Every Friday, we sit down with Mayor Jason Salamun to discuss the latest events and stories shaping Rapid City. Tune in and stay informed
Read along as we discuss key local issues impacting the city.
Meeting With the Mayor transcript from 3/28/25:
Murdoc: Welcome back, happy Friday. It’s Friday afternoon and every week here on The Cowboy we check in with the mayor of Rapid City and it is your chance to have your meeting with the mayor. We were gone last week, Darrell sat in with you or sat in for you, did a great job. Darrell is so he’s he’s a rad interview every time we talk to him.
Salamun: Well, Darrell is a deep well of experiences. You know,
Murdoc: he’s knows everything.
Salamun: He’s worked for multiple administrations in the mayor’s office. He’s worked for, you know, congressional offices. He’s been a longtime journalist. Been they’re done that on a lot of things. He’s got stories for days.
Murdoc: Not that we, you know, we miss you always when you can’t make it. But
Salamun: yeah, I was at a board of equalization hearing.
Murdoc:That’s right. I saw you. I saw you at the millstone and you were you were like it wasn’t as boring as I thought it was going to be.
Salamun: Well, no, it wasn’t as long as I thought it was.
Murdoc: Oh, long. That’s what it was. You’d never be insulting like that. We said yes to everybody’s request for a tax decrease. Well, that’s good.
Salamun: Equalization of their taxes. Oh, that’s good. But an equalization. But it’s, you know, it’s really there. The county ultimately has to say so.
Murdoc: This is going to sound dumb on this show. The dude, I can’t remember the guy I met who was standing next to you, but he had the coolest shoes.
Salamun: Oh, Nicholas.My buddy Nicholas is.
Murdoc: I meant to compliment his shoes. I don’t know if we knew each other having just met.
Salamun: He’s moving out of town. So we were kind of doing a goodbye breakfast. Saturday morning at the millstone on West Main. One of my favorite places. A shout out to them. But yeah. So we were doing a farewell and ran into each other there. But yeah, he’s he’s he’s like always dressed great. He’s fashion sense. Nothing like me, you know, is.
Murdoc: Same.That’s how I noticed that. Well, well, let’s get into a show. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I want to pick your brain a little bit as we start here. This is in this week here at the home slice group. We we turned on a new newspaper. Called the Rapid City Post.
Salamun: Yeah. Congratulations.
Murdoc: Thank you. It’s it’s you know, we have almost 60 employees and so many people put so much work into this and so many hands have touched it. And you know, as we’re learning more and more and really dedicating ourselves to community media that needs to be from the community. And we do, you know, you’re a good example of this, actually.
I don’t know if we would get to the Rapid City Post unless we had a chance to do meeting with the mayor, because that’s how we started to build our community media, right? And it’s, you know, just the facts, ma’am, we’re not trying to lean one way. We’re not trying to necessarily write. There’s certainly there will be people who want to and have license to have opinions. You’d be one of them, but there’s a difference in opinion and news. That’s we’re already getting questions like, Hey, are you going to, you know, talk about what’s actually going on in our neighborhoods? Which I’m like, well, we’re not a Facebook comment war, but we certainly, you know, when you send in an email to the news that goes right to a person from this office. So like, I don’t know, it’s been kind of fun. Thoughts on where, you know, what’s on the local community news?
Salamun: Well, I like, I mean, I like that concept. You know, it’s it’s a bummer when the national stuff drives your local stuff. When it doesn’t necessarily always shouldn’t connect. You know, I think, I think it’s great to have good news sources, accurate news sources. You know, they’re, you know, we, there’s a lot that’s always going on in the city, of course, but even beyond just city government stuff, there’s, I mean, frankly, I think somebody needs to share stories of the people doing remarkable things in our community because it’s, it’s pretty amazing. You know, what I get to see all the time and what I get to hear about, obviously, I see a lot of the tough things. But I also get to experience and hear about and meet people who are doing remarkable things.
Murdoc: Yeah.
