Guest post: Sturgis in decline

The following is posted at the Black Hills Action Faceberg page,

Sturgis, a city in decline.

According to the latest US Census Bureau estimate, Sturgis currently has around 6,922 people. Down 2.4% between 2020 and 2025 while surrounding cities are showing growth.

What this means is that Sturgis needs a hard long look at itself. This is on par with the decline in sales tax revenue for Sturgis the last few years when you strip away the Rally effect and inflation.

If this trend continues then living in Sturgis is going to get a whole lot more expensive as the city tries to recoup revenue then it will be looking at those living there to help do it. The city doesn't appear to have come up with a long term plan to address this.

The city will continue to struggle if it keeps trying to play the rebel. If it refuses to acknowledge the Black Hills world outside of Sturgis and its wants and needs.

The city made its bed now it has to sleep in it. It got what it wanted.

This was largely preventable. But when you have people running the city that think they know what's best, but when what's best is what benefits them and their buddies and not the community, this is what you get.

Some in Sturgis have tried to help it. But it's corruption has been so blatant some didn't care because they thought it benefited them, when it didn't.

What about the new housing developments like on Avalanche? They might get some houses. But they aren't signs of growth. If you have 4 people leave and 2 move in, that isn't growth.

Sturgis has offered no plan, no real solution, no direction for the city or community. Just cut corners and throw money at the wall hoping something sticks. I would be surprised if that changed.

So its decline is happening while those around it keep growing and some in the city keep trying to flaunt that it's doing well, when anyone with 2 working eyes and simple math skills know it's not.

So for those that say if you don't like it then leave, if they keep listening to you then living in Sturgis is about to become even more unaffordable for you too. It's not a victimless thing.

Sturgis needs help. It needs a backbone. But for years Sturgis has had a city government that was at odds with its own community wants and needs.

Is Sturgis getting what it deserves? Well, it's allowed this stuff to happen. At times it's almost encouraged it when others even in the community were strongly against it.

Which is a shame. Sturgis has had more in its favor than most cities its size and it's squandered it all with nothing to show for it.

Sturgis can make whatever empty excuse it wants. But the fact remains, at the end of the day the city leadership has driven the city off the tracks with no real plan or direction to get it back on the tracks that it's actually enacting.

What can be done? A lot of things can be done or even attempted. But if Sturgis is happy with what it has, then so be it. It is getting what it wants. And the people that wanted it shouldn't be complaining about having to pay more for everything because you are literally getting what you wanted too.

As for the map image below, why don't you count the businesses that have closed for the winter and how much empty space that leaves. It might surprise you. Because that's also a large chunk of potential tax revenue the city could be using to better itself too.

Sturgis is a victim of its own creation.

Why doesn't Reich Mike fly into Pierre from Denver?

Pierre Regional Airport (PIR) does not currently have direct Essential Air Service (EAS) flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).  

Recall that in 1997 South Dakota got $23 million for going without Amtrak service so then-Governor Bill Janklow funneled much of that money into the Governor's Club and in 2007 Earth hating Gov. Mike Rounds spent some of it on an airplane for his personal use. But, in a state that says it hates big government money essential air service into South Dakota's capital city has always looked like a bridge to nowhere.

However, flights from the Washington, DC area (Reagan, Dulles or Thurgood Marshall) to Denver International Airport (DEN) are highly accessible, with nonstop options averaging around 4 hours. Main carriers like United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Frontier Airlines operate frequent daily nonstop flights and SkyWest Airlines, operating as United Express, provides twelve weekly round-trip EAS flights between PIR and DEN. SkyWest's winning bid requested a $5.4 million subsidy for the first year and $5.6 million for the second year with years three and four projected at $5.8 million and $5.99 million respectively until 2029.

