From the Black Hills to the Big Sioux, the Dakota Town Hall Podcast.
Hosted by Murdoc in the West and Jake in the East, Featuring Rapid City’s mayor Jason Salamun and Director of SD Boy’s State Gene Opbroek
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Read along with this week’s transcript from Dakota Town Hall
Murdoc: And that’s right. We’re back for one more week at least. It’s mid-May and you’re listening to South Dakota’s premier political podcast with Jake Shoenbeck in the east. I am Murdock in the west and this is once again an episode of Dakota Town Hall. You’re either catching this live on the cowboy on Friday or you have it in your ears in your favorite podcast player. Make sure you give us a like or for some of you in the Republican Party at this point and answer I’ll take Jake.
Jake: Couple unanswered calls you’re getting so far.
Murdoc: There’s a couple of mistexts. Someone, it was funny, someone sent a I’m not naming any names but someone sent a request to like their page which I’m sure got blasted out to everybody. So I said yes and I followed it and then I sent a nice note. Hey now. Now that I’ve followed your page. You want to you come on my podcast and then we’ll call it even. a couple house-cleaning things.
Jake: I have some house-cleaning too. So we have a lot of house-cleaning from the last show I think but you go first.
Murdoc: Okay real quick. I want to give a thanks to Senator rounds as we record this on Wednesday this morning. We did a nice cup of coffee conversation that you can read on Rapid City Post.
We talk about everything from the tariffs to the farm bill to the Department of Education to complicated South Dakota funding projects. It was a good chat and you can see it at Rapid City Post.com. Also Jake, thanks to the Paul Tenhaken bump. We’ve got some new East River listeners. Welcome back. If you’re coming back for week two, we’ll take you all. All right. That’s my list.
Jake: Correction from last week. We talked about teenage republican camp last week. I talked about the first year camper award. I called the Alice Cundit Award. That’s incorrect. It’s the Jim Abner Award and my dad called me to correct me on that because I’ve won the award and because he was a Jim Abner staffer.
Murdoc: So I bet you he made you feel stupid about that one.
Jake: He did make you feel stupid about that. So I want to correct that. And also it’s his birthday today. It’s Wednesday, May 14th. Happy birthday to Lee Schoenbeck.
Murdoc: Happy Rhino birthday to Lee.
Jake: All right. Let’s get to the show. All right. That was clean. I think we need to do. I think we’re all.
Murdoc: I am so thrilled for today. Yes.
Jake: All right on the show. We’re going to have on later in the show. The mayor of Rapid City, Jason Salamun. Did I get that right? Jason Salomon.
Salamun: It’s Salamun like King Solomon. Just not quite as wise.
Murdoc: Take three. Take three.
Salamun: My last name keeps me humble.
Jake: All right. We’ll have on the show later later on in the show. Jason Solomon like King Solomon, the mayor of Rapid City.
Murdoc: Oh, I’m excited, buddy. I’m really excited. I have Jason on the show. We do a podcast with him once a week called meeting with the mayor and he’s so good at it. So letting his feet stretch a little on this episode. I’m I’m real pumped about. I can’t believe we haven’t had him on. I know that’s my fault.
Jake: That shocks me. I thought we had. I mean, you know, had to have the mayor of Sioux Falls on and then of course, then they’re complaining of Rapid City representation. So we have to have on the mayor of Rapid City. But also to start the show, we’re going to have on Gene Opbroek. He is the director of Boy State here in South Dakota. Gene, welcome to the show.
Opbroek: Thank you.
Murdoc: Boys state, the thing I never won.
Jake: Did you go to Boy State?
Murdoc: No, look at me. Do you think I got?
Jake: I actually thought you might have.
Murdoc: Actually, I wasn’t. I was too lazy in high school for being honest. Too cool for the room. I mean, it’s a real lesson to those of you listening to this for whatever reason who are teenagers. Don’t be too cool for the room. Boy State’s rad.
Jake: I went to Boy State. I had a great time. I was in the city of Detroit. I was the mayor of Detroit and I lost Lieutenant Governor Race at Boy State.I know.
Murdoc: A familiar feeling.
Jake: I actually beat them for the mayor race. Okay. You knew the show.
You don’t know. I lost a race for the house here in South Dakota. So he asked for my name. And just, you know, lost. I don’t remember. I know who I beat. You don’t remember.
Murdoc: No, we don’t. Have we? No, he doesn’t pretend to governor. He’s asking for. Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, yes, yes.
Jake:But I beat for mayor. I beat Daniel Duffy, who is Helene Doohamel’s son. And to this day, so now the guy will.
Opbroek: I’ll give you a little history first. Nationally, Boy State was started in 1935 and it was started to actually counter in the counter the influence of some of the Hitler youth programs that were going on in that, in that era in South Dakota. It started in 1940.
It went from 40 to 42. And then it took a three year break because of World War two. And then it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was the first year that we were in North Dakota. And we are on the campus in Northern State University. This is our 82nd year that we are. Have the program and it’s our 82nd year on Northern State University.
Currently, we have. 144 boys going this year. Our numbers are down significantly. From last year. And from the past in past years, like in the, in the 60s and 70s and early 80s.
We had between 400 and 600. A young man that we’re going to the program. We’re down a little bit this year, but hey, we’re on course to have a great program this year. We start on the second of June and we end on the sixth of June and we just had a meeting here last week and we’re ready to roll.
Murdoc: Maybe let me ask this to start for those. Maybe there’s people who just don’t know, what is boys state.
Opbroek: Boys state is a, is a program to, to show the youth the appreciation of American system of government.
Murdoc: I would venture to guess a lot of Dakota town hall listeners are either familiar with or went to boys state or girls state as it were. Why do you think the drop in participation gene?
