Fish and Wildlife Service Wants to Close Booth Hatchery in Spearfish

Holy cow... er, trout! Contrary to my usual experiences in Spearfish, I stop in the Queen City of the Black Hills, and the first thing I hear about is a really stupid idea. It comes not from Spearfishers, but from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which thinks it would be a good idea to close the D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery:

For a number of years, the National Fish Hatchery System, a branch of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has struggled with declining funding and annual increases in the costs. In addition to rising operating costs, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Directorate in Washington, D.C., has emphasized and prioritized other programs over those of the National Fisheries Program.  As a result, the agency has made the decision to permanently shut down multiple fish hatcheries nationwide, including the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery ["D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery to Close," Black Hills Pioneer, 2013.08.20].

Closing the D.C. Booth Hatchery provides a spectacular example of budget-cutting gone nuts. The hatchery is a Spearfish gem. It draws visitors from all over the place. Every time I've walked down there, I've found locals and travelers enjoying the well-kept grounds, feeding the fish, watching the ducks, and climbing the canyon trails. The hatchery provides an excellent educational experience for visitors about fish, wildlife, and the Black Hills, thus supporting the mission of USFWS.

The hatchery also provides a great boost to the local and state economy. Consider just their summer workforce. The hatchery recruits RVers from all over the country to come serve as interpretive guides and do other work on the grounds. These folks draw no paycheck. In return for their service, the city of Spearfish provides them free camping spots in the beautiful adjacent city campground, listening to the shushing waters of Spearfish Creek. These RVers live in Spearfish all summer, spending their disposable retirement income on groceries and entertainment. Everybody wins!

The D.C. Booth Society is riled up, and so should you be! Here's the Booth Society's run-down of all the benefits the hatchery provides to the community:

The Booth Society is against wasteful spending and supports a fiscally sound government. However, the national fisheries program and a facility like D.C. Booth are excellent examples of good government spending. They provide an economic impact that the public should be proud of. For example a 2011 economic impact study indicates that:

• Each taxpayer dollar budgeted for the National Fisheries Program generates $28 in economic returns ($28 : $1). The revenue generated can be seen at sporting goods stores, marinas, boat dealerships, guides and outfitter services, bait shops, gas stations, restaurants, and hotels.

• 68,000 American jobs are attributable to the economic contribution of the National Fisheries Program.

• The National Fisheries Program contributes $3.6 billion in annual contributions to the U.S. economy. That equates to $70 million a week or $10 million a day. In fact, a company with $3.6 billion in annual profits would rank No. 41 on the Fortune 500 List of America’s Most Profitable Corporations – behind Verizon but in front of Kraft Foods. 

• $903 million in industrial output results from angling for fish originating in National Fish Hatcheries. 

On the local level, a 2007 economic impact study on D.C. Booth Historic NFH conducted by Black Hills State University revealed:

• The operations at D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery results in $2.1 million dollars in annual business revenues.

• An estimated $1 million is spent by nonresident visitors in Spearfish each year who attributed their visit ONLY to the existence of the hatchery.

• $141,393 in local and state tax and fee revenues are collected indirectly from the visitation at D.C. Booth.

• Nearly 30 jobs are created locally as a result of the operations at D.C. Booth.

• Over 14,000 volunteer hours are donated annually to D.C. Booth. This is equivalent to seven full-time employees [D.C. Booth Society, "Save Our Hatchery from Closure," 2013.08.20].

Rep. Noem, Senator Thune, Senator Johnson, get on the horn to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and tell them these budget cuts will cost Spearfish and South Dakota far more than they will save.

Events Center Team Lacks Input from Event Planners

It looks like Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether has a case of LAIC-itis. This malady, familiar to all residents of Madison and Lake County, causes public officials to pursue their own agenda for economic development without involving the citizens who would actually drive that economic development.