Only a United States Senator who travels on the taxpayer dollar would think it’s acceptable to have a private plane ferry him to his home on return trips to South Dakota. That’s exactly the life of royalty (or corruption) that Career Politician Mike Rounds leads. From 2022 to 2025, the taxpayers paid over $1.3 million just to fly him to and from the Minneapolis airport in a private, convenience plane to his Fort Pierre home. This happened over 110 times during this four year period. Let me give you one example from the 110 plus trips to the state. On Friday, September 12, 2025, Career Politician Mike Rounds flew on a commercial flight from Washington to Minneapolis, where a private plane was standing by. The taxpayers were billed $5,879.08 for that private plane. Then, on Monday, September 15, 2025, that private, convenience plane, costing taxpayers another $5,879.08, returned him to Minneapolis, where he boarded a commercial flight bound for Washington. [Brian Bengs]

Image: Earth haters Mike Rounds before he became morbidly obese and Pat Powers, who has always been fat.

Scrub-a-dub-dub! The latest Republican to remove Donald Trump references from their website is...Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota! How bad must things look for the GOP if Trump is toxic in SD, too? #SDSen via @washingtonsun.com

[image or embed]

— TrumpsTaxes (@trumpstaxes.com) October 12, 2026 at 8:13 AM

Dems on track to throw Trump from office

Senate Polling — Rasmussen 🔵 North Carolina - Cooper +7 (Flip) 🔵 Iowa - Turek +4 (Flip) 🔵 Ohio - Brown +3 (Flip) 🔵 Maine - Jackson +2 (Flip) 🔵 Texas - Talarico +1 (Flip) 🔵 Georgia - Ossoff +9 🔵 Minnesota - Flanagan +3 🔵 Michigan - El-Sayed +3 🟡 Alaska - Tied 🔴 South Carolina - Graham +4

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) October 11, 2026

This week, The Cook Political Report moved 18 House races, all in Democrats' direction. With these new moves, we’re also adjusting our range: the most likely outcome is now that Democrats will pick up nine to 19 seats. Read more from @ercovey: https://t.co/TMLkq0my06

— Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) October 10, 2026

The Cook Political Report's current possible outcome in the House is that Democrats pick up nine to 19 seats. That would give them 224 seats on the lower end and 234 on the upper end. https://t.co/vcbhZHRcGc

— Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) October 9, 2026

This week, we shifted three Senate races in the direction of Democrats. Here's where's our current ratings stand. https://t.co/mp6csHTCad

— Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) October 7, 2026

We are revising our estimate of potential Senate pickups to two to six seats for Democrats — squarely within the range of the four seats they need to net for a majority. https://t.co/L2odYCDth4

— Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) October 6, 2026

Senate Polling - Politix+ Average 🔵 KS - Hamilton +1.2 🔵 IA - Turek +0.1 🔵 AK - Peltola +2.1 🔵 ME - Jackson +1.3 🔵 OH - Brown +3.1 🔵 NH - Pappas +5.2 🔵 MI - El-Sayed +3.1 🔵 MN - Flanagan +3.3 🔵 TX - Talarico +2.6 🔵 NC - Cooper +8.7 🔵 GA - Ossoff +7.5

— Political Polls (@PpollingNumbers) October 9, 2026

Red counties under red flag warnings again

URGENT - FIRE WEATHER MESSAGE National Weather Service Rapid City SD 1212 AM MDT Fri Oct 9 2026 ...RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM MDT THIS EVENING DUE TO GUSTY WINDS AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR CENTRAL BLACK HILLS, SOUTHERN BLACK HILLS, FALL RIVER COUNTY AREA, NORTHERN FOOT HILLS, EASTERN FOOT HILLS, CUSTER COUNTY PLAINS, PINE RIDGE AREA, BUTTE COUNTY AREA, WEST CENTRAL PLAINS, BADLANDS AREA, NORTHERN CAMPBELL, SOUTHERN CAMPBELL, CROOK COUNTY PLAINS, WESTON COUNTY PLAINS, AND WYOMING BLACK HILLS...

Two more Republican-owned sawmills to close

Koch Industries owns Georgia-Pacific LLC, one of the largest forest products ravagers in the United States. 

Interfor is another huge timber multi-national that sold a sawmill to Neiman Enterprises who then shipped salvage logs from California to Wyoming. In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Neiman closed its Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch announcing layoffs and production cutbacks while blaming the US Forest Service. Neiman purchased Colorado's Montrose Forest Products in 2012 but recently announced it will close, too.