Opbroek: I think the biggest reason for our drop in numbers and, and as a board, we’ve talked about this for the last five or 10 years since our numbers have been declining. I think the biggest reason is we’ve grown in our athletic department in our high schools so much. And now it’s gone beyond high school where, where you’re getting. You’re getting club ball. You know, now our, our, our high school athletes are going into, into the end of June. That’s probably the biggest reason our numbers are dropping.
Murdoc: So let’s say a bunch of the listeners of this podcast who probably have some connection or had some connection to boys state want to help, you know, kick it in the rear and give it a juge. What should they do?
Opbroek: Well, we have a, we have a website. It’s South Dakota boys state.com and the way the process has evolved in the last 10 or 15 years, it used to be, you had to be chosen by your high school counselor and, and high school counselors are ridiculously busy right now. And so we created a website where they just have to go on and apply. And once they apply and that application is accepted, which very, very seldom it’s not accepted.
Jake: Maybe you and Murdock would not get accepted. But besides that, you know,
Murdoc: maybe I can make it now. So if your numbers are that down, maybe I should come next year. You could, you know, like it’s sitting the back like Billy Madison.
Opbroek: Yep. There you go. We’ll take you. But once that application is completed, it goes directly to the post and the post is the one, the local Legion post is the one that pays, pays for them to come. We love people to come and see our program. We very seldom get anybody to come to it, but no, the public can come at any time and see what we’re doing.
That’s our best advertisement is the public. Once they get the application done, then the post pays their way and the post pays for the transportation to get to the program. Right now we are cheapest in the nation. And that’s all thanks to Northern State University. We’ve got a great relationship with Northern State. We’ve had it for 81 years and without them, our program would be, would be quite a bit more expensive.
Jake: Well, I can’t trust it enough. It is an awesome experience for kids. As a just government nerd myself, I loved it. I had such a great time. When I was, when I was mayor, I, my roommate was kind of an odd, a little bit of an odd ball, but I made him the, I think it was Constable, like the local police chief was police chief. Yeah. The title.
Yeah. And I didn’t think you’d take it so seriously. But he went around and he did.
He did. Well, you just gotta do it’s basically bed checks, which are doing as police chief at that role. And I remember like after the first day guy walks on goes, Jake, I had to make my bed three times. Like I was like, I don’t tell you man, he’s enjoying himself.
Opbroek: I’ll tell you what they get these young, young guys get crazy because they do fine you, you know, $4 or something. And then some normally during the end of the week, we have a pizza party and they use that money to buy pizza. But some of them take their positions very seriously.
Jake: I remember that somebody I was like, Hey man, maybe like take it a little, cause he’s my roommate. I like taking a little easier on him. You know, I mean, they’re just trying to get up and do their stuff. Okay. It’s a great time though. I knew right. It’s a great experience too.
When you’re going to college next year, you get the first experience you have of rooming with somebody that you don’t know and you now have to get along with. So it’s, it’s, that’s an important experience and just overall, it’s just fantastic to see the levers of government and highly encourage anybody that’s in high school.
Opbroek: The other thing I want to mention is there, there are numerous scholarship opportunities there. We are actually getting more individuals this year. I think we picked up three or four scholarships from individuals who were on staff or boys, stay or your formal board status who now may have a law firm or something like that. And, and are giving us a thousand dollar scholarship every year. We have the Scottish right and Aberdeen gives a scholarship every year.
We’ve got one of our, well, actually two staff members that are giving up to 3000, three, $1,000 scholarships. And, and the other plus it has is if, if you are going to college or tech school, if you put Boy State on that application, it makes a difference. Certainly does make a difference. When applying for loans and grants and we even had, had people come back and tell us that when they went to apply for job, they put it on there and, and their employer said, you know, I see you, I see you have gone to Boy State and that’s commendable because you took a week of your time in the summertime to do something to better yourself. So it means a lot to employers.
Jake: And you have quite the alumni too. I mean, like you look at who’s been like, certainly to who’s been like governor and lieutenant governor, all those roles, you look back, there’s some names people would know in that list, which is, which is always impressive. And you see a lot of like former staffers on, on, you know, in Congress with that word, former Boy State. And that’s how they first got involved. And it was their first step into this world. So it’s, it’s just a fantastic program.
Opbroek: Yeah. Yeah, we think so.
Murdoc: Gene, we appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on to Gene Opbroek. He is the director of Boy State and how can people go? What’s the website one more time, Gene? South DakotaBoysState.com.
Opbroek: Thank you for coming on and, you know, give it a, give it a kick everybody. Let’s, let’s revive Boy State a little bit. Salamun, we’re going to take a break. When we come back, it’s all Rapid City all the time. Mayor Jason Seaman joins the show. It’s next on Dakota Town Hall. Thank you. Thank you.
Jake: Strike one, you’re back with Dakota Town Hall. The Minnesota twins are 10 and 0 as of it’s, it’s Wednesday right now. So they’re going to play two more games for next shows out. If the twins in the 10, oh, sorry. 10, 10 run and win streak right now.
Murdoc: Twin Cub World Series. That’d be good. Cubby’s doing good too.
Jake: Yeah, but the Cubs tried to claim the Pope as their own and that was a lie. So he’s a White Sox fan, which is much worse.
Murdoc: Yeah, but he doesn’t really mean it. Once you get to be the Pope, you become a Cubs fan. Everybody knows that. Yeah, I like to get Jason laugh. That’s good.
Salamun: Oh, you guys. This is a serious podcast. I’m a Mets fan. So, you know,
Murdoc: oooh that’s hard.
Jake: Thank you for one. So do. Yeah. Yeah.
Murdoc: Well, let’s introduce everybody and get into it. Salamun.
Jake: Yes, we’re having on the good mayor from Rapid City, Jason Solomon. Welcome to the show.
Salamun: Well, thanks for having me guys.
Murdoc: We, I want to give another thank to Gene from Boy State. You know, let’s start it here because we had Paul on last week and we have an upcoming election in Rapid City. Sioux Falls clocked in at a under 3% voter turnout yesterday for the school board race. So maybe the city of Sioux Falls should go to Boy State and learn how some of this stuff works.