I base my diagnosis on the roster of folks Mayor Huether picked to help choose a design firm for the events center the mayor wants to build:

[from Ben Dunsmoor, "Downtown Group, Mayor Clash at Meeting," KELOLand.com, 2010.11.08] The team includes five men from from the different schools in town and the Sioux Falls Sports Authority:

• Mark Lee: University Center
• Willie Sanchez: University of Sioux Falls
• Frank Hughes: Augustana College
• Jeff Kreiter: Sioux Falls School District
• Mike Sullivan: Sioux Falls Sports Authority

It also includes these five department heads from the City of Sioux Falls:

• Mike Cooper: Director of Planning and Building Services
• Darrin Smith: Director of Community Development
• Don Kearney: Director of Parks and Recreation
• Tom Huber: Acting Director of Finance
• Mark Cotter: Director of Public Works

Good to see my Lake Herman neighbor Mark Lee on the list!

Then again, maybe it's not. Mark Lee is a good guy, but he probably won't be directly responsible for bringing any events to the new events center. The campus he oversees offers part-time classes for part-time students but, as far as I know, little in the way of entertainment or social programs that would require a big events center. Likewise for Augie and USF: they have their own performance centers for their campus activities. The school district and the sports authority might run some big events in a new facility; the five city employees on the team almost certainly will not.

Forget the fretting the Mayor Huether stacked the team with people he can boss around. The real problem here is the absence of convention planners. Where are the folks who host the Big Boys Toy Show, the farm and craft shows, and the other vendors who hawk their wares at the big weekend extravanganzas? Where are the political parties that might bring conventions and political rallies? Where are the artists and community theater folks who might organize arts festivals at the events center? Where are the people who will actually put this building to work?

Granted, the folks on the above team are just picking the design firm, not doing the design themselves. But let's hope the design firm will look beyond the team that gives it this plum job and seek input from all stakeholders.

Ignorance or Hostility? Commissioners Hagemann and Verhey Miss Point on Prairie Village

Friday's MDL included a letter to the editor from Doug Erickson, a Prairie Village board member and Lake County Commission candidate. Erickson writes concerning the Lake County Commission's decision last week to eliminate a $1000 handout the county had considered giving to our local pioneer museum and showgrounds. That $1000 was already much less than the $5000 Prairie Village had requested.

The original article in Wednesday's paper reported that Commissioners Roger Hagemann and Bert Verhey justified their vote against the aid by saying Prairie Village is bringing in more money now than in past years. Commissioner Dan Bohl was not quoted on his reasons for voting against the aid; Commissioners Scott Pedersen and Chris Giles voted for the allocation.

In his letter, Erickson adds some more comments from Commissioners Hagemann and Verhey that don't speak well to either intelligence or the fairness of those two commissioners. Erickson claims that Hagemann said that Prairie Village doesn't give anything back to Lake County. Erickson says Verhey reasoned that since Prairie Village had "$2000 just laying [sic] around for somebody to steal," Prairie Village wasn't in dire need of public assistance.

Wow. Let's tackle Verhey's non sequitur first, since that's an easy pitch. I dread to think that, when an indigent comes before the county asking for financial assistance for medical bills, Commissioner Verhey might say to the poor sap, "Well, the sheriff's report says someone robbed your house last month. Gee, if you've got stuff just lying around for somebody to steal, I guess you don't need any help from us."

As for Hagemann's assessment that Prairie Village does no good for the county, nothing could be farther from the truth. Prairie Village has built the only really successful, long-lasting tourist event in this county, the Steam Threshing Jamboree. Nothing else that happens in Madison backs up traffic on Highway 34 all the way to town (memo to Hagemann: that's a good thing—now send a deputy or two earlier next time to direct through traffic along the shoulder). Prairie Village has the best infrastructure for outdoor cultural events in the county. Prairie Village already hosts the Motongator Joe music festival (well, if you can call "hillbilly testosterone outlaw country" music). Raise some cash, build a permanent sheltered outdoor stage, get Joe to loosen his contract control over Prairie Village events, and you could host a number of big music events there.

Now maybe Hagemann's point was that Prairie Village doesn't contribute directly to the county's budget. The county gets no cut of the sales tax Prairie Village generates, and as an independent municipality, Prairie Village doesn't pay property tax (at least I think that's the case). If that's Hagemann's reasoning, he's out of step with the thinking of most local leaders, who are willing to provide enormous handouts to non-profits like Interlakes Community Action Program that pay no taxes but generate good for the community via other economic activity. And would Roger Hagemann deny assistance to indigents just because they rent an apartment and don't directly pay property tax?

