FIRST THUNDER FIRE CONTINUES TO BURN NEAR RAPID CITY
RAPID CITY, S.D. (Seth Tupper / South Dakota Searchlight) – Authorities are advising some residents on the western edge of Rapid City to be ready for a potential evacuation order as a wildfire burns nearby.
A pre-evacuation notice was in effect Tuesday morning.
“We’re not evacuating anybody right now,” said Lt. Jason Mitzel of the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. “However, I would urge the public that lives in the vicinity to be prepared, and get documents, medications and animals ready to go, just in case the wind switches and the fire does expand.”
Mitzel said some of the areas of concern include neighborhoods along Sheridan Lake Road from Norseman Lane to Victoria Lake Road, as well as the Red Rock, Dark Canyon, Falling Rock and Hisega residential areas. By Tuesday morning, authorities had closed Norseman Lane and Victoria Lake Road from Sheridan Lake Road to Taylor Ranch Road, and additional closures were under consideration.
Mitzel urged the public to stay out of the affected area to avoid endangering themselves and fire crews.
If evacuations are ordered, Mitzel said the information will be shared with local media and posted to social media accounts managed by the sheriff’s office. He said authorities would also make efforts to go door-to-door in affected areas. The fairgrounds in Rapid City has been made available for livestock displaced by the blaze.
The wildfire, named the First Thunder Fire, was reported at 6:15 p.m. Mountain time on Monday. The cause is under investigation, and there are no damages to structures or injuries reported so far.
About 150 acres (roughly one-fourth of a square mile) had burned as of Tuesday morning. The location is several miles west of Rapid City in a forested, rocky area cut by deep canyons. Land in the area is a mixture of private ownership and the Black Hills National Forest.
To establish a containment perimeter, firefighters are digging earthen lines by hand and by bulldozer, utilizing logging roads and physical features that could help halt the fire’s advance, and applying fire retardant chemicals. But authorities said containment Tuesday morning stood at 0%.
An estimated 75-100 people were involved in the response as of Tuesday morning, including firefighters from local, state and federal agencies. The response also included two helicopters, four air tanker planes and multiple fire trucks.
The temperature in Rapid City was expected to rise above 95 degrees Tuesday, and the forest at the city’s edge is in a dry condition, said Brandon Sanchez, the incident commander for the U.S. Forest Service.
“The warm weather, for how late it is in the season, is really alarming for us as we try to get containment around the fire,” Sanchez said. “Hopefully the weather does cool down and we get higher humidity at night.”
ABORTION LAWSUIT SET FOR TRIAL BUT NOT BEFORE VOTING BEGINS ON AMENDMENT G
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (John Hult / South Dakota Searchlight) – A lawsuit against South Dakota’s abortion-rights ballot question won’t end before voting begins, according to rulings issued Tuesday.
A Minnehaha County judge declined to dismiss the litigation, with a trial set to begin Sept. 23, three days after early voting starts.
The abortion rights measure, Amendment G, will be on the Nov. 5 general election ballot regardless of the outcome. That’s because the case wasn’t decided by Aug. 13, the deadline to certify copies of all ballot questions to county auditors. By then, South Dakota Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office had reviewed petition signatures for Amendment G and certified it for inclusion on the ballot.
The seven-day trial in the lawsuit, which challenges the validity of those petition signatures, could affirm the measure’s place on the ballot or invalidate it. An invalidation of the measure would negate the votes cast for and against it.
Life Defense Fund, an anti-abortion organization led by Leslee Unruh and Dell Rapids Republican Rep. Jon Hansen, sued the amendment’s sponsor Dakotans for Health in June, saying the group ran afoul of several provisions of state law on petitions.
Dakotans for Health had hoped to see Judge John Pekas toss the case a second time after the South Dakota Supreme Court overturned his initial dismissal of the lawsuit.
Dakotans for Health: Lawsuit aims to interfere with rights of voters
Dakotans for Health lawyer James Leach, of Rapid City, argued Tuesday morning that a trial on a ballot measure this close to the election amounts to election interference and has the potential to damage voter confidence in an era when some citizens are already convinced that the system is corrupt.
Courts, he said, “should not contribute to that perception.”
“They’re asking for something I hope makes a little shudder run through you, which is to declare that the ballot measure is invalid, and that no one’s vote should count,” Leach said.
The trial is set to begin Sept. 23. That would not leave enough time for his side to appeal a loss to the state Supreme Court before ballots are cast, which he said would leave South Dakotans in the lurch as to whether their votes would count.
He also said there’s no precedent for such a ruling so close to an election. No local court in the country has ever invalidated a ballot measure after ballots have been printed, he claimed.
In court filings, Life Defense Fund cited several cases on ballot question challenges, including one in which the Hawaii Supreme Court upended a ballot question a few weeks before an election. But Leach said that situation is different, in that the supreme court in Hawaii made the final ruling.
Here, Leach said, there would be an opportunity to appeal to the South Dakota Supreme Court, but it’s unrealistic to expect the high court would be able to offer a ruling by Nov. 5 that would give voters confidence in the validity of their vote on abortion.
Life Defense Fund: Challenge proper to protect integrity of ballot initiatives
Sarah Frankenstein, however, who represents Life Defense Fund, said there is plenty of precedent on ballot question challenges, including from the South Dakota Supreme Court. In 2021, after the 2020 election, the justices overturned a voter-backed constitutional amendment legalizing both recreational and medical marijuana because, they decided, it ran counter to a constitutional amendment restricting ballot measures to a single issue.
Medical marijuana is legal in South Dakota thanks to a separate ballot initiative that also passed in 2020.
In the pot case, Frankenstein argued, the Supreme Court noted that ballot question challenges could come either before or after an election, even as its ruling on the cannabis issue came after the election.
