Politics crackle at crackerbarrel

By Kevin Woster, Journal staff | Sunday, January 13, 2008

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Guns, booze, taxes and sacred land were among the issues discussed by Rapid City area legislators Saturday morning during the first of four legislative crackerbarrels at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

The first two-hour session of the popular crackerbarrel series attracted an audience of more than 150 people and a collection of diverse and sometimes spirited questions and comments.

“Nobody can accuse the city of Rapid City of apathy,” moderator Eileen Fleishacker said.

There was no sign of that flattened emotion, either in the audience or on the panel of legislators. Rep. Jeff Haverly, R-Rapid City, snapped back when Sen. Tom Katus, D-Rapid City, seemed to that Haverly wasn’t serious enough about a proposal by Gov. Mike Rounds to protect land around Bear Butte from development.

“All kidding aside, Senator Katus, don’t make judgments on me,” Haverly said. “I won’t put up with it.”

Katus didn’t respond specifically to that. But he urged Haverly and other legislators to seriously consider the governor’s proposal, which would match $250,000 in state money with federal and private contributions to buy conservation easements on private land near Bear Butte, a looming rock mountain near Sturgis. It is considered sacred by Native Americans, many of whom travel there for religious ceremonies.

“This is a spiritual land that’s just as important to Native American people as the Vatican is to Catholics,” Katus said. “Can’t we please just reach out a little to our brothers and sisters? Can’t we respect their values?”

Meade County Commissioner Dayle Hammock urged legislators to oppose the easement plan, saying it could lower the value of land involved, wrongly use state tax dollars to restrict private property and improperly show government favoritism toward Native American religion.

“The history of activity at Bear Butte has been related to a specific religion,” he said.

When asked by Hammock what legislators could do to stop the governor’s easement plan, Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City, said: “We’ll delete it from the budget.”

Speaking on another issue – a bill to increase the wholesale tax on alcoholic beverages – Hammock said the negative effect of alcohol abuse was “one of the core problems that the counties are dealing with.”

SB61 would increase the tax on a gallon of beer by $1.08, a gallon of wine by $2.56 and a gallon of most other alcoholic beverages by $8.54. More than 60 percent of the estimated $35 million that would be generated by the increase would go to counties, 15 percent to municipalities and the remainder to a variety of treatment, law-enforcement and assistance programs.

Republican Reps. Mark Kirkeby and Don Van Etten, both of Rapid City, are the House sponsors of the bill. They said the bill would make the alcohol industry pay more to help cover the many problems related to alcohol abuse.

“I’ve had a philosophy that anything that causes a problem should help pay for it,” Van Etten said.

Kirkeby, who admitted the bill had a slim chance of approval, said its added per-drink cost would be unlikely to affect consumption.

“This bill will ask – no, it will demand – that your Bud Light will cost another 10 cents,” he said. “I don’t see this curtailing business.”

Legislators who spoke on another bill, however, did see that piece of legislation as curtailing the rights of gun owners. HB1086 would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for anyone except law-enforcement officers to possess a firearm or air gun on college campuses. It would allow post-secondary institutions to maintain storage facilities for weapons.

The bill was introduced by the House Education Committee on behalf of the South Dakota Board of Regents. Nancy First of Rapid City told lawmakers that disarming people on campus would not make them safer.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” she said.

Rep. Mike Buckingham, R-Rapid City, said HB1086 was “the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen.” And Sen. Dennis Schmidt, R-Rapid City, a former police officer, said gun laws like HB1086 were aimed at the wrong people.

“Why don’t we take the guns away from the crooks?” he said.

Rep. Gordon Howie, R-Rapid City, made a pitch for his bill to cut property taxes across the state and replace the lost revenue through a 2-cent increase in the state sales tax, which is currently 4 cents on the dollar.

Howie said that, despite past efforts at property tax relief, the burden continues to get worse. He said the 2-cent hike would raise $300 million and provide a 35-percent reduction in property taxes.

Howie said it doesn’t take a tax-law genius to see the current tax system is unfair to property owners.

“I’m smart enough to know that South Dakotans are paying too much in real estate taxes,” he said. “It’s time to give property owners in this state a break.”

Skeptics gave the bill little chance of survival, however, in part because it failed to address inequities in escalating property tax assessments. Napoli said without a freeze on assessments, property taxes will continue to rise.

Rapid Valley resident Jim Galvin agreed, saying simply adding two cents to the sales tax didn’t do anything about the lack of fairness in the property tax system. Galvin said he expects his property tax assessments to skyrocket with new housing developments come in around him.

“Then my property taxes will go through the roof,” he said.

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com