From the campaign
Grow What We Already Love: Where I Stand on Rapid City's Economy
Pierre found a way to move in one session when data centers came asking. Nobody has ever filed a bill for the laundromat in North Rapid.
Walk downtown on a Saturday morning and you can see what Rapid City already does well. Coffee shops with a line out the door, families on the sidewalk, owners behind their own counters sweeping their own floors.
Then drive a few minutes north. North Rapid has carried this city's working families for generations and it is still waiting on basics that other parts of town stopped thinking about years ago.
A family court case brought my son to Rapid City in 2018. I followed him, bought a house, and eventually moved the rest of my life here for good, and eight years later I am running for one of District 32's two House seats. This district is downtown and North Rapid, the heart of the city, so economic development is not a theory to me. It is the streets my son and I live on.
Grow what we already love. Five words, and here is what they cost somebody in Pierre.
No corporate carveouts
When the state writes a special deal for one industry, every business that did not get the deal helps pay for it, which is a thing worth saying slowly because it never gets said at the press conference announcing the deal.
Watch what happened in the 2026 session. SB 239 modified the state's reinvestment payment program in ways that benefit data centers. SB 135 took up the utility cost and regulatory authority questions that come along with them. The pattern is what I want you to see: when a large, well-connected industry comes asking, Pierre finds a way to move.
The shop owner on Main Street never gets that meeting. Nobody has ever filed a bill for the laundromat in North Rapid.
I will oppose corporate carveouts, and not because I dislike any particular company. The state has no business picking favorites with your money.
Back Ellsworth loudly, and be honest about the map
Ellsworth Air Force Base sits in the next district over. I am going to keep saying that out loud, because honesty about geography is cheap and I would rather be right about the economics than territorial about a line.
The benefit of Ellsworth does not stop at that line. The B-21 Raider mission is a generational commitment to this region, and the paychecks and families that come with it lift all of Rapid City. The state did its part in 2026 when SB 130 appropriated funding for Ellsworth roadway infrastructure, and that is exactly the kind of state investment I will back every time. Public infrastructure, serving a national defense mission, lifting a whole region.
A road is public and everybody drives on it, and that is the whole distinction I am drawing here, because a reinvestment payment landing on one industry's bottom line is a different animal wearing a similar coat and hoping nobody checks underneath. I will support the first, oppose the second, and I will not pretend they are the same thing.
Invest where this district actually lives
The third commitment is the least exciting and it matters most.
Downtown and North Rapid need infrastructure, housing, and small-business rules that match how hard the people here already work, and none of that shows up because somebody gave a speech about revitalization at a chamber lunch. Streets and water that function. Housing a working family can actually afford. Rules that make it easier to open a business, hire a neighbor, and stay open through a slow February.
The heart of Rapid City does not need reinventing. It needs the basics done right so it can grow on its own terms.
What a state legislator can actually do about it
More than people assume, and I want to be specific because vague promises are how districts like this one get ignored.
Every bill I named above is a state bill. The reinvestment payment program is a state program. Utility regulatory authority gets decided at the state level. The Ellsworth roadway money was a state appropriation. Housing policy and small-business rules run through state law before they ever land on a city council agenda.
Pierre showed in a single session how fast it can move when data centers ask. I want it moving that fast when the heart of Rapid City asks. That is the job I am applying for, and the objections I hear about this plank are answered below.
District 32 elects two representatives on November 3 and you can split your ticket however you like. I am asking for one of those seats, and I am telling you in advance how I will vote. No carveouts. Ellsworth and the B-21 as a regional priority. The basics done right downtown and in North Rapid.
The full platform is at zac4sd.com.
Strong Families. Strong South Dakota.
Anticipated pushbacks · prepared responses
Common questions on this issue
These are the questions and concerns that come up most often. The responses below are my honest answers, not talking points.
- Q. So you are anti-growth?
- A. No, I am anti-favoritism. Growth that only happens because the state cut one industry a special deal is not really growth, it is a transaction, and it lasts exactly as long as the deal does. The growth I want is what this region already knows how to produce: a base expanding because the mission matters, a downtown thriving because the businesses are good, neighborhoods rising because the state finally treated them like a priority. Level the field and Rapid City will grow on its own terms. That is confidence in Rapid City, not hostility to business.
- Q. Ellsworth is not in District 32. Why is it your fight?
- A. Because District 32 cashes the paychecks. The base sits outside the district line, but the families it supports live across this city. They buy homes here, eat downtown, and shop on our streets. A regional asset that size does not respect a line on a map, and a representative who only looks inside his own lines is doing half the job.
- Q. Isn't the Ellsworth road money just another carveout?
- A. No, and the difference matters. A road is public, everyone drives on it, and the Ellsworth roadways serve a national defense mission the whole country depends on. That is what SB 130 funded. A reinvestment payment that lands on one industry's bottom line is something else entirely. Building public infrastructure is the state doing its job. Cutting special deals is the state picking winners.
- Q. What can a state legislator actually do for downtown and North Rapid?
- A. More than most people think. The reinvestment payment program is a state program. Utility regulatory authority gets decided at the state level. The Ellsworth roadway money was a state appropriation. Housing policy and small-business rules run through state law before they ever reach a city council agenda. Pierre showed in one session how fast it can move when data centers ask, and I want it moving that fast when the heart of Rapid City asks.