The comments Erickson attributes to Hagemann and Verhey suggest either ignorance or hostility toward Prairie Village. Their attitudes reflect an anti-Prairie Village sentiment that I've sensed on other occasions around the community. Are other folks just envious and bitter that Prairie Village can survive and succeed while the Madison Chamber of Commerce continues to scratch its head and wish Madison had some signature tourism event?

Prairie Village is an enormous economic and cultural asset to the community. The only other operations that bring similar visibility and tourist revenue to Lake County are Lake Herman State Park and high school sports... both of which are brought to courtesy of your tax dollars. Prairie Village provides more direct, demonstrable good to our local economy than all of the vague, unspoken, unproven machinations of the Lake Area Improvement Corporation. If the Lake County Commission can double its deficit to hand the unaccountable LAIC $25,000, the county can afford the $5000 Prairie Village requested to fix up old buildings and tractors, preserve our history, and continue to draw tourists to Lake County.

Heidepriem Wrong, Daugaard Thinking on Casino and Scarcity Mindset

Some days it's hard to be a South Dakota Democrat. Our gubernatorial candidate Scott Heidepriem has declared his first priority as governor to be convening a task force to figure out how to build a mega-casino in Sioux Falls to combat the purported economic drain that will be caused by the under-construction Grand Falls casino across the border in Larchwood, Iowa.

South Dakota's first priority: building another casino. I'm having trouble working that into a campaign slogan.

Heidepriem's proposal does tie together a whole mess of potential voting blocs. If you buy his argument, his fight-fire-with-fire proposal wins local Chamber of Commerce types, Sioux Falls event center boosters (Heidepriem says he'd direct casino revenues toward building that grand dream for Sioux Falls), and Native Americans who might run the Sioux Falls-area casino.

But I get a bad vibe from the proposal. If we're making a bigger pie, it's a gambling pie, and I don't care much for that pie as the staple of our economic diet. Much of Heidepriem's own reasoning is that gambling is bad, it causes social problems that we're going to have to pay for, so we might as well cash in on the revenue side, too. I have trouble getting up my ambition to fight to expand an industry that causes addiction and other social problems. (But I eagerly await riffs on this theme from Mr. Newland and activists of other flavors to advocate legalizing marijuana, prostitution, gay marriage....)

And if there's only so much pie (and that seems to be the competitive tenor of Heidepriem's "Don't mess with South Dakota" press release), then we're really gambling that as the two casinos compete, the one on our side of the border will win and drive those darned Iowans out of work. "Screw Iowa!" doesn't sound like a great rallying cry for the troops, either.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dennis Daugaard is playing Mr. Mellow on this issue. He might also be playing Mr. Logical. He looks at a casino in Lyon County, Iowa, with a population hardly 6% the size of adjoining Minnehaha County. Daugaard may be thinking what I'm thinking, that an Iowa casino might not be a zero-sum game:

1. We're already seeing $7.5 million of the $50 million construction budget go to South Dakota contractors.
2. The casino will hire over 700 people. There are 788 people in Larchwood, and I suspect some of them are already spoken for jobwise. There are 5,595 people looking for work in the Sioux Falls metro area.
   
3. Suppose 100,000 out-of-staters say, "Hey! Let's go gamble in historic Larchwood, Iowa!" Do you think they're going to fly into Larchwood Metropolitan Airport? No. They're going to fly into Sioux Falls. They're going to rent a car in Sioux Falls. They're going to stop at the Sioux Falls Target to get the toothbrush and swim trunks and whatever else they forgot to pack. They're going to spend a day golfing and gambling in Larchwood, say, "Well, that was fun, now what?" And then they're going to come back to Sioux Falls to see a movie or a show at the Pavilion or whatever other brilliant entertainment a synergy-minded convention and visitors bureau can come up with. And for every visitor who wants to spend the night in tranquil, bucolic Larchwood, I'll bet we can find one or two who'd prefer to end the day with jazz and a martini under the sparkling downtown lights of Sioux Falls.
   