Bearlodge Forest Products will close its sawmill and pallet operations, ending a nearly five-decade run in a community with deep ties to Wyoming’s timber industry. The company cited a number of factors in a Facebook post about the closure, including high input costs, a limited labor pool, scarce housing, and sustained downward pricing trends. Wyoming’s timber industry has also been struggling for years. The business is connected to the Neiman family, which has long played a role in Hulett’s forest-products history. [Cowboy State Daily]

Sawmills in Montana that rely on ponderosa pine are closing in part because of low lumber prices driven by salvage sales after record wildfire seasons caused by human influences on global climate patterns.

“This has been a really hard decision,” 67-year-old Steve Marks, a fourth-generation Clancy rancher, third-generation logger and the founder of Marks Lumber, said last week during an interview in his office, referring to his plan to end operations in early 2027. “These environmentalists are killing us,” Marks said, recalling his company’s planned purchase of nearly a year’s worth of logs, a million board feet, from the USFS in Larabee Hat early this summer. [Jefferson County Monitor]

Unaffiliated candidate Bengs gaining on incumbent Earth hater

NPR also reported this on Wednesday. "Major super PACs and investment-backed groups have injected close to $1 million into South Dakota’s 2026 U.S. Senate race, significantly outspending the contributions from local residents. According to a report by WIRED, Rounds has received roughly $600,000 in outside backing. The majority of this funding originated from Defend American Jobs, a super PAC that receives financial backing from a separate super PAC funded by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz."

Only four individuals funded Mike Rounds’ Super PAC this cycle. One of them appears in the Epstein files hundreds of times, years after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. https://t.co/Q8P4cRDm5w

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) October 7, 2026

VoteHub ratings change US Senate South Dakota Safe R—>Likely R https://t.co/dek82LMCxW

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) October 4, 2026

Warming climate unleashing waves of pine beetles in Colorado

Global warming has been accelerating since humans began setting fires to clear habitat, as a weapon or just for amusement. Evidence that we humans have eaten or burned ourselves out of habitats creating catastrophes behind us is strewn throughout the North American continent. 

The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire was Colorado's costliest at nearly half a billion dollars until the Black Forest Fire the next year surpassed that. In October, 2020 the East Troublesome Fire incinerated nearly 200,000 acres of mixed timber and grass becoming the second largest wildfire ever recorded in Colorado. It was believed early that downed power lines caused the Marshall Fire in Boulder County, today the state's most destructive blaze, with claims for damage north of two billion dollars. That firestorm forced the evacuation of tens of thousands and evaporated over a thousand homes. 

Today, extracting oil and gas from public lands releases about 20 percent of energy-related US greenhouse gas emissions.

William R. Cotton is Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at Colorado State University. He says cloud seeding can produce minimal results in winter and the practice during summertime is probably fruitless but now there are eight state-permitted cloud seeding generators across Colorado.

The Aspen Acres Fire is a human-caused wildfire in southern Colorado that has burned 102,007 acres and some 850 structures have been damaged or destroyed, including 319 confirmed homes. Investigators of the seventh largest fire in Colorado history identified two distinct ignition sites directly under San Isabel power lines near Highway 165 leading to allegations of negligence and trespassing. 

Ponderosa pine contains a much higher level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than many other cone-bearing trees and tends to be more explosive in wildfire conditions especially when under drought stress. Beetle-affected trees are pockmarked with ‘pitchouts’ that burst into flames during wildfires and torch more readily.

Across the country, climate change is ravaging ecosystems, bringing more robust storms, rising sea levels, record-setting conflagrations and fatal heat waves. In Colorado, the staggering die-off of the majestic pines is difficult to stomach. [Capital & Main]

In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises closed their Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch. Neiman purchased Colorado's Montrose Forest Products in 2012 but will likely cease operations there, too.

South Dakota's economy is failing under Rhoden

The Trump Organization is propping up Larry Rhoden's flaccid campaign with another $7.2 million in federal funding following continued Republican failures in South Dakota.

