SOUTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY WARNS OF SCAM TEXT MESSAGES OVER UNPAID TICKETS

PIERRE, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The South Dakota Department of Public Safety is warning residents about a scam text message campaign circulating across the state that falsely claims recipients owe traffic ticket fines and face legal action if they do not pay immediately.

The Department of Public Safety said these messages are not legitimate. The State of South Dakota does not send traffic ticket notices via text messages.

The fraudulent messages appear to come from the “South Dakota Department of Vehicles (DMV)” and include threatening language such as:

“South Dakota Department of Vehicles (DMV) Final Notice: Enforcement Penalties Begin on June 10. Our records show that as of today, you still have an outstanding traffic ticket. Please pay immediately before enforcement to avoid license suspension and further legal disputes.”

The Department of Public Safety said those who receive these text messages should not open any links or attachments, respond to the texts, send any payments, or provide any personal or financial information.

People can verify their ticket stats through official channels only, such as the South Dakota Unified Judicial System (UJS), or by contacting their local Clerk of Courts office.

If you receive a suspicious message, report it to the South Dakota Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-300-1986 or consumerhelp@state.sd.us.

Residents are urged to remain cautious and help spread the word, especially to those who may be less familiar with digital scams.

 

PUBLIC HEALTH NOTICE: MEASLES EXPOSURE POSSIBLE AT RAPID CITY LOCATIONS

PIERRE, SD – The South Dakota Department of Health is notifying the public of potential measles exposure at two locations in Pennington County. The individual, who is South Dakota’s second confirmed measles case, visited public places while infectious.

Any person visiting the locations at the times listed below might have been exposed to measles and are advised to self-monitor for symptoms of measles for 21 days after the exposure date. Individuals who are not immune to measles should contact their healthcare provider to discuss protective options, including vaccination or immune globulin, depending on eligibility and timing.

• Sam’s Club (925 Eglin St, Rapid City, SD) June 1, 2025, from 12 pm to 6 pm MT
• Dakota Premier Medical Clinic (2006 Mt Rushmore Rd, Rapid City, SD) June 2, 2025, from 11:15 am to 3:45 pm MT

Measles symptoms appear in two stages. In the first stage, the individual may have a runny nose, cough, and a slight fever. The eyes may become reddened and sensitive to light while the fever consistently rises each day. The second stage begins on the third to seventh day of symptoms and consists of a temperature of 103-105°F, and a red blotchy rash lasting for four to seven days. The rash usually begins on the face and then spreads down to the trunk and out to the arms and legs.

“We are sharing this information to help individuals who may have been exposed take steps to protect their health,” said Dr. Joshua Clayton, state epidemiologist. “Any South Dakotan who lack immunity from vaccination or past infection can get the MMR vaccine to prevent measles infection and its complications.”

The measles vaccine offers the best protection against infection and avoids the risks that come with infection. The following people are considered immune to measles:

• Born before 1957;
• Received 1 dose of measles vaccine (MMR) for an adult or a child 12 months to pre-school age;
• Received 2 doses of measles vaccine (MMR) for a school-aged child or an adult at higher risk of infection;
• Presence of measles antibodies shown by a lab test; and
• Previous measles infection shown by a lab test.

Measles vaccine (MMR) is typically given at 12-15 months of age. The second dose of MMR is given at 4-6 years of age. The vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing measles infection, and two MMR doses usually produce lifelong immunity. If you are planning to travel internationally with children, MMR vaccines can be given to children starting at six months of age.

Learn more about measles on the Department of Health website where information can be found in the form of fact sheets, frequently asked questions, and a webinar for healthcare providers.

At the heart of the Department of Health’s mission is a simple goal: to protect and improve the health of all South Dakotans. The department is entrusted with the vital task of promoting wellness, preventing disease, and ensuring access to quality healthcare for all South Dakotans.

 

SOUTH DAKOTA IS ON TRACK TO SPEND $2 BILLION ON PRISONS IN THE NEXT DECADE

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Two years after approving a tough-on-crime sentencing law, South Dakota is scrambling to deal with the price tag for that legislation: Housing thousands of additional inmates could require up to $2 billion to build new prisons in the next decade.

That’s a lot of money for a state with one of the lowest populations in the U.S., but a consultant said it’s needed to keep pace with an anticipated 34% surge of new inmates in the next decade as a result of South Dakota’s tough criminal justice laws. And while officials are grumbling about the cost, they don’t seem concerned with the laws that are driving the need even as national crime rates are dropping.

“Crime has been falling everywhere in the country, with historic drops in crime in the last year or two,” said Bob Libal, senior campaign strategist at the criminal justice nonprofit The Sentencing Project. “It’s a particularly unusual time to be investing $2 billion in prisons.”

Some Democratic-led states have worked to close prisons and enact changes to lower inmate populations, but that’s a tough sell in Republican-majority states such as South Dakota that believe in a tough-on-crime approach, even if that leads to more inmates.

The South Dakota State Penitentiary

For now, state lawmakers have set aside a $600 million fund to replace the overcrowded 144-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, making it one of the most expensive taxpayer-funded projects in South Dakota history.

But South Dakota will likely need more prisons. Phoenix-based Arrington Watkins Architects, which the state hired as a consultant, has said South Dakota will need 3,300 additional beds in coming years, bringing the cost to $2 billion.

Driving up costs is the need for facilities with different security levels to accommodate the inmate population.

