Daugaard leadership voids leave fire departments in the lurch

Prescriptive fires should have been set weeks ago but South Dakota, suffering repeated leadership lapses, now faces red flag conditions settling over the state.

Of 337 fire departments in South Dakota, 326 were all volunteer, and six were a combination of paid and volunteer, according to a 2013 demographics study conducted by the South Dakota Fire Marshal’s Office. There were just under 7,900 volunteer firefighters, as opposed to 426 paid firefighters. The volunteer force had an average age of 42.3. A review of financial reports, however, show that many departments have needs. Some think that a program similar to one offered to Minnesota’s volunteer firefighters could be a solution. But even that can’t fully compensate for the fact that people are busier with family and work lives. [Jonathan Ellis]

Joe Lowe called South Dakota's current GOP governor, Dennis Daugaard, incompetent and uninterested in governing.

Lowe obviously believed that South Dakota's governor is not taking the ecological collapse taking place on the Black Hills seriously enough.

A trustworthy or competent US Representative would call out the failures of the Daugaard regime but making South Dakota a perpetual federal disaster area is the only way Republicans know how to pay the bills.