Jake: You know, you know, Paul, that’s actually two weeks ago we had Paul. Oh, yes. That he mentioned that he wasn’t a huge fan of the, you know, so you’re forcing the cities to have the same elections together. But I think it’s just more evident of why it has to be together. I want to get the voters
Salamun: come out, you know, when you lump those together and here we’re going to have an election here in June with school board and city council. I expect, I don’t want there to be, but there will be a low voter turnout. But at least when you get in there with the other races and some years are higher than others, depending on the ballot stuff, that’s a 3% of that’s a tough one. I mean, any single digit is terrible.
Murdoc: I mean, especially The problem is, I don’t know what ours is going to be. We certainly plug it all the time. Murdoch and I do we on our weekly podcast that we do, we talk about voting and, you know, you got to do it. The local stuff is where it’s at.
Jake: I mean, the thing with school boards is a little tough too, because everyone sees school bars affecting them necessarily. Right. So like me, for example, I don’t have any kids in the school system. So, you know, school board means less to me. For example, I managed to me still, but most people, I may not seem like a pertinent election to them. So I can see why a lower voter turnout happens in that one specifically.
Murdoc: Except everyone, you know, to bring it home to this show or the topic of this show over the last few months, at least. Apparently property taxes are very interesting to people right now, just as a topic. And if you don’t think the school boards tied to school bond votes and how all of that funds, I just, you know, 3% to oof embarrassing
Jake: seeing all kinds of things on Facebook of like, let’s get rid of property taxes. And it’s like, this is just like the most brain dead idea ever. And they just don’t understand how our property taxes work with a, with a use for here in South Dakota. So you’re right.
Murdoc: Mr. Salamun, you, this is your first time on the show. I think I know given the fact that we broadcast quite often together, I wouldn’t, if you wouldn’t mind, I would, I think you have quite an interesting background in history of how you got here and how you came up. And if you wouldn’t mind giving us the elevator pitch, that’d be rad.
Salamun: Well, just, just in terms of how I became mayor, I had spent six years on the city council here in Rapid City, 2016 to 2019. And then back again in 2020 up until 2023 Circus Council president and 2017, 2018 time frame, you know, had a full time job, you know, during the year. And I was hearing all that time and in 2023 had a big decision to make about whether to run for mayor or not.
A previous mayor had announced that he wasn’t running again and, you know, certainly had a lot of encouragement to do so. I would tell you, pre 2019 I would have absolutely gone in for it, but it did take a little time to make my decision on it. It’s a big decision. Life, you know, a lot of life circumstances, but I threw my name in the hat at the time there were two other people running that there ended up being five people running from here.
Murdoc: It was a fascinating election, Salamun. There was five people running. It was the most don’t it was the most contributed race in Rapid City’s history. Wow.
Salamun: I would say this, Murdoch. I came in fourth place in fundraising out of five. I had people double the contributions than what I had, but was still able to come out with a victory. There’s several reasons for that, but learned a lot. I mean, I had had very, very good people around me.
Obviously that’s really true, but people who’ve been in the process and they said there’s nothing like this. This is everything in our about our race broke up so many different rules. But we also learned kind of how what that means for the future and how how that could apply to like the governor’s race. We’re going to have a whole bunch of people running for governor. What I understand you’re going to divide the vote up in the primary.
Murdoc: Very simple. Yes, it’s a very similar. It’s your your Muni Ray race was a lot. What looks like what the house or governor races shaping up to be like where they over and over it’s five and a half. They even had the dude who is that Carney PDR dude who like shot all his ads in Pennsylvania and like and then put the text over it like it was Rapid City. Rapid City.
Salamun: Well, that was hard.
Murdoc: Yeah, that was hard to answer that a lot of votes, but he was out of state, you know, out of town guy who moved here during the pandemic. See, actually was a nice guy to me to be honest with you, but you know, didn’t have the name recognition and you find out even though we have a lot of folks who’ve moved into the area from out of state.
You’re still one degree of separation from everybody. And so I would tell you this when you run, it’s not just who you are what you want to do while you’re running. But everything you’ve been up until then comes to play. Like if you’ve been a jerk, it’s going to come out. People know when people try to say things about me that clearly weren’t true. And someone say, well, no, I know this guy’s in high school. Of course, this is what he is. And that helps, you know, those relationships in South Dakota and here Rapid City in particular are crucial.
Jake: What is the government structure like in Rapid City? You know, Sioux Falls has the strong mayor position where he’s on the city council. Is it similar to in Rapid City?
Salamun: Absolutely. Strong mayor here. I am the CEO of the city full time all in. We have 10 city council members. So, you know, I serve as the executive branch. They serve as the legislative branch. So, you know, Paul and I, you know, we’ve been able to connect and understand each other because our forms of government are different.
However, we have some different structures. He’s a home rule community. We’re Dylan’s role community.
So we have some different limitations than what they have. But by and large, we both get to be strong executives, which, you know, quite frankly, is good. I mean, it helps tap into your leadership. You help set the tone and tenor and culture and something that we both have connected on.
Murdoc: You are a leader in the Republican Party out West. That means something different than being a Republican leader in the Republican Party over on Salamun’s side of the state. What do you see as the, you know, often topic on this show is the, we’re not Civil War guys like that with the language, but like, you know, there’s a clear divide right now in the Republican Party. What’s, what’s your perspective of being a mayor and rapid?
Salamun: Well, you know, politically, you know, when I talk about those relationships, I think it’s important. One of the things I talk about out here is we got to work better together, you know, West River. By the way, I’m not really digging in this East River West River thing. I could tell you guys have the shit going on. I don’t care. It’s too small of a state to really be that big of a deal.
Jake: And frankly, Classic West River thing to say by the way, classic West River.