Salamun: So I think that too is great. And, you know, I think everything from local weather and sports to the news, to, you know, community conversations, which are tough. I just think this day and age, a lot of people aren’t commenting on everything who are living busy, normal, productive lives. But, you know, there are certainly issues. I mean, we talk about these issues all the time. So I think having another source that’s going to do that, someone who’s local, I think it’s clever to say post, you know, with, you know.
Murdoc: Hashtag RaPo.That was right out of the gate we got. We’re Hashtag Rap-o, baby.
Salamun: I think it’s clever. It works on multiple levels. You know, you guys are certainly local and engaged in the community.
And so it’d be interesting to see the flavor that you put on it. And, you know, the landscape of media is just changing. It used to just be, you know, you were in this genre or that genre, and that’s really blended together.
Murdoc: It has.
Salamun: And it’s multimedia. It’s everything’s multimedia. So whether, you know, your news, traditional newspaper, you’re, you’re multimedia and you’re trying to do all these various things. If you’re a news station, you’re multimedia and you’re trying to do, you know, online stuff and looking at other productions.
Murdoc: Digital impressions is now an economy. It’s a different world.
Salamun: And you have, you know, radio and marketing and all that and having, you know, news media sources. Just, I think it’s interesting to watch the evolution of media. Yeah. I guess that, that to me is pretty interesting. I think it’s wide open.
Murdoc: It’s a brand new world. That’s why we see a hole in the market.
Salamun: It is definitely a frontier territory right now. And a lot of folks are trying to stake claim and all that. And, you know, in my mind, if you’re doing a good, accurate reporting, that to me is always a win. It keeps people informed. And, you know, that, that’s always going to be the, the challenge is there’s always multiple sides to stories and things like that. So, um, having good writers and, you know, I’m a believer that the traditional journalist thing still applies. I love the idea that someone went to journalism school.
Murdoc: Who, When, Where, why.
Salamun: like Darrell is a good example of that. And so he just,
Murdoc: We’ve got a news intern, Fiona. Drives her life.
Salamun: I think right now, though, I see just everything’s clickbait, um, with it, with a headline that doesn’t tell a full story, but nobody really has time to read the full story. So they just go with what the headline is, which isn’t always the complete story. But I like the idea that we’re responsible, but honest, uh, with our media and so I congratulate you guys.
Murdoc: I think to your point too, right? Like media has evolved a lot. Another way to say that would be, you know, we have six radio stations here in this market and KBHB is certainly its own universe of agrimedia that’s been in, in its own world since the sixties, right? But even as it becomes one company and we’re six radio stations, six radio stations can’t get the market’s attention like they used to just full stop. Let’s just say, let’s just talk what it is as we sit here and listen to this on radio, maybe you listen to this on a podcast, a newspaper can’t get the market’s attention like it used to, but a, but a local company just trying to not necessarily come out with an opinion out of the jump, but just roll the tape, just the facts, ma’am, we, how people like to get their news is how you have to build the news for them. So some people, as you say, want the headline, some people want the podcast, some people want to hold the paper and that’s in our plans as well. And some people just want to digest it in their own time or listen to it live in the radio. You have to be able to build it for all possibilities.
Salamun: I will tell you this about 10 years ago, I purchased a domain and actually built a website that was going to do something similar. I had some other ideas to go with it. So recognizing very quickly, it takes a lot of work to maintain. It’s one thing to start something. It’s another thing to keep it going and make it fresh. And I had a unique spin on it, but in the end of the day, you could see this coming and I think with, you know, podcasts and video and the written word and I think there’s a lot of different ways to go about things.
Murdoc: So well, this show is a good example, right? Like we put this, if you’re a reader and you’re not a listener, you might like my parents read this show. They read the transcript, you know
Salamun: well hello.
Murdoc: Yeah. My they’re a fan of you, by the way.
Salamun: Hello to Brads’s parents, Well Murdoc, excuse me. I wait.
Murdoc: Ah, the bags out.
Salamun: Have you ever heard the term Kayfabe. I used, you know, Kayfabe is a pro wrestling term, which is what they would say back in the Carney days when they would be around somebody who didn’t know the insider stuff.
