Spearditch land owner could erect a cement Jesus in Rapid City trailer park

Rand Williams has worked his entire life for the fortune he's amassed. Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender's career has been spent languishing on the public dole.

 

Recall Mary Garrigan's piece in the Rapid City Journal that Williams almost built a Ceement Jaysus in Spearditch.

Rand Williams, a Spearfish real estate entrepreneur, said he is envisioning a multimillion-dollar statue along the lines of Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer, a 125-foot tall statue that draws tourists to the Brazilan city, that would sit on a two-acre parcel of city land.

Yes, Mr. Williams purchased the former Passion Play site and was divinely inspired to erect a ferro-cement statue on that ground seized after a treaty giving the land to Indigenous peoples was voided by Congress.

The statue, tentatively titled “Who Do You Say That I Am?” was initially proposed in February 2013 to be located on city-owned land near the Passion Play Amphitheater. “In order for it to be seen on the hilltop, it will have to be bigger than life-size,” Williams said in a prepared statement. Exactly how large, though, he declined to speculate. Williams is contributing $100,000 as seed money to the project and has started a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. [Mark Watson, New plan, location announced for Christ sculpture, Black Hills Pioneer]

Williams owns property all over western South Dakota and rents to Earth haters like John Dale. Dale joined fellow egomaniacs Sam Kephart, Gary Coe and others who have parachuted into Lawrence County expecting to change the good ole boy network Rand Williams actually helped to create. Williams' trailer park in Rapid City makes over $35,000 a month. 

After multiple complaints were filed in 2017 along with numerous letters and emails sent to the park owners about the situation, Williams was found guilty of six city ordinance violations and sentenced to pay fines and costs of $720 on Oct. 25, 2018. The city set a deadline for action on Feb. 1, 2020, but no action was taken. Another letter was sent to Williams noting the tenants would be notified that their water would be shut off April 8. [Mayor calls mobile home park owner a 'slumlord' in letter to City Council]

He bought the Moose Lodge property in 2005 when I was doing work at the Homestake Opera House in 2005 and we even talked about teaming up for a project but I fled South Dakota in 2006 for Montana. So, screw those tenants, Rand; clear those trailers and erect a Ceement Jaysus on that site instead! 

Learn more about Rand Williams and his passion for historic preservation linked here.

Steve @ChiefAllender has physically beaten scores of Native Americans under the color of law yet now as mayor has the temerity to damn others. https://t.co/smu2fZtZ7T

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) August 27, 2020