Creighton University's Ernie Goss follows the economies of ten midwestern states including South Dakota's where the manufacturing sector lost about 800 jobs over the last year or 1.8% of its manufacturing base, ag workers still face severe stressors and a mental health provider shortage affects at least 62 of South Dakota's 66 counties. 

Goss noted that in September the overall reading fell below growth neutral for the fourth time in the past six months and 79.0% of banksters reported that the Trump tariffs levied a negative impact on the agriculture and livestock economies where persisting pessimism is dooming Republican candidates even in red states.

50.0 is growth neutral.

Approximately 41.7% of supply managers reported that tariffs were having a negative impact on profits and elevated inflation at the wholesale level points to at least one more Federal Reserve interest rate hike before the end of 2026. Some 58% of supply managers reported that the Iran conflict has made the supply chain less reliable. 

The September Business Conditions Index for South Dakota dipped to 56.0 from August’s 56.4. However, 2026 state manufacturing exports, compared to the same period in 2024, are down by $154.4 million or -13.1%.

Read that here.

The September [Rural Mainstreet Index] for South Dakota declined to 45.1 from 50.0 in August. South Dakota’s September new hiring index dipped to 49.9 from 50.8 in August. According to trade data from the [International Trade Index], South Dakota exports of agriculture goods and livestock for the first seven months of 2026, compared to the same period in 2025, slumped by $47.4 million for a 46.7% fall. The greatest downturn in South Dakota ag exports was to Mexico with a 58.5% drop from 2025 to 2026.

Read that here.

it's his time https://t.co/mfnM8Yww8Q

— SD Democratic Party (@SoDakDems) October 1, 2026

Study: christians aren't that smart

A recent study titled, Cognitive Ability and Christian Nationalism, authored by sociologist Samuel L. Perry and published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, provides key empirical insights into how vocabulary and individual cognitive resources interact with religio-political ideologies in the United States.

The statistical analysis demonstrates a consistent inverse relationship between verbal intelligence and Christian nationalist ideology. As vocabulary test scores increased, individuals were significantly less likely to endorse these beliefs. Sociologists note that this research builds on existing academic literature connecting lower cognitive ability metrics to rigid ideological frameworks, religious fundamentalism, and reactionary political views. 

Because the data relies on observational surveys taken at single points in time, the study establishes a strong link but cannot definitively prove that cognitive capacity directly causes or shapes these complex societal beliefs. This negative association remained robust even when researchers controlled for formal educational attainment, as well as other factors such as household income, political ideology, demographic variables, and religious habits. This indicates the trend relates specifically to underlying cognitive resources rather than simply differences in schooling.

Read it all here. 

Trump Organization padding Rounds' and Rhoden's campaigns

The Trump Organization is giving $7.2 million in federal funding to two flagging South Dakota political campaigns through the Rural Health Transformation Program and padding emergency medical services, expanding ambulance-based telemedicine, upgrading emergency dispatch/communications, and funding workforce training.

Today’s investment was made possible through the Working Families Tax Cuts Act — passed by Republicans in Congress and unanimously opposed by Democrats — delivering a historic $50 billion investment to help states transform the way healthcare is delivered in America. [press release, The Trump Organization]

Yes, socialized workforce development, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, socialized water systems, a socialized internet and socialized infrastructure are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.

‘Falling like dominos’

This interested party was duped by NMDOT then became frustrated with the magical thinking among most of the community members but is convinced now that there is likely a tribal government conspiracy to extort landowners whose property is on the real estate market. Taxes on some 937 acres on the market are likely substantial but after the Pueblo buys that property at a steep discount and puts it into trust it is no longer taxable by the county.

And thanks to a couple of vindictive community members who failed to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with the Kewa Pueblo this citizen journalist is being heavily trolled by a thing called Emily Hartigan at the online Santa Fe New Mexican.

A road in western Santa Fe County used for decades by residents of an off-grid community was blocked Wednesday afternoon by Santo Domingo Pueblo — leaving about 30 households with only rough backroads to reach their homes. “We’re going to start falling like dominos,” said Larry Kurtz, who has lived in the area for 15 years. “There’s already talk of people bugging out of here.” [Santo Domingo Pueblo closes primary road for off-grid Santa Fe County community]