NOPE board member: ‘Still hurdles to come’

LINCOLN COUNTY, S.D. (KELO) — The future of a new men’s prison in South Dakota is up in the air.

House Bill 1025 in Pierre originally appropriated money to build a men’s prison in Lincoln County, but the House of Representatives removed that section of the bill and ultimately decided not to send the legislation over to the Senate. And while HB 1025 is dead, there remains the possibility that its language and sections could still be included in the body of another bill that is very much alive.

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Meanwhile, the segment of rural Lincoln County where the state has wanted to build a men’s prison shares several similarities with other slices of eastern South Dakota.

“Where’s the police force, where’s the ambulance service, where is the medical facilities and then all the volunteer and everything that supports the families,” Jerry Pommer, who lives in the county, said Tuesday. “There’s nothing out here. It’s a cornfield.”

And officials trying to turn it into something else have been dealt a setback.

“We appreciate the legislators and what they’ve done for us and everybody that’s helped us out,” Mike Hoffman, who lives in the county, said Tuesday. “All of our local representation.”

While HB 1025 is in the recycle bin in Pierre, an excavator was on its way out of a field in rural Lincoln County Tuesday at the proposed prison site. The machinery’s movement could be seen as symbolic, but for Hoffman and Pommer, their cause isn’t gone. They each belong to the NOPE organization, and Hoffman is a board member; the group’s name is an acronym for “neighbors opposing prison expansion.”

“There is still a fight,” Pommer said. “I think the NOPE organization is going to continue to be involved in this and continue to take anything that comes our way in the future.”

“It was a good feeling to have that part of it done, but there’s still hurdles to come, I believe, yet,” Hoffman said.

KELOLAND News requested an interview Monday with South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden on these topics; his office said the opportunity would eventually come. On Monday at the state Capitol, Republican Rep. Aaron Aylward, who represents Lincoln County in Pierre, looked down the road at what could still be coming.

“I know the side that wants this done, the fight isn’t over … probably going to see a hoghouse or two come back,” Aylward said Monday.

A hoghouse amendment means throwing out all of a bill’s contents and putting in different legislation. Time will tell as the 2025 legislative session presses on.