Concerns about South Dakota’s prisons first arose four years ago, when the state was flush with COVID-19 relief funds. Lawmakers wanted to replace the penitentiary, but they couldn’t agree on where to put the prison and how big it should be.

A task force of state lawmakers assembled by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is expected to decide that in a plan for prison facilities this July. Many lawmakers have questioned the proposed cost, but few have called for criminal justice changes that would make such a large prison unnecessary.

“One thing I’m trying to do as the chairman of this task force is keep us very focused on our mission,” said Lieutenant Gov. Tony Venhuizen. “There are people who want to talk about policies in the prisons or the administration or the criminal justice system more broadly, and that would be a much larger project than the fairly narrow scope that we have.”

South Dakota’s laws mean more people are in prison

South Dakota’s incarceration rate of 370 per 100,000 people is an outlier in the Upper Midwest. Neighbors Minnesota and North Dakota have rates of under 250 per 100,000 people, according to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy nonprofit.

Nearly half of South Dakota’s projected inmate population growth can be attributed to a law approved in 2023 that requires some violent offenders to serve the full-length of their sentences before parole, according to a report by Arrington Watkins.

When South Dakota inmates are paroled, about 40% are ordered to return to prison, the majority of those due to technical violations such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting with a parole officer. Those returning inmates made up nearly half of prison admissions in 2024.

Sioux Falls criminal justice attorney Ryan Kolbeck blamed the high number of parolees returning in part on the lack of services in prison for people with drug addictions.

“People are being sent to the penitentiary but there’s no programs there for them. There’s no way it’s going to help them become better people,” he said. “Essentially we’re going to put them out there and house them for a little bit, leave them on parole and expect them to do well.”

South Dakota also has the second-greatest disparity of Native Americans in its prisons. While Native Americans make up one-tenth of South Dakota’s population, they make up 35% of those in state prisons, according to Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit public policy group.

Though legislators in the state capital, Pierre, have been talking about prison overcrowding for years, they’re reluctant to dial back on tough-on-crime laws. For example, it took repeated efforts over six years before South Dakota reduced a controlled substance ingestion law to a misdemeanor from a felony for the first offense, aligning with all other states.

“It was a huge, Herculean task to get ingestion to be a misdemeanor,” Kolbeck said.

Former penitentiary warden Darin Young said the state needs to upgrade its prisons, but he also thinks it should spend up to $300 million on addiction and mental illness treatment.

“Until we fix the reasons why people come to prison and address that issue, the numbers are not going to stop,” he said.

Without policy changes, the new prisons are sure to fill up, criminal justice experts agreed.

“We might be good for a few years, now that we’ve got more capacity, but in a couple years it’ll be full again,” Kolbeck said. “Under our policies, you’re going to reach capacity again soon.”

 

APPELLATE COURT UPHOLDS DECISIONS FAVORING SUMMIT CARBON SOLUTIONS OVER COUNTY PIPELINE ORDINANCES

OMAHA, NE (IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH) – A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld lower court decisions barring counties from imposing safety standards on a pipeline subject to federal safety standards.

The cases involved Summit Carbon Solutions, the company proposing to build a carbon sequestration pipeline through the state, and county supervisors from both Story and Shelby Counties.

Summit sued the counties in 2022 for enacting ordinances that required county-specific setback requirements and other regulations the company argued were preempted by federal pipeline safety laws.

A federal judge ruled in favor of Summit in Dec. 2023 and issued permanent injunctions, stopping the counties from enforcing the regulations, which would have impacted the carbon sequestration pipeline and other pipelines.

The county supervisors appealed the decision and presented oral arguments in November 2024 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The counties argued that local land use and zoning regulations are not “preempted standards” under the Pipeline Safety Act.

Writing for the appeals court, U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton wrote that the county ordinances “focus” on safety and “repeatedly” mention safety risks associated with the pipeline, which “undermines” the Pipeline Safety Act’s goal of preempting state regulations on safety.

“This holding does not prohibit local governments from considering safety, nor prevent them from enacting all zoning ordinances, as the counties suggest,” Benton said in the opinion. “This court emphasizes the distinction between safety standards — which the PSA preempts — and safety considerations — which the PSA does not preempt.”

The county ordinances also included emergency response requirements and abandonment provisions which the court ruled were also preempted by federal regulations.

Circuit Judge Jane Kelly, however, dissented on those elements and wrote she does not believe that PSA preempts setback and abandonment provisions. Kelly said that while the counties’ setback requirements are “animated in part by safety considerations” they do not have the “direct and substantial” effect on safety that is reserved for federal regulation.

Kelly also wrote that per her understanding, the Pipeline Safety Act “does not cover pipelines that have been abandoned” and therefore the Shelby County abandonment provision is not “expressly preempted.”

The court affirmed the lower court’s decision in both cases, but ordered the federal court for the Southern District of Iowa to reconsider an additional ordinance that’s at issue in the Story County case.

Sabrina Zenor, on behalf of Summit Carbon Solutions, said the ruling “confirms” pipeline safety regulation set by the federal government and the Iowa Utilities Commission’s role in route and permit decisions.

“This supports a consistent, lawful permitting process for critical infrastructure projects like ours,” Zenor said in a statement.

A press release from Bold Alliance, a group representing landowners opposed to the pipeline project, called the order an “anti-local government ruling” and said the parties involved in the case are examining their “legal and legislative options” in response to the decision.

“The landowners, impacted community members, county and state elected officials who worked for months or years to develop ordinances and state regulations are witnessing their hard-won efforts to enact common sense protections for their communities stripped away by judicial fiat,” the statement read.