Murdoc: I love the wrestling references on this show.
Salamun: So I just used, you know, Murdoch’s actually not his name folks, but, but that’s what he knows. And then all of us go doc, you know, and then
Murdoc: I, you know what I do at the coffee shop of other names at the coffee shop, I go, I’ll go doc and they’ll, you know, sometimes it’s Todd, sometimes it’s Josh and I’ll just go with what
Salamun: Or like doctor?
Salamun: Yeah. And when I think Murdoch, I think of the A-team.
Murdoc: Everyone’s got theirs. Speaking of wrestling, Can we do a little wrestling
? We got to take a break here, but. Cena it turned heel.
Salamun: Yeah, he did.
Murdoc: What do you think?
Salamun: I think it’s about time. I think it makes, he’s, he’s at a stage, you know, he’s in his final year. He’s at a stage where he’s going to make it interesting and it gives him a new challenge.
Murdoc: He’s on his last year of his contract?
Salamun: No, he’s in his final year of wrestling.
Murdoc: He’s going to retire.
Salamun: He says hes on his Retirement year. So everything he’s doing is for the last time. And so he’s doing, I think he’ll, by the end of his year, he will be a baby face again.
Murdoc: He’ll turn back again. Okay. Oh, that’s interesting.
Salamun: Oh, come on. You know, I can go on this stuff all day.
Murdoc: I’m having a hard, here’s the, okay, but I’m having like, it seems like every, he was such a good baby. If he was such a good hero for 20 plus years for 20 plus years, it seems like people are having a hard time, like accepting, you’re not a good, you know,
Salamun: He sold his soul to the final boss. And the Rock had made him an offering. He couldn’t refuse. And, uh, come on. Storyline is there. This is a male soap operas, whatever the case may be, but yeah. So that it’s going to be the WrestleMania match with him and Cody Rhodes.
Murdoc: It’s going to be good.
Salamun: Yeah. Uh, folks, we should do our own. Yeah. If you ever wanted to do a wrestling podcast, I would go deep.
Murdoc: Would you really?
Salamun: But the problem is time.
Murdoc: time, probably can’t be mayor and do a wrestling podcast.
Salamun: It’s hard. It’s hard. Yeah. Shoot. I, I, one day, nobody wants to talk wrestling with me.
Murdoc: So when, when you have the time, that’s where we’ll punch right in. Soon as you’re like, you know, I mean, you got things to do.
Salamun: Cena turned heel, but that was nothing compared to when Hogan turned heel went to the right in W.O.
Murdoc: And that’s what they’re kind of comparing it to. And I don’t think that’s fair.
Salamun: Different eras.
Murdoc: That’s true. You can’t, that whole attitude era with Bischoff, you can’t, that’s a different.
Salamun: But you have to have narrative turns. Uh, and it’s, I think it’s fun. You know, it’s entertainment. Obviously we all know that.
Murdoc: The only podcast in America that had nine minutes on their new newspaper and again, then some wrestling before they went to commercial break.
Salamun: Yeah, we’re just not normal.
Murdoc: Oh, that made my day.
Salamun: And I’ve been pretty honest about my love of pro wrestling. So. It is what it is.
Murdoc: So let’s, okay, we’re going to hit reset. We’re going to take a break. We’re going to come back and we’ll do some, we’ll do the actual topics of the week here with Rapid City. You have a new chief of staff. We got to talk about seasonal workers. We got to talk about the National Security Force. So we’ll come back and do the heavy lifting when we punch back in. It is your meeting with the mayor.
Murdoc: Welcome back to the back half. It is this week’s meeting with the mayor. Every week we sit and meet with Mayor Jason Salamun and he’s very kind with this time. We talk about the issues of the week facing Rapid City or what we think about wrestling, depending on what we feel like talking about. But you hired a new chief of staff.
Salamun: Yeah, you know, we intern, she’s an internal person who’s been around a while. Leah Braun, a remarkable leader.
Murdoc: A talent. A real talent. You know, because I know her personally.