Salamun: But Salamun, Paul’s for example, Billings, Montana, Cheyenne, Wyoming and Fort Collins, Colorado are all closer than Sioux Falls is to Rapid City. So when we think here, we’re thinking of five state Mountain West region.
Murdoc: We’re the Mount. Oh yeah, he’s gotten my Arshfield Jason.
Salamun: Jason, Mr. Mayor is my. Yeah, so I don’t, I don’t really compete with Sioux Falls except for state attention, you know, you know, resources from the state, but, you know, I don’t really look at it that way, but, you know, kind of going back to the political environment here at West River, where, you know, we’re, we’re independent minded free spirits. You know, there’s, there’s a, there’s definitely, I like, I mean, there’s a lot to be said about that, but in terms of the sides of the Republican Party not getting along. I find myself in a weird spot. I don’t always feel like I fit neatly anywhere. I consider myself pretty conservative, especially the social issues. So I actually don’t mind getting into social issues, but I also am a guy who’s pro economic development. I think you have to have both values and vision.
And I think our value servers are guardrails moving forward, but you have to be able to move forward. So I like to promote things that expand economic opportunity in our city that doesn’t always play well with everybody. At the same time, I understand the social issues.
I think many of them are critical. And I have no problem waiting into those waters when it’s appropriate. Of course, as a mayor, it’s a little bit different because you’re more practical. You have an organization. I got a thousand employees, 82,000 plus specifically in my city. The surrounding area is about almost 160,000 msa.
That’s if you do not include spearfish and some other areas, but it’s a pretty significant size. So, you know, we have to, as a city, work very practically. So when I’m talking to the legislature, you know, my big thing this year is I was harping on airport funding.
I believe that’s a critical driver to our entire state. And really the Rapid City Airport Sioux Falls as well. The Rapid City Airport contributes to the South Dakota economy. That it’s not just the Rapid City or West River thing. Without Rapid City, without the Black Hills, how does the state do? It’s the same thing with Sioux Falls. They drive in a lot as well.
Jake: They are equally important airports. I have no doubt about that. Like you look at, I mean, we’re talking about four. One dollar into the airport is like four dollars out basically. Like the economic impact it has on any single airport is so important. And I couldn’t agree more, Mayor, that’s the fact that it’s a critical infrastructure.
Salamun: Well, when I talk to my fellow conservatives and I talk about, you know, economic development, not all of them like it when I talk about, so for example, airport funding, I talk about the economic development benefits.
Find out some of them hate that argument. That’s like a terrible phrase to use. So instead I talk about what I view it as critical infrastructure like highways and bridges. It’s part of our transportation network.
And here’s the deal. You know, when it comes to bringing in revenue to our state, none of us want tax increases. I think we like our low tax base.
It’s good for everybody. But you do want to have more revenue. The only way to do that is to not take more of one person’s slice of the pie, but instead increase the pie. Have more money being spent in South Dakota where there’s businesses investing visitors coming in. We draw from, you know, five state region for a variety of reasons. So I look at that sales tax revenue in particular for cities. That’s how we’re our primary source of funds is tail sex revenue.
So that drives a lot of our behavior. And that’s good for the whole state. We get two cents for every dollar, but the state gets 4.2 cents for every dollar. So for Rapid City does well, the state does well. And we quite frankly on sales tax revenue have outperformed the state even this past year. Really remarkable.
That’s a lot of people who work hard to make that happen. And we’re fine doing that. We love South Dakota. We understand that’s how it works. But I think we as lawmakers around our state need to understand that that’s the way that you relieve the tax burden off the citizens and let others help share that burden for us. So that’s always been my message when I talk about airports and other items like that.
Jake: I think you made a good point too. I’ve heard the same thing of like economic development is somehow a bad word. It’s kind of a new thing I’ve been hearing from that from that further right group. So I like you phrasing it as critical infrastructure. I think it’s it accepts what it is. It’s both, but it’s definitely that too.
Salamun: Yep. Well, you know, that’s that’s the thing and it’s trying to just educate, you know, understanding how airport funding works and why it matters to the entire state of South Dakota. And, you know, I consider myself to the right to I mean, I certainly I know I’m probably to the right of you guys, but I look at that I think that that’s just a practical matter. And if you do not have an airport, you are irrelevant and you’re not able to do any of the stuff that you want to do. I mean, it is a huge, huge driver for our state. And of course, here in Rapid City, the Black Hills area.
Jake: Well, you guys barely have an airport so far.
Murdoc: Shut up. That’s enough. There is out by the computer alpacas. So if you’re ever, you know, got a couple extra minutes, you just take a couple of miles down the road a little
Salamun: and you see the back is what’s funny last week. I think I went to a national security forum in down at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. And of course, when people ask where you’re from, I say South Dakota, they kind of look give you that look and I said, Well, yeah, all I had to do is go to Old Man Jenkins farm on a plane to get to my community.
And then I joke and tell them, you know, about how amazing it is, which of course everywhere when I told the story of South Dakota, which was, you know, really fascinating. A lot of a lot of military members want to get
Murdoc: back into the airport’s a little, it’s a nice segue into session recap. So like, you know, what are your thoughts of how how the session went as the mayor goes?
Salamun: Well, I mean, they’re, you know, they’re ups and downs. You know, on a pragmatic level, I look at a couple of things that we talked about, airport funding, you know, we look at property tax bill and the impact that has on South Dakota communities. And, you know, one of the things I would encourage the governor and really the state legislature to do is to talk to those who are impacted at least invite them to the table.
My thought was I’m all for property tax relief. But make it make the juice worth the squeeze. Let’s do something more transformative and also look at offsets. You know, I was initially pretty intrigued by the lieutenant governor’s proposal before he became lieutenant governor. I think at least it was a start of a conversation of okay, what would be the offset? You know, we have, I do think, you know, sales or use tax are more generally fair and also provide a big, you know, big ceiling for us.
