Rapid City Future Fund recipients panicking about tribal boycott

Jim and Mary Scull are Future Fund recipients; also, they have given at least $3000 to help reelect South Dakota's current GOP governor.

While the contributions from Future Funds recipients are permissible, they were the subject of concern in a bill proposed by Rep. Bernie Hunhoff, D-Yankton, during the current legislative session. “If Blagojevich had been governor of South Dakota, he’d still be in office," he said. [Pierre Capital Journal]

J. Scull Construction Services has enjoyed years of tribal contracts.

According to an anonymous source, Oglala Sioux Tribal officials are asking the tribal schools that normally have functions and events in Rapid City, South Dakota to boycott the city. These actions come in the aftermath of the racial incident last month involving the spraying of beer and racial slurs delivered towards 57 students from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation who attended a Rush hockey game. [Levi Rickert]

Now the Sculls and other Republican Future Fund pay-to-players (pdf) want to head off a boycott by bribing Oglala Lakota County Schools.

The list of donors includes: Scull Construction Service; Regional Health; Black Hills Power; Black Hills Community Bank; Action Mechanical; Black Hills Harley-Davidson; Pete Lien & Sons; Security First Bank; Heil Mechanical; Dave Schmidt Insurance; R.C.S. Construction; Rushmore Plaza Holiday Inn.

As well as: Site Work Specialists; Northwest Pipe; Black Hills Surgical Hospital; Pat Wyss and Associates; Sequoia Engineering and Environmental; Tom and Mary Helland; RPM & Associates; Watiki Water Park; Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce; Rapid City Convention and Visitors Bureau; and Black Hills Orthopedics.

Former US Senator Tim Johnson is still delivering for tribal nations trapped in South Dakota.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack have pledged Pine Ridge as one of eight new "Promise Zones:"

Promise Zones are high-poverty communities in which the federal government partners with local leaders to increase economic activity, improve educational opportunities, leverage private investment, reduce violent crime, enhance public health and address other priorities identified by the community, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. [Rapid City Journal]

Castro is considered a possible Clinton running mate and is attending veep school.

Jim Kent brings this news from South Dakota Public Broadcasting:

As federal checks of substantial amounts are sent out to tribal members across the country, banking institutions and local banks are preparing for their impact. Some 4,000 fractionated tracts of land on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation alone have the potential to deliver $69 million into the pockets of 8,000 tribal members. [excerpt, Kent]

The Lakota People's Law Project is seeking funding for foster families and homes after SD Department of Social Services employees in Rapid City committed abuses of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The state seizes about 750 American Indian kids every year reaping nearly a billion federal dollars since ICWA was enacted.

Pine Ridge is hosting Journalists for Diversity and raising awareness of South Dakota's culture of apartheid: they are tweeting under #lakota57 and #unity4lakota

Tribal nations trapped in South Dakota don't need Rapid City.

Go Hot Springs!

#unity4Lakota pic.twitter.com/ZF4cVTCK46

— D. Chebon Walker (@daltonwalker) April 29, 2015