Salamun: A diverse background. You know, she’s been a long time in the National Guard. Once upon a time was a teacher, did a lot of business consulting, has worked for the city for several years now in a couple of different capacities. And you know, the chief of staff role, we’ve had this budgeted for a couple of years. I’ve waited to kind of fill that role as I’ve…
Murdoc: It’s something Allender considered too, I was told.
Salamun: No, it was actually it was budgeted under him. Okay. But being in his final year, he did not fill that position. And then in my first year, I really wanted to evaluate things before…
Murdoc: Know what you need to know.
Salamun: Yeah, because we’re looking at a whole reorganization right now. So this is part of several things we’re going to shift around. But, you know, Leah will help, will really be an extension of me. Will serve at my right hand, help me, you know, implement a lot of the things that we want to get done. The fact is I have so many big things I’m working on, but I’m not sure folks realize how much happens internally. It’s a, you know, the CEO of a large organization. And so not only do I have other residents and businesses and…
Murdoc: Employees.
Salamun: And we have, you know, employees and it’s a complex organization. You have… It’s not even just one thing, you know, running a fire department, for example, is one big thing. Or an airport or parks department or finance office or a library, you name it. All of these functions that we have. So we have a lot of, you know, internal challenges. So she’s really going to be big in helping me run the day to day from the mayor’s office and going to be a great asset to the city. She’s really been tremendous. She’s been in leadership role in our HR department and has done a great job there.
And I think just really knows the city already, knows, really understands where I want to go with the city internally with, in terms of culture and effectiveness and efficiency and those sorts of things and gets it. So, and so anyways, it’ll be, it’ll allow us to do more. This has, you know, been needed for a while.
We’ve had various types of roles like this in the past, but we never, you know, it’s been called different things. But Leah, it was a no brainer and I’ve gotten to work with her and see her up close and I have a lot of respect for her.
Murdoc: Knows all the players in the community. Knows good at what, Just a real organized.
Salamun: She’s earned it. Yeah. She, I think she’s going to be an atrial fit.
Murdoc: For a while I was trying to talk her into running for an hour. You gotta run for something. You gotta run for something.
Salamun: You know, people like her down the road, you never know.
Murdoc: No, it’s a great spot for this community for her. I think we’re lucky, I think
Salamun: . Actually, the community is going to be well served with her. They already have been well served, whether they’ve known her or not. But, you know, she has got a, you know, great, she understands us. She’s grown up here. She understands the city. She’s in alignment with my goals. And I think she will help us be even better, which is what it’s all about is being better.
Murdoc: You mentioned before we went on the air that there’s the deadline, not a deadline. Maybe the openings are there for seasonal workers for the parks department.
Salamun: Yeah. Well, let’s just say the summer, you know, if you’re a teenager or you’re a retired person or you don’t have work for the summer and because I know a lot of teachers and stuff, we have seasonal positions for the parks department.
Murdoc: Good wages too, Like, but money’s pretty good.
Salamun: So it’s, you know, everything from, you know, obviously taking care of the landscaping in the parks, grass, flowers, things like that to recreational activities, lifeguards, those sorts of things. We have people that do it every year. They love it, but we have to have kind of a big army every year, every summer to really get this thing going at 1700 acres of park space. So if you’re interested, you can go to our website at RCgov.org or just go to the parks department as well and visit with them about it.
We want to get those positions filled up. It’s a good, you know, it’s a good experience. You can work outside. You can. How many positions do you hire every summer?
Salamun: Well, I don’t remember that. Nothing in the hundreds. It’s in the hundreds, but I don’t remember the exact number. You know, what they go by is how many hours. So they call this an FTE count. This is a full-time equivalency. So you, but you can divide those up by part-time employees, but they’re, yeah, they’re quite a few. And by the way, people shift in the summer. So you might, someone might leave in July and you have to fill those roles too. So, but, you know, it’s always a big push for us annually. We’ve got a good start on it. I would say we’ve got good response.
Murdoc: But it’s a rad gig if you’re a teenager. You know what I mean, or a retired person. Yeah. It’s what my dad does, by the way.
Salamun: I love it.