But they’re a little more volatile. But that would be a way to offset the property taxes and you have the school districts get about half of that here in Rapid City roughly 30, 35% to the county and we’re around that 15% mark give or take. So it does certainly impact us and we look at that cap over the years and I can understand it, but I felt like it.
It was something without really being something. So if you’re going to do something, why not do something bold? I’m really tired of milk toast week solutions. We’re going to do something do it bold, but do it smart wise to because we still have to take care of things as a state.
We don’t have a lot of options. And so I was really intrigued by that conversation. I would have liked, I know there’s a summer study to look at that further. I did talk to the governor a little bit about it. I wanted to hear what his thoughts were. You know, I think I encouraged him, you need to have municipal league or somebody at the table from cities who can actually talk about the pragmatic parts to them too, as well as the counties.
I don’t work for the county, but I can understand their concerns and they’ve never been allowed to have a sales tax and is that something they can use to offset that. I think these are all conversations we need to have. If you bring all the players to the table say, here’s the goal. We want property tax relief. Okay, how can we get there? How do we offset the funding?
How do we make sure that we can still keep the lights on without, you know, overburdening our own citizens? Those are good conversations to have. So I hope this summer study I haven’t heard, but I hope it includes city representation. I’ve certainly asked that in person. I haven’t received the invite, but at least if you have leagues or somebody who could represent the kind of the local communities at the table, I think that would be very smart. Or else you’ll feel that heat down the road and it’ll come back at you in a different way.
Murdoc: We’re talking to Mayor Jason Salamun. He is on Dakota Town Hall. You can also hear us on a podcast we do here on the west side of the state called Meeting with the Mayor to search for either of them and your favorite podcast player.
Or listen to it here live on the cowboy every Friday. Salamun, we’re going to take a quick break. Before we do, Mr. Mayor, do you have a position on who has the best gizzards in the state?
Salamun: Gizzards. Oh man, gizzards. Oh, you know, I don’t, I’ve had gizzards. There we go. My wife has probably made the best gizzards, but I want to see it’s like gas stations or something. Yeah, it’s a gas station in Dakota.
A brown bag on the road driving across the state. Yes, or check it, you know, six seconds. I want to see my comments stop, but I don’t know if I got gizzards there or not. Maybe just a subway sandwich.
Murdoc: All right, we’re going to come back. We’re going to find out if someone on this call is potentially running for US House. Don’t know who that would be. It’s Dakota Town Hall.
Jake: You You’re right to we’re back. That was our second break. We’re on our third break now of Dakota Town Hall. Once again, I want to thank Gene Uprook from always safe for joining us in the first break. And we were just talking with Jason Salomon, the mayor of Rapid City, Jason. You want to announce for anything?
Salamun: Man, I’m announcing today that I am the mayor of Rapid City. And no, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at with that question.
Murdoc: Your name gets thrown in for US House in candidate roundup.
Salamun: Who throws the who throws the name out? Blind sources, blind sources. You know, I always find it fascinating how this works out.
Murdoc: Although you’ll notice these blind sources don’t tend to be wrong in my defense.
Jake: You know, what happens is you say like one thing that makes people think, hey, is he running for something more? And they just assume that and then as they keep thinking about it, it becomes real in their head. And then we just keep saying it over and over again, and then it becomes real.
Salamun: Well, I think I think life’s about timing. The challenge for me is I’m just coming up on two years as mayor. If we’re planting a lot of seeds right now, I’d like to see through. So, you know, that’s a big decision.
I won’t rule it out at some point. You know, I quite frankly, I feel like anybody who’s deciding now it’s really late to the game because that’s what just over a year to the primary next year. But I haven’t heard anybody who has announced yet either.
I’ve heard some rumors. I’ve certainly had a lot of people ask me. You know, I think when there’s a potential open seat there, whenever there’s an open seat, you look around the state and you say, you know, who’s got the chance to do it? I think around the state, you probably have a lot of listeners.
East River don’t know who I am. So, you know, I think that would be a challenge for someone like me. So, I don’t know, you know, I think the real reason the rumor comes up is because when people ask me, would I ever run for governor or Congress or Senate or whatever? I usually say, well, you never know. I mean, down the road at the right time, Lord willing, I would consider it. But, you know, I still feel like it’s pretty young in this run as mayor would like to, you know, we got some big things coming up here and, you know, you want to see some of those things through. So, it’s really a timing thing. I mean, I won’t say no, just because I think I still need, you know, time to really pray through it, think through it, talk to life.
Murdoc: Mayor’s given us the timing answer. But it’s very pragmatic.
Salamun: Well, it, everything’s about timing. And the fact is, I think I am in a position where I got to do the go where I could do the most good. I had a friend of mine tell me that he worked for a governor and asked me about future plans.
This has been six, seven months ago. And so, well, what’s your, what’s your advice? And he goes, I think you’d be awesome as a governor because you’ve been an executive.
I think you’d be awesome. And Congress goes, but I think your question is where can you do the most good right now? Right now.
I was like, that’s a really good question. Where can I do the most good right now? Have the greatest impact because we’re not doing this for any other reasons.
Once you go to Congress, your favorability goes in the tank, along with the rest of Congress right now. That’s very challenging. But I am interested at national, you know, things like national security, like I brought up earlier, some of those issues, but I also really enjoy being an executive. When you get to be the chief executive, when you get to really set the tone and center like I talked about of an organization, there’s something to be said about that. And so, as a mayor, you get the opportunity to do that and really have a significant impact. And so, I think the betting odds are that I would potentially run again for mayor and then look down the road, but never say never, of course, but that’s probably where I’m leaning. But honestly, I have not, and that’s not even an announcement to run for reelection for mayor.
Jake: I appreciate the honesty. I love the honesty. I think that’s 2020 seven’s decision I’ll probably decide that next year, but the Congress decision has to be made like probably no later than the summer.
Salamun: And it does interest me, I guess that I won’t, I don’t want to sugarcoat that it like it’s interesting to me. But I feel like I got work to do here.