Frankenstein accused Dakotans for Health of engaging in “gamesmanship” by attempting to block the release of evidence and repeatedly arguing for dismissal.
“They want to run out the clock so they can say, ‘Now it’s too close to the election, we can’t do anything,’” Frankenstein said.
With regard to election integrity and voter confidence, Frankenstein said Dakotans For Health is standing in the way by preventing Life Defense Fund from challenging the validity of signatures.
If laws are violated to get an amendment on the ballot, she argued, the courts have a responsibility to step in.
“The Supreme Court in our state and in other states have ruled that the courts can weigh in on elections,” Frankenstein said.
Judge: Case can proceed
Pekas said he needed to focus on the motions at hand, in spite of the weighty rhetoric on democracy. Listening to Leach, he said, made him feel like Atlas with the world on his shoulders, “as though the election will go spinning into the ether” if he doesn’t toss the case.
He denied the motion to dismiss, noting that the state Supreme Court had returned the case with the intention of creating a record after his earlier dismissal, which did not consider the merits of the arguments.
Pekas also ordered that some of the petitioners Life Defense Fund is deposing in the case produce emails from Dakotans for Health outlining their training. But he ruled in favor of Dakotans for Health on the issue of text messages. Life Defense Fund had requested all text communications between the petitioners and Dakotans For Health since Jan. 1, 2022.
Leach argued that the text records amount to a “classic fishing expedition” and said there would be First Amendment implications.
Pekas didn’t rule on the First Amendment arguments, but did agree to block the text message request.
“I believe that would be overly burdensome,” Pekas said.
3 SHOOTING INCIDENTS IN SIOUX FALLS OVER LABOR DAY WEEKEND
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – The Sioux Falls Police Department is actively investigating a series of shootings that took place from Labor Day weekend through Tuesday.
West Tanager Place Mobile Home Shooting The first incident occurred early Saturday morning on the 6000 block of West Tanager Place. A mobile home was struck by approximately 16 gunshots while a man and two children were inside. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the residents have no knowledge of who might have targeted them.
West 12th Street Shooting On Monday at around 11:30 p.m., another shooting took place on the 800 block of West 12th Street. A man was meeting someone to give them a ride when he encountered a stranger. As the man approached the area of 12th and Walts Ave, the unknown individual approached him, drew a gun, and opened fire as the driver attempted to flee. The vehicle was hit multiple times, but the driver escaped uninjured.
Duluth Avenue Apartment Shooting Just a few hours later, at approximately 2:15 a.m. on Tuesday, another shooting occurred less than a mile away on the 400 block of N. Duluth Avenue. An apartment building was struck by five bullets, with the shots penetrating several apartments. Thankfully, no one was harmed in this incident.
In addition, police are investigating a separate case where a man arrived at a Sioux Falls hospital with a gunshot wound to his arm on Sunday.
Authorities have yet to determine if these incidents are connected and are urging anyone with information or surveillance footage to contact the Sioux Falls Police Department or Crime Stoppers.
FBI INVESTIGATING OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING WITH YANKTON TRIBAL POLICE IN WAGNER, SD
WAGNER, S.D. – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the July shooting death of a 61-year-old man near his apartment in Wagner.
Charles “Chuck” World Turner was shot and killed by a Yankton Sioux Tribal (YST) police officer on July 9. Though the circumstances that surround the shooting are still unclear — local and national law enforcement entities declined to release details related to what happened — sources familiar with the incident who spoke with The Dakota Scout allege that World Turner was walking towards a YST lawman with at least one knife. The officer responded by shooting World Turner multiple times, killing him.
The confrontation happened near World Turner’s home, in south Wagner. Wagner, the largest city by population in Charles Mix County, is a part of the Yankton Sioux Reservation. The officer involved in the shooting has not been publicly identified by investigators.
“We are aware of the situation and investigating,” a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Minneapolis field office said in a statement to The Scout. “As the investigation is ongoing, I have no further information to share at this time.”
The FBI confirmed again on Aug. 30 that the investigation had not come to a conclusion. The Yankton Sioux Tribal Police Department declined to comment on the incident.
The Yankton Press & Dakotan first reported on social media posts by the Wagner Police Department the morning of World Turner’s death, warning residents of a multi-agency response.
An obituary posted online described World Turner as “an animal enthusiast, particularly with a fondness for horses.” He partook in the Dakota 38+2 rides four separate times, an event where horseback riders travel from the Lower Brule Indian reservation to Mankato, Minnesota to promote reconciliation between Native Americans and non-Natives. He left behind two daughters and a son.
IOWA LT. GOVERNOR ADAM GREGG RESIGNS
DES MOINES, IA – Iowa Lt Governor Adam Gregg announced Tuesday that he was resigning immediately.
Shortly afterwards, the Iowa Bankers Association confirmed that Gregg will take over as the group’s new president and CEO.
Political insiders are saying that the main reasons for the surprise resignation may be time and money.
Time could be a factor in two different ways. Gregg and his wife, Cari, have two children. In his resignation announcement from the position that he has held since 2017 Gregg cited the desire to have more time for his family.
The Lt. Governor regularly held public events across the state that were not announced on a public schedule released by the governor’s office.
By stepping aside as lieutenant governor, Gregg could also substantially increase his family’s income in his new position at the Iowa Bankers Association.
Gregg made $103,000 as lieutenant governor. The outgoing leader of the Iowa Bankers Association made more than six times that in total compensation, according to the most recent tax filings.
Meanwhile, Governor Reynolds can select a new lieutenant governor and pick the person she wants to succeed her in office.
With no one serving as lieutenant governor right now, the president of the senate would be next in line to serve if Reynolds is not able to serve.
Amy Sinclair, of Allerton, became senate president in 2022.
