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Ward 4 candidates want better jobs, street repairs
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FarkRAPID CITY -- Three challengers will face a longtime incumbent on June 5 for the right to represent Ward 4 on the Rapid City Council.
Five-term Alderman Ron Kroeger is being challenged by Lori Hadley, wife of former Ward 4 council member Ray Hadley; Joseph Budd, a “domestic engineer”; and Ida Fast Wolf, a member of the city planning commission.
Ward 4 generally includes all of North Rapid City.
Joseph Budd
Budd, 33, describes himself as a domestic engineer, shorthand for a stay-at-home dad, who believes that the average person needs representation.
“I think a lot of people are dissatisfied with the way things are going,” he said.
A graduate of Central High School, Budd attended Black Hills State University for a year and now sells sports cards and other sports-related items on eBay. He and his wife, Sue, have two children ages 5 and 2.
Budd said he has always enjoyed politics and decided to run for the council after watching conditions in North Rapid continue to deteriorate.
“We’ve got some roads that look like patchwork quilts. It’s an asphalt jungle,” he said. “At the same time it seems the policy that has been adopted is a whitewash. We like to make the outer parts of Rapid real pretty while the interior is falling apart. I believe the average person is pretty much fed up with the way things are going.”
Budd said the city can do more to attract higher-paying, high-tech jobs rather than additional minimum-wage jobs, which would help keep bright college graduates here.
“We have one of the best tech schools with the School of Mines. We could almost turn this town into Silicon Valley with the geniuses we have coming out,” he said.
Now, those students are leaving, Budd said. He believes growth is stagnant at the moment because of a lack of jobs. “We need to find a way to bring industries to town,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of population increases but we don’t have the jobs to keep those people employed. People get out here and then in six months they wonder where am I supposed to work?”
Budd describes himself as a realist. He doesn’t think it should take $50,000 to fix a $5 problem, and doesn’t think the city should spend $22 million to update the civic center when it’s already operating fine.
“The 2012 has its place but a lot of its funding is going into the wrong locations. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a lot of funding that has gone into the North Rapid area,” he said.
Budd said he can relate to a broad spectrum of people and would provide the average person’s perspective if elected to the city council.
“I think the big thing with this election is basically it’s going to be a class war, because you have the minimum-wage people who probably comprise 70 or 80 percent of North Rapid versus a pocket of rich retireds, real estate agents and business owners,” he said. “In a way it’s been brewing for a long time.”
Budd said he could provide a realistic picture to the council of North Rapid’s needs.
“We have a lot of people willing to work but we don’t have the jobs that these people can excel at,” he said. “If North Rapid can turn the corner, I think it will be a morale boost for the rest of the city, both economically and viability.”
Ida Fast Wolf
Fast Wolf, 50, is a member of the city planning commission and has lived in North Rapid since 1990. She and her husband, William Bender, have four sons and a granddaughter.
Fast Wolf graduated from Ogalala Lakota College with a bachelor’s degree in human services and recently received certification to teach elementary education.
Fast Wolf said she is not afraid to speak her mind, is responsive to the people and brings an average person’s perspective to city government.
“I think we need to listen to the community more. We really have to take to heart what they say,” she said.
Affordable housing and street repair are key issues for Fast Wolf.
“I think the gap is getting wider and wider for low-income people to own their own home, or even rent. It’s really high. And what you have to pay does not match wages,” she said. “North Rapid is getting a lot of new developments now. Some were started as low to moderate income, then later find out they cost $200,000. That’s not real affordable housing.”
Deteriorating streets have been a constant problem in North Rapid, and Fast Wolf doesn’t know why Ward 4 seems to get forgotten.
“I don’t know what the bottleneck is but I would definitely be saying a lot about that,” she said. “I think North Rapid gets a bad rap, and I don’t think it’s justified. You have good people there who have lived there for years and love it. I think I could change the perception.”
While Ward 4 is also experiencing growth, Fast Wolf said it seems growth has become more important than taking care of the community.
“Economic development is only as good as the people in your community. If you can’t meet the basic living needs of your community that gap gets wider,” she said. “Then you have more homeless people, more people away from their families working two jobs. If they would fix the wages to match growth, that would help.”
Fast Wolf was a member of the 2012 civic improvements committee, one of three citizens’ committees that reviewed 2012 projects and made recommendations to the council for the current plan.
“We all compromised and put things in priority. I think along the way the city council kind of deviated from that,” she said. “Other agendas came up and through whatever means, they justified changing direction. I don’t think they totally lost it, but they did deviate from the original recommendations.”
The civic center expansion was the biggest deviation. Fast Wolf said she agrees with the expansion but would not have voted for adding more to the original proposal, especially the skyboxes because they serve a select few who can afford to rent them.