Heidepriem's thinking on casino competition sounds too much like the small-minded thinking of various small towns around South Dakota who think any gain for a nearby town is a loss for them (see Madison's and Hartford's small-minded reaction to Rutland's and Montrose's open enrollment success). Our neighbor's success doesn't mean we have to compete to take that success away. Think Sturgis rally: Deadwood and Custer and Wall and Mitchell don't try to outdo Sturgis with a bigger rally and put that event out of business. We all put up the "Welcome Bikers!" banners and offer drink specials and other events to cash in on the increased flow of visitors.

Once again, I can hear my fellow Dems telling me, "Ah, but this is the good political strategy! South Dakotans will eat this stuff up!" Yeah, maybe they will. Maybe raising a bold middle finger across the Big Sioux toward our dastardly Iowegian neighbors is just the thing to get the typical South Dakota voter fired up and ready to go Dem in November. And if Iowa flipped us the bird first, well, maybe they have a fight coming.

But I don't like it. Instead of trying to drive Larchwood out of business, we should focus on looking for other opportunities to build on the increased economic flow Grand Falls Casino will draw. If Iowa's building better mousetraps, let's fire up the cheese factories.

Think synergy, not scarcity.

--------------------
p.s.: There has been some bragging from the Iowa side about how the "vast majority" of Grand Falls Casino's revenue will come from South Dakota. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that building a business model on the promise of drawing lots of big-spending South Dakotans is... overly optimistic?

Miracle Mocha on Main: Cottonwood Coffee Crying Christ

Forget crying in your beer; how about Jesus in your java?


I just fanned the Cottonwood Coffee and Cottonwood Bistro in Brookings and found the above photo of one of our Brookings friends' steamy beverages. I challenge you to look that coffee in the eye and tell me you don't see a tearful Messiah... or Bob Marley... or maybe a Matt Groening character.

But whoever that milky miracle is, it's shrine time! Call South Dakota Tourism! Call the Vatican!

Gary SD Shoots for Tourism and Economic Development

Rule #47 for small town econoic development: know your market. News comes out that South Dakota saw a record jump in concealed weapons permits in 2009, and not a week later, what does the Buffalo Ridge Resort in Gary advertise?


The Concealed Carry Getaway Weekends, February 6 and March 27. Training, classes on gun laws, snowmobiling, coyote hunting, and ice fishing (no, you cannot use your firearm on the fish).

A lot of my neighbors may think Gary will be the safest town in South Dakota that weekend. The coyotes may disagree.

Of course, coyotes get a whole 'nother weekend in their honor:


Look out, varmints! Gary has an economic development plan, and it's target is you!

Rapid City Hansen-Larsen Park: Best Biking in America?

I know some folks think a good bicycle transportation network is just a luxury. But good bike trails can make for some darn good press for your town. Look at the attention Rapid City is getting for its newest bike trails, the Hansen-Larsen Memorial Park. One magazine calls the new trail system the best bike park in the country. The National Park and Rec. Assoc. named the Black Hills Fat Tire Festival held there the "best commercial recreation and tourism special event" of 2009. (Yeah, that's a mouthful, but if I were the Chamber of Commerce, I'd take best in the nation in anything anytime).

Says Rapid City parks and Rec director Jerry Cole:

There isn't anything within Rapid City like this. There isn't anything within 99 percent of the cities in the United States like this. This is unique....

This has the potential to change Rapid City for the betterment of the community and the visitors that will come here [quoted by Emilie Rusch, "New Park Drawing National Praise," Rapid City Journal, 2009.11.30].

But also note, City of Madison, this amazing trail system was built with zero tax dollars and no eminent domain. All it took was a community, including some smart donors, who recognize the cultural and economic value of good recreational infrastructure.

SD State Govt Rewards Self for "Great Customer Service"

I note with amusement SD Tourism's trumpeting of its Great Service Star designations. 145 businesses and visitor groups get a little marketing logo and plaque to show their "'Great Service' commitment to visitors."

Almost half of the winners are state parks, recreation areas, and interstate highway visitor centers.

Madison has three recipients: Lake Herman State Park, Walker's Point Recreation Area (which is managed from the Lake Herman State Park office), and the Greater Madison Area Chamber of Commerce... all publicly funded entities.

So is the state saying that no free-market actor in Lake County provides great customer service? No, no, no: it's just more likely that no one in the private sector around here has time to jump through the hoops to get a little gold star from Pierre.