let the local sheriff use a trained drug-sniffing dog because they believe the resulting arrests could end up costing the county too much money.
Come again?
Officials have made a silly decision that sends a terrible message to their residents: We have a problem, but we give up.
The Sioux Falls Argus Leader first reported the story from the rural county along the Missouri River. Sully County Sheriff Bill Stahl wants to use Reggie, a black Labrador retriever, to help find drugs and drug offenders. This is a pretty common tool in police and sheriff’s offices, including the drug dogs Neko and Dex in Aberdeen.
Reggie is owned by Sully County Deputy Jordan Anderson.
In February, Sully commissioners voted to block Stahl from using the dog, according to the Argus Leader. The anti-drug dog resolution noted “property taxes are too high in Sully County, and ’enforcing drug crime laws on state highways’ would make matters worse,” according to the Argus Leader.
“We might put away a Chicago drug dealer once in a while, but that just helps Chicago at our expense,” Commissioner Bill Floyd said.
Floyd argues that the drug-sniffing dog would likely catch more people traveling through Onida on U.S. Highway 83 than townspeople. He says that would lead to expensive cases that would have to be tried in Sully County, population 1,373.
A mind-blowing argument.
First, the dog would have to be deployed to find these “Chicago drug dealers.” The travelers would have to be stopped, and there would likely have to be some reason for the two-deputy sheriff’s department to take Reggie out.
The dog won’t catch a vehicle just “passing through.” That’s not how drug dogs work.
Secondly, the commission’s argument seems to be that a drug-sniffing dog would work too well, that too many bad guys would be caught. And that could be expensive.
Commissioners are acknowledging a problem, but lack the fortitude to actually try to solve it.
According to the Argus Leader, Stahl said Reggie “helped make a methamphetamine arrest in his first few weeks on the job. That arrest and three other drug felonies cost the county $8,500 last month in housing fees at the Hughes County Jail in Pierre.”
Sully County officials: This is a good thing. Take the win.
Despite concerns, a more realistic use of Reggie by Stahl and his small team would be on site at suspected drug homes or vehicles. In most cases, police would be acting on tips or search warrants - these are not likely to be out-of-towners stopping for a bite in Onida.
It is disappointing to hear this argument from those charged with keeping our communities safe and drug-free.
We understand commissioners are being frugal. On its own, that’s not a bad thing.
But this isn’t even penny wise and pound foolish. This is something else altogether.
We would much rather see a compromise worked out - or data that shows that Sully County is somehow immune to the scourge of methamphetamine, for instance.
Or, more immediately, that the residents of the county stand up and let commissioners know they are willing to chip in to put Reggie to work.
Hats off to Stahl for his community-focused idea. Too bad community leaders don’t see it that way.
___
Capital Journal, Pierre, May 16
Wind farm moratorium was a good move
The Hughes County Commission made the right decision on Monday when it put a six-month moratorium on wind-farm development.
“Green” energy sounds great in theory, and there’s no harm in exploring our options for generating electricity, but there are many questions remaining when it comes to wind power. And we’re not talking about just dollars and cents here.
One of the biggest costs to a wind farm is its footprint. Wind farms need to be spread over many square miles in order to be effective. The turbines themselves need at least 1,000 feet of standoff from roads and houses, too. That amounts to a pretty big footprint that generates a comparatively small amount of electricity.
While it’s true that the vast majority of the land within the wind farm can be used for growing crops or raising livestock, there still will be many acres taken out of production by access roads and the towers themselves.
It’s a pretty good bet that not all the neighboring landowner’s want to be surrounded by a bunch of giant wind turbines. Judging by how much opposition other recently proposed wind-farm projects have seen, it wouldn’t be surprising to see at least a few folks come out against the Hughes County project. In some places, wind farm plans have driven a wedge between communities. It’d be a shame if that happened here.
Connected to a wind farm’s footprint is its impact on the natural world. While wind farms don’t emit greenhouse gasses once they’ve been built, they do cause some harm to the environment. Most notable is their impact on birds. A study published in 2013 in the journal Biological Conservation estimated that between 140,000 and 328,000 birds are killed by wind turbines each year. Central South Dakota is a migration corridor for many bird species, some of which already are declining in number.
Then there’s the wind itself. Even in South Dakota, it’s pretty fickle. That’s a big reason why wind turbines generate only about 5 percent of U.S. electricity while accounting for about 8 percent of the country’s capacity to generate electricity.
The Hughes County Commission isn’t necessarily worried about these issues. Its members want to make sure they’ve got a solid, workable set of ordinances on the books. Taking the time to make sure the county’s rules are up to snuff is the right idea. It’s not like South Dakota is going to get less windy anytime soon.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.