Murdoc: You know, I know people. I was talking to awesome.
Salamun: I literally was doing a tour of the parks department maintenance shop this week and somebody was tinkering with one of the big mowers and turns out it’s a principal who guy was a principal at Meadowbrook Elementary School. Loves this. He just digs it. Yeah. He’s like, this, you know, I love doing this. He was a longtime principal and it was just cool to hear that story. I think that’s the good stuff, you know, and
Murdoc: you hear Elevate talk about that a lot, right? Like there’s, you know, the highest demographic of people moving to the, this is bigger than Rapid City. It’s a Black Hills, Western South Dakota thing, but the highest demo moving in or people that are, you know, part-time retired, full-time retired, have a lot of time to, you know, with their kids. But that’s, is that changing somewhat?
Salamun: Elevate’s got this technology now. A lot of places do where they’re able to, cell phone data tells you who’s shopping.
Murdoc: Yeah, geospatial stuff. Yeah.
Salamun: Yeah, you would get this. And it’s, and folks, I mean, it is creepy, but I mean, it’s like every retailer uses it. I mean, there’s so many or every marketing company’s using it, but they have access.
Murdoc: We do it every week.
Salamun: We’re finding out that it’s much younger than we expected.
Murdoc: Oh, that’s good, though.
Salamun: So I do think what you’re saying is true, but I think it’s not the only thing that’s true.
Murdoc: I think there is maybe not the alarm bell of need.
Salamun: Yeah, I think we’re finding out, we’re finding out that from looking at that data that that hard data is telling us a little bit different stories. It’s going to be interesting. I’ve said, well, keep track of that. Let’s see if that’s trends or if that’s just point in time.
Murdoc: That’s interesting.
Salamun: We’ll watch that. You know, we also had a couple of things. I didn’t ask you to put this down, but for starters, the council races are solidified and we have three of the five wards are contested. So those races are coming up. I’m sure we’ll talk about that in the future.
Murdoc: Rapid City Post is next week launching a Meet the Candidates.
Salamun: Well, I think that’s good. You know, get to know what their priorities are and who they are, what they want to accomplish. You know, those are big deal school boards as well. I think I haven’t heard how the candidate list is with that, but
Murdoc: Maybe don’t come in with any preconceived one way or the other. It’s going to be interesting. So I’m not naming any names. The slate of candidates I see are relatively newcomers and unknowns to the at least the political conversation in the last two years. I think that’s wonderful.
Salamun: Oh, you can get fresh voices.
Murdoc: Fresh voices. You know, maybe not someone who’s coming in with a family feud dangling behind them already. You know, it’s just.
Salamun: Yeah, you know, it’s not easy work, but it’s it’s important work. And so we appreciate anybody puts their name on the ballot. That’s for sure. But you know, there’s that’s a, you know, that’s a pretty big deal to have to have that.
Murdoc: There was some there was some talk that maybe a couple, I mean, there would only be one or two contested districts, you know, but it’s good thing. It’s not a bad thing. You know, no one has to go to war. It’s these are two different people. It’s not evil. Good. It’s not heel baby face. It’s perspective versus perspective. And here we go. Can we talk a little bit about the National Security Force? You mentioned before.
Salamun: Well, I was selected to the National Security Forum. It’s being held in May at Maxwell Air Force Base, which is where the Air War College is. I’m elsewhere at their force base nominated me.
Murdoc: Okay, that’s going to ask how do you get?
Salamun: Well, I’m not, I’m part of the honorary commander program right now. And so they have these programs around the United States. And obviously we take great pride in being one of the great American defense communities in the United States. That’s really important. Ellsworth is critical to our community. Obviously our national security above all, but also our local community and our economy. And we have a lot as everybody knows going on at Ellsworth. So I have accepted the nomination to attend the National Security Forum. It’s, you know, begun about a week learning about national defense.
Murdoc: Don’t open signal.
Salamun: No, no, no, no. Don’t get me started on that. Why are we…
Murdoc: Different show. Different show.