So that’s the challenge. If I was, if I was at the end of a second term or something, I think maybe I’d feel a little bit differently. But I feel like I’m just getting started. And, you know, when you’re doing all this work and putting up with so much and putting in long hours, you want to see these things come to life because at the end of the day, making an impact in a community like ours, one of the fastest growing in the Midwest. That’s pretty big deal. And I get to do remarkable things. So I don’t take it for granted. I don’t view it as a stepping stone because quite frankly, if this is, if, you know, if I die in office, it’d be pretty awesome that I got to be the mayor of reference.
And so he’s not going to write. So that’s that is where my focus is. And I think that’s why I feel like it’s a little late to be announcing a run for Congress.
But I also look at who else is running or not running. Do I think they could win? Do they have the same values and vision that I do? Same thing I look at for governor. I mean, people ask why was going to run for governor.
It’d be premature, I think, but because there’s a lot of good people running for governor. But when people ask you that, I look around, say, well, who are the names? Do I do I share similar values as them? Do they have vision too? That’s, I like both of those things at the same time. You got to have values and you got to have vision.
Opbroek: And that’s what I look for candidates and certainly would play into a decision to run for anything.
Murdoc: You mentioned the governor’s race. You have an interesting vantage point with your position in office personally knowing not that everybody’s announced, but personally knowing all the candidates, all the major candidates for governor.
Salamun: But actually, I know of five potential candidates. One of them I’ve never met, the Toby Doden guy. I’ve never met Toby. Don’t know anything really about him except a couple of news stories or whatever. But I know a current governor. He’s a good man. I know our Attorney General. I think he’s a good man.
If they decide to run, we’d be blessed. I know Congressman Johnson. You know, we all know what he’s about. And this last year, I’ve gotten to know John Hansen just through the amendment G stuff that we worked on together. And, and a lot of the stuff that he’s been working on and the legislature, of course, as a speaker. So I don’t know him as well, but I like him.
I respect all four of those guys to be honest. I think they have a lot of things that overlap with some distinctions among them. What will be interesting is what really appeals to South Dakota. And I know that there’s polls out there already, but it is pretty early. I think a lot can happen. And also, will they all end up running for governor?
That’s going to be interesting to me. But I’ll say I respect. It’s a hard decision for all of us who call them friends. And for me, I even am like, man, where am I going to go on this?
Jake: Because I have to have an exact same thought. Because I know some of these guys and you’re like, I don’t know how I’m going to go on this one. It’s difficult when you start doing them personally. It’s a different calculus have to make. We got the ballot box.
Salamun: Well, I’ll tell you the reason I won my mayor race is not because I raised the most money I didn’t or that I had the best name ID. There are people I think have better name ID initially. We had nine mayoral forums and each those are those are so many.
Murdoc: And here’s several of them streamed. It was not stop. I hosted one. Oh my goodness. Yeah.
Salamun: And it, but for me, it was an opportunity every time to say, here’s who I am, what I’m about. And you can decide. And I just told myself, I’d be straight up about who I am. Even if you didn’t agree with it, I wanted to build trust with people and say, I want to be transparent. Here’s what I believe. It’s not because I’m trying to shove it down your throat.
I just want you to know what you’re getting. And that way when I act that way as mayor, it won’t become a surprise to you. I think when we have the selection of candidates, I would love, I would love to host a forum with everybody running for governor just here in Rapid City and just have a conversation with them so people can get to know them. And that way we can make an informed decision.
Murdoc: I want to hear a meeting with the mayor, meeting with the mayor live show. I like it. Let’s do it.
Salamun: And I just think I would love that personally, I would love that opportunity. I could certainly meet with all of them one on one. I have, but I would love to hear what their ideas are, what their values are, of course, where they want to leave the state into the future.
Jake: Let’s get into a little bit of speculation. We talked about Toby Donnell a little bit. He announced an announcement. It’s May 28. The doors open at 5pm. The future, the future of South Dakota starts here. Toby’s announcing something. Do we think it’s mayor or mayor? Do we think it’s governor or Congress? I don’t think it’s either. Really? Nope. What’s your speculation?
Murdoc: I’d, who, I’d, it’s going to launch a initiative or someone else’s guy. He’s not.
Jake: Crypto coin. South Dakota’s crypto coin. Doden, Doden coin. You don’t think he’s running for something? I don’t. I think it’s governor. I think he’s running for governor.
Murdoc: It’s maybe it’s, it’s as far as an exploratory committee,
Jake: but like, Oh, no, we’re past that point. You can’t do exploratory right now.
Murdoc: I just don’t, I don’t, he wants to, I, I’m not taking a position on the politics. I’m taking a position on the history. He likes to sit on the sidelines and gasoline. That’s not a camp. That’s not, he’s not a candidate until he becomes one. I don’t know.
Jake: That’s two years. That’s only two years of history. Right. Exactly. So two years of like, you know, kind of getting involved in political space and
Murdoc: like years we sit right now, the mayor, rapid city has more standing experience and know how to go run for governor. And even he knows, like to put it another way, more people turned out for the Sioux Falls school board race than Toby Doden polled at. You don’t announce.
Jake: Ego is quite the thing. And I think he’s got a bit of an ego on him and thinks he can do it. I like, I think he’s going to run for something. I think it’s governor or Congress and the Congress race is pretty open right now.
Salamun: What’s, what’s, what’s, uh, I know he’s a businessman. I don’t know much about him. Be honest with you. I mean, I, I’m busy. So, you know, I heard the name. What, what are we, you know, what do we know that I know. I’ve known him for the guy and find out myself, but I’m curious.
Murdoc: I mean, he’s a good business guy, right? No one’s taken that away from me. Ran that running a good car dealership stuff. I have major respect for everybody. You can do that. Right. So like that’s what, that’s what I’ll give him. The rest of it is, I don’t know, name your name. The rich dude who likes to insert flame thrower language on every district race who’s never been to ever repeat.