Fast Wolf also feels strongly about the city taking a more active role in recruiting American Indians to participate in city government. Fast Wolf got involved with the planning commission after being recruited by former mayor Jerry Munson.
“There’s a big division here between the native community and city government. Some of it I think is justified, a lot of it I think is justified,” she said. “But I think I can open some doors for Indian people to see they are a member of this community. You have a voice in this but you need to take initiative. We need to do that.”
Lori Hadley
Hadley, 41, is the wife of former council member Ray Hadley but says he had no influence on her decision to run.
“I might not win every vote, I might not convince 10 people to go this way, but if I can educate five or six of them along the way I’ve done good,” she said. “It’s good to make somebody understand that just because there’s money there you don’t have to spend it.”
Hadley, a fulltime student at National American University studying accounting, financial management and computer technology, said she has been appalled at the way the city council and mayor have handled taxpayer money on things such as the civic center expansion.
“I just think it’s been outrageous,” she said.
Hadley said the civic center expansion was needed, but the way the council proceeded was wrong.
“I don’t think you should ever make a decision in haste. If you’re way over bid, why are you way over bid? Back up and see why. I think they made a hasty decision,” she said.
Overall, Hadley said 2012 funds have been mismanaged by not using them the way the program originally intended. She thinks the program’s vision has been lost and needs to be refocused so people don’t become completely disillusioned with it.
“I don’t have a specific thing right now of what I think it should be used for because there’s a lot of needs out there for 2012. I think we should encourage people to apply for it and make an educated decision,” she said.
Financial responsibility is a huge issue for Hadley. She said anybody elected should take a financial management class to learn how to make a budget, read a budget and stay within a budget.
“I would like to see us plan a budget, stay within a budget and use our reserve funds and 2012 funds the way they’re meant to be. I think the city council needs to be educated,” she said. “I think they spend taxpayer money unwisely.”
Hadley said she has the knowledge and desire to take city government back from the bureaucrats and give it to constituents. She said it’s time to reassess priorities and make decisions that will benefit the city to the fullest, now and into the future.
Hadley said she favors growth and development, but she would like to attract more jobs that bring more people to the city.
Infrastructure maintenance and repair is another area Hadley said the city is not doing enough to address. She said Lemmon Avenue is just now being addressed, and it was one of the things her husband pushed hard to get fixed.
“That’s frustrating because that road has been bad for over 15 years.”
Hadley said she would base decisions on what constituents want, not her personal opinion. She also said she can work with other council members even if she disagrees with them.
“I think I can work in any kind of environment. You can’t tell me that everybody on the city council has tea and dinner together every night,” she said. “My job is not to make you my best friend; my job is to do what’s important for Ward 4. My job is to educate you why it’s important for Ward 4.”
Ron Kroeger
As a five-term councilman, Kroeger, 58, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Lewis-Kirkeby-Hall, said he provides an experienced, positive voice on the council.
“The issue important to me, number one, is continuing growth of Rapid City and creating more jobs for the community, hopefully higher paying jobs,” he said. “With new jobs and growth, hopefully that will bring greater financial stability to the community and a greater quality of life for everyone.”
Some people want the city to recruit more manufacturing businesses, but Kroeger said from what he’s read, those types of jobs are decreasing nationwide, and service-type jobs are increasing. Realistically, he said, it would be tough for the city to gain more manufacturing.
That’s why the city has been working on bringing more high-tech jobs to the community and has been working with the state to try to promote the area as a good spot for a high-tech corridor, he said.
“I think it will happen. As the city continues to grow and the amenities that people want are here, we’re more likely to foster that type of development,” Kroeger said.
Infrastructure is always a challenge. Kroeger said public works provided a cost estimate several years ago of around $500 million to repair all the streets in Rapid City, a number that is probably closer to $750 million today.
Ward 4 faces unique challenges, Kroeger said. It’s an area of predominantly older homes, yet it’s starting to see a lot of new homes built. It’s also an area of businesses that creates a majority of the tax revenue for the community, yet it has areas of decaying infrastructure.
“It’s a struggle I think every community has. All we can continue to do is try to increase the growth of Rapid City to increase our sales tax revenue so we can put more back into our older streets and water and sewer,” he said.
Regarding the controversy over the civic center expansion, Kroeger said he is not happy about how things evolved and in hindsight he would not have bid the project in phases.
“That’s been a discussion for a number of years that that’s the way it’s done in a lot of places. Unfortunately, the first time we do it, we get bit. So in hindsight that’s not something I’d ever do again.”
Kroeger said this election year has seen a lot of negative comments about the city’s problems, but he thinks people should take a step back and look at the good things that have been accomplished.
“I really believe Rapid City today and the people of Rapid City are in far better shape than they were 15 years ago,” he said. “I believe I’ve worked hard for the residents of my ward. I’ve lived there for 48 years and I think highly of it. I’d like to continue to represent them.”
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