Salamun: Government should build its own platform. But, but anyways, the, but it’s good. And me and another local honorary commander, Bob DeWald, we’re both selected. So I think they’re going to have that.
Murdoc: Oh, that’s cool.
Salamun: Yeah. He’s going to go to and so that’ll be good. And we will have, we’ll get to meet folks from around the United States and obviously hear about a lot of things. National defense related that I think will probably recommit. See even stronger to the mission here at Ellsworth Air Force Base. And so I’m looking forward to that. I’m grateful for that opportunity. You know, meet with other civilian leaders around the United States who are passionate about national security. That’s cool. And, you know, how we can impact that here in our local communities. Yeah. So I’m glad you’re going. That’s like the 71st annual.
Murdoc: So they’ve been doing this a long time. That’s cool. Before we go to break here or go to end the show, we do, we’re getting, we’re getting all kinds of listener questions. All right. This show is taking off a little bit. This comes in from Andy. Andy is a, he does commercial. It seems to be maybe trucking and shipping. And his question, which I don’t know if it’s fair to throw right at the mayor of Rapid City because it’s a complicated question. But he said, Hey, my gas prices jumped 12% this week. What, what, what should, who can I talk to? Well, I’m paraphrasing his, his, I’m editing a little. Okay.
Salamun: Well, I understand.
Murdoc: It’s not funny. You’re right. He’s running a business.
Salamun: Let me, let me tell you, I have nothing to do with your gas prices. You probably know that. But I acknowledge that it is interesting to watch that go up seasonally. And we’ve, we’ve always had that here where it’s always been a little bit higher here than other places. Whenever you do a road trip, you very quickly find out that it’s for some reason a little higher here. I don’t know if that’s because of transportation costs. Who knows?
The first thing I would talk to the companies that are setting prices, they’ll tell you how that’s done. You know, a portion of that is of course going to be taxes. Some of that’s going to be based on the, the price of oil. Some of that’s going to be based on how much it costs to distribute to the communities. And then you just have market factors. So we would all love to see gas prices come down. I think supply and demand will help that. I think in time as we get more drilling going on domestically, that that should help according to the president. I believe him when he says it, I will cheer that on and hope that our prices continue to fall. By the way, that impacts every industry. So everything is shipped. So when you’re talking about gas prices, it impacts our direct wallets, all of us, myself included.
Murdoc: What it costs for the shirt at the mall.
Salamun: Yep. And or what you get at the, you know, home improvement store. Everything’s transportation related. So we want those gas prices to go down overall. I do think there is a seasonal adjustment that happens, you know, but that would be directly, that’s a free market thing. You have to talk to the businesses. What isn’t the free market or the taxes associated with that? But those haven’t changed.
Murdoc: And you know, just like every other business to be everybody’s lawyer in this, what hasn’t cost more? What hasn’t gone up every, you know, your employees cost more than every coffee cost more? Everything costs more.
Salamun: Yeah. But, you know, I’m hopeful that that price goes down because that really affects everybody. It does. And we all feel it. I think it’s one of those indicators.
Murdoc: It’s also a tourism. It’s less of a tourism statistical driver than people think, but it is a statistical concern people always throw out. And then when you’re, you know, and the emotion always kind of helps create the result too, right? So if you’re yipping about gas early and oh my God, the tourists aren’t going to come. That ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in a totally different way.
Salamun: Well, we just found out this week, the report came out, 3.9 million visitors come to our community each year. Thank you. That’s up from 3.8 last year. So, Andy, I feel you. I’m sorry that you have to deal with that as we all do. You know, let’s keep hoping that our energy policies get better overall as well.
Murdoc: And thanks for sending in questions. Thanks for listening and thanks for, you know, it’s a everybody’s got each other back in that sense. Well, that’s going to time us out, sir. All right. Ah, motion to adjourn?
Salamun: All right.
Murdoc: Wait, you say that?
Salamun: Wait, we got a producer here. You got to, you got to make a motion to adjourn.
Jakob: Okay, motion to adjourn.
Murdoc: Second.
Salamun: All right. We’re adjourned. Brother.
Murdoc: Brother.