Jake: Yeah, thrown out. I mean, big use the word rhino big loves using that word. Laura Loomer, who’s one of those, uh, was that, you know, uh, Trump circle person has been promoting him and,
Murdoc: um, Like you’d be half in on him, right? Like on some of the stuff he’s pushing in your, your four, but you just have a more empathetic way to say it. I’m getting to it, Mr. Mayor. Yeah.
Jake: I mean, like, A lot of the way he talks is it’s like, you know, he doesn’t really say any policy things when he kind of, he’s got a podcast. It’s called a like, uh, Don’t, don’t, Toby don’t unfilter or something like that. And it’s a lot of just like inflammatory things without any policy. So like South Dakota is going down the wrong path.
I’m the guy to fix it. That’s most of his policy platform as far as I’ve understood so far. So it’s a lot of platitudes and not a lot of policy.
Murdoc: That’s, that’s in vogue right now. It is. As Paul, I’m using Paulton Haken’s language a little there. Um, okay. I mean, that’s so a 28th. We’re going to find out in a couple of weeks of person announcement or not. Um, I just listen, he announces, not wrong. I’m wrong all the time. Right. So like open invitation the second he puts the logo out. Absolutely. Maybe he’ll be the first one to answer me out of that camp. A lot of them just act like I owe him money or they owe me money or something.
Salamun: So right now only one person has actually declared they’re running for governor. Right. That’s John answer. Yeah.
Jake: Right.
Salamun: Right. Yeah. You’re correct. Yes. I mean, I’m officially a front runner.
Jake: I mean, there’s a voting for governor campaign committee. I mean, and there’s already formed committees are formed. Website. I bet if you look up dusty for governor.com, you probably can’t get to a website, but it’s probably bought already, you know, um, Marty’s bought, uh, Jack Jack Lee for Congress and it still owns Jack Lee for governor from his prior race.
Murdoc: Do we know that was Marty who bought that? We don’t. Sorry.
Jake: I don’t say Marty bought that. That is purchase somebody bought it.
Salamun: So is that someone trying to buy it and trying to convince him not to run for governor and say, I already got your domain for you.
Murdoc: Yeah, I don’t know. You know, game of chess and we’re in that little gray area, right? Like right before like the dice have hit the craps table, but they’re still kind of rolling. So you don’t know what numbers.
Jake: Domino’s had no fault.
Salamun: So what are the names running for house then? Because, you know, I’ve heard a couple, but honestly, uh, it’s not like I’ve dug deep into it, but you guys would know.
Murdoc: Well, I mean, I, I don’t know if anybody, I mean, Casey Crabtree, I would think would be the announced, not announced. If you name, if you try to list off front runners, I don’t know if anyone’s, you know, got it got a pole position ahead of Casey, but then you get a long list of people who might Scott Odinbock, Taylor Rayfield, not my, I don’t know. I’m not, I don’t know anything. These are just as speculative as we get your names. So you’re in the same group, Mr. Mayor. So it’s you and it’s Taylor Rayfield and you hear our Taffy Howard, Taffy Howard, Scott Odinbock.
Jake: Um, maybe it Phil Jensen, his name’s been thrown around. Amber Hulse’s name has been thrown around more serious than it maybe is. I don’t know. I mean, there’s, but some of these instances staff is really think everyone’s kind of waiting to see who’s running for governor and then they’ll decide on Congress is kind of what it feels like to me. Cause there’s a chance Dusty might run again for Congress. That’s not off the table by any means.
Salamun: That’s tough to be an incumbent. You might, might get challenged and, you know, I think that’s been what the tough part when people have asked me about it is, well, I don’t know for sure.
You know, I think, I think I know, I know what I’ve been told. Uh, but you know, those are, those seem like big offices and here’s someone West River, you know, thinking about, you know, anything statewide that’s already an uphill challenge. Um, but you know, not impossible, of course, but you know, something I feel like I would need to earn like the better six desk Rapid City has. I feel like those things become more, uh, I guess opportunities open more down the road if that was the case, but of the mountain West.
Murdoc: That’s where you are. Thanks. Hey, um, moving topics a little before we run out of time. Is there a new conch holder in the Lord of the Flies that is the mini ha ha County Republicans or what’s going on over there?
Jake: I don’t know if people find this entertaining or not or just more. It’s just like same. I don’t. Right. I mean, like same crap, new day. Like it’s, uh, so I’ll make a long story short. Basically the chairman of the mini haw, GOP is fighting with the rest of his board and it’s gone back and forth. He controls social media.
So he gets to post what he wants on there. They respond to the comments. They respond on war college.
It’s post on war college. It’s a fun little back and forth. Um, they’re trying to get, remove him, but they can’t do that. So there’s just a lot of drama there. And at the end of the day, it means nothing good for the GOP in mini haw County. So like no one served well by this.
Murdoc: We’re all a little more used to it out here. We got, you know, this is a little more old hat West River. So like welcome to the fray mini ha ha ha ha. How do you like it?
Jake: I mean, they got like four grand in their account total, I think that might be less than that now when they since like January when they took office. So like, it’s not like they have a lot of money to work with and to influence things.
Murdoc: Let me ask it this way to, to you, Jason. Um, let’s say hypothetically you’re in charge of rebuilding the County unity of the Republican Party. What do you think should happen if that’s the path just in a County?
Salamun: All the, all the, yeah, the, yeah, pick a County or all the counties, right?
Salamun: I, you know, well, I think it starts with, does everybody agree with the platform? I mean, the thing that you have to be united by something, you know, the military, we call it a spree decor. It’s kind of a spirit of the team. We have to be, if they’re rally around something that you all agree on and, and that’s how you know who’s in or out.
I mean, I don’t know why anybody would want to be part of something they didn’t agree with. So, uh, I think it starts with, with that. And frankly, I think you need a vision on how to get people elected, how to get people engaged to turn out the vote. Um, I think sometimes in my frustration that I don’t think, you know, the parties really care too much about what happens locally a little bit. Um, but not during, you know, our debates or whatever. Uh, in here, they’re always lobbying and doing stuff and in your local governments.
They’re rarely doing that. Um, so I think you have to build a pipeline, get younger people involved. I would look at how to engage the next generation. I would also not take for granted the seniors who have gone before. I think you have good committees to get people involved. I think everything starts with a bold vision though. And you know, for me, it would be about how do you boost engagement everywhere?
I mean, the engagement is the number one thing. And do you have a compelling vision, a story to tell? Why, why should people be a Republican?
For example, what, what’s the difference? Is I always see this side versus this side and I get kind of frustrated because I feel caught in between. Oftentimes, but you know, that’s, you gotta have a compelling vision.
You gotta have those values. I think it’s the start of anything. I mean, it’s how you start anything and you’ve got to be creative and get out there. You need leadership, strong leadership, weak leadership is not going to, not going to do it.
You need strong leadership, great communication. And you got to be able to encompass all sides of the Republican party. So you got libertarian types, ish to, you know, Christian conservatives. Um, to, uh, people that are kind of the chamber of commerce Republicans to, there, there’s all of those kinds of types of people, but we should all agree on the fundamentals. And if you don’t get the fundamentals right, and you know, we were talking about face, right?
Jake: It’s gotta start fundamentals.
Murdoc: They’re shaking ground balls. Well, there are more current embezzlement charges in peer than elected Democrats in peer. Any advice for the other aisle, Jason?
Salamun: Oh, why would I, I don’t know. I mean, I know I have friends who are a different party than me. Um, I would say even within the Democrat party, I imagine that they have extremes. They got extremes are just crazy town. And you have the other ones that are kind of more blue dog, I imagine.
I don’t know if those exist anymore, but those at least that are a little more reasonable. Um, you know, in my mind that probably ought to win the day, but I would, I would disassociate from the national level politics to make any inroads in South Dakota. When I see the stuff at the national level with the DMC, it’s, I can’t, I mean, you, you think it’s a caricature.
Jake: It’s not South Dakota. No, my kids just like, oh, that’s
Salamun: not, you know, right now we’re very populist right now, which isn’t generally a values based thing. It has some values based, but it’s trying to be big 10. President Trump won because he could build coalitions of different types of people and he could hold those. And that was, you know, that was a big, that’s a big lesson learned. And by the way, the Republican party would be unwise to just write off everybody who’s in that populist way of as this or that, because they’re the ones who are winning elections. You can make fun of them and you can mock them. Those of us who supported Trump or who might be that way, but you will still lose and you’ll just be laughing along while others are in the office actually making change and putting in policy. So I say, let’s get good, smart people running who have the right value set who want to, you know, build bridges, I guess between the Republican party. And I think that’s the way to move forward. You’re going to have to bridge that gap between, you know, the social, social conservatives and, and kind of the, the, the business, you know, Republicans and some of the libertarian wings and you’re not going to agree on everything, but you have to have those things that are essential. You got a major on the majors, minor on the minors and try to get some sort of, you know, unity, but not uniformity. Mr.
Murdoc: Mayor, that’s a good answer. Wrapping up. Who’s got the best burger in the state?
Salamun: Well, I’m going to have to go local here and there are a lot of good places. Sugar shack, of course, burned down. They had a great one. Black Hills Burgers at Buns was great before they burned down, but I’m going to tell you, this is a surprising one. I think, I think I have one of the most delicious burgers I ever had at the golf pro shop over in Red Rocks golf course.
Murdoc: So that’s a new answer. Okay. Right on.
Salamun: No one said that yet. You said golf and jingling right up to hidden jam. You’re not going to think it’s going to be so great, but it was delicious. Of course, you know, I like a good Culver’s.
Unfortunately, you can tell, but I’m like 25 pounds. It’s up in mayor. So I got work to do there, but I’ve been running with Paul Tinhake and out in Sioux Falls. I think that’ll work out great.
Jake: But was there multiple burgers, shacks that burned down? I know sugar shack. I used to dole days and second one burned down too.
Salamun: They just day change brands was a custer. But I know sugar shack. Yeah. Sugar shack is rebuilding. Yes. The gaslight has a great. They do. Murphy’s here in Rapid City, I think has a really good burger.
Murdoc: Were you ever a city councilman when all the judges used to day drink over at the time out lounge? They had a great burger. You could get that good burger and then you bet on them horse races. God, it was fun.
Salamun: And if that was happening, I was out of the loop. I think that’s happened on a lot of things. I think there’s a lot of rooms. I don’t get invited to a lot of things were happening. I’m like, well, you know, I find out things from you all the time. Apparently that’s that was a thing. That’s where the judges are. I’d love to talk to a few of them.
Murdoc: Allegedly, of course. Allegedly. Well, it’s going to be our time. I want to thank Mayor Jason Solomon, Mayor of Rapid City. We also, if you, you know, it’s this is why everyone thinks you’re running for office.
You’re so naturally good at this. We sit down every week on the podcast with zero prep whatsoever on meeting with the mayor sketch out for two minutes, what we’re going to talk about. And Jason bangs out a half hour and it’s always pretty good. So if you want to hear some more Rapid City focused stuff of what’s going on every week, you can give that show a listen. It’s just called meeting with the mayor. Salamun, that’s going to do it.
Jake: I want to thank Gene up Brooke for joining us from the boy state. He is the director of boys here in South Dakota. Thank you for joining us.
Murdoc: Christine Erickson’s coming up on the show. Plus we’re going to be recording some episodes with the Lieutenant Governor. I guess we’re going to maybe find out there.
Salamun: I think you need to ask her that question.
Murdoc: What a tease. What a tease. We’ll find out. We’re going to find out that and more when we come back next week with Salamun in the East. I’m Murdock in the West and this has been Dakota Town Hall.
Jake: See you next week.
