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Welcome back to Growing Places, your one-stop shop for all things economic development in the Sioux Falls Metro.
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My name is Chris Fields, and I am joined here today with the mayor from Garretsen, South Dakota, Mayor Bruce Brown.
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Mayor, how are you doing today?
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I'm doing great, Chris.
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Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, great to have you.
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This this one's kind of special to me because part of our business model here at SMGA is that we contract with some of our member communities.
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We have contracts right now with Garretsen, Linux, Harrisburg, and T.
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And so you and I get to work, um, share an office together uh on occasion out in Garretsen.
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So this this will be fun.
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Um looking forward to it.
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Uh why don't you start, Bruce, by telling us a little bit about your background, where you came from, when you when you moved to the area, that sort of thing.
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Okay.
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Well, I was born and raised in Iowa, about a hundred miles from Garrettson.
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And um, I went to school at South Dakota State uh the uh and uh at the pharmacy school there, and I really, really like South Dakota.
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I took a job in Vermilion after I graduated and stayed there for about two and a half years, and then I got an offer from a large drug company to go to work for them, and so I did that and I climbed the corporate ladder for about five years and then got a chance as part of that climbing the corporate ladder to come back to South Dakota.
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I came back and I uh and I never left and I don't really plan on leaving except for an occasional vacation somewhere.
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I uh I truly became a South Dakota, and I uh I just love everything about South Dakota.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Yeah, um so part of uh part of the reason we asked you to be on the podcast, other than your affiliation with SMGA, is you are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Garretsen history.
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You were at one point, I think, the president of the Garrettson Historical Society, if I'm not mistaken, or on their board of directors.
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Um with your knowledge, go ahead and tell us because Garretsen has a very unique story for those that don't know.
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Tell us about the city of Garretsen and how it came to be and what what it used to be like back in the day.
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Well, it's it's a fascinating story.
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Um and uh yeah, I was uh I was the president of the historical society, I am the vice president now.
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Um when I became mayor, I didn't have time to do both, so um I stepped down as president.
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But um Garretson is only here because of one man, and his name was A.
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G.
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Garretsen back in the late 1800s, and he was involved with a lot of railroad people, and as the railroads were expanding and connecting the United States, he saw a huge economic and potential profit benefit uh for himself and his friends.
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And as the Borthington Northern Santa Fe was expanding and moving south to uh link up with the southern railroads, um, South Dakota was where they were going through, and they had a potential uh a potential line going down through uh Sherman, South Dakota.
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And uh A.
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G.
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Garretson owns some land a little farther south uh from Sherman, and he thought it'd be a better idea to go through that land than it would to go through Sherman.
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So he started uh doing some negotiation, and the railroad basically told him that, well, there's no town there.
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Right.
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Um well there was a little town uh just south of where Garrison is, where actually Palisade State Park is today, called Palisades, that was a pretty nice little town.
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They had a mill and a lot of shops, and he decided to go down there and um offer to move all the businesses and all the people who live down there to Garrison and would give them property, pay to have their businesses and their homes moved, got it all done, went back to the railroad, and uh they're like, oh, that would actually be easier because we wouldn't we would be able to eliminate a couple bridges.
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And meantime, the um the mayor of Sherman uh went to California on a six-month vacation thinking he had this uh whole thing all sewn up, and when he got back from vacation, the railroad informed him no they were going through Garretsen, which all of a sudden was a town.
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Holy cow.
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Yeah, it was quite a story, and Garretson was a thriving place because they had a they actually had a uh train depot there, a passenger depot.
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And so at one time the town was about 6,000 people.
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So it was huge.
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Um that would have been one of the larger towns in South Dakota, probably.
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Yeah, it was it was climbing right up there.
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It was actually climbing up into the Sioux Falls area.
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Um and it was beautiful.
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It everything we had two movie theaters there and hotels and restaurants and just a thriving community.
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Yeah, multiple banks, multiple grocery stores, right?
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Yeah, yeah, it was it was actually quite a quite an interesting place.
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And if you you actually ever get up there and go to the museum, there's tons and tons of pictures, and you look at them and you go, wow, this place was really uh this was a hopping place.
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Yeah, yeah.
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My uh my one plug uh here, well, there probably many plugs for Garretsen, but if you haven't been to Garretsen, or even if you have been to Garretsen, I highly recommend going up there and stopping by the historical museum.
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It's in the building where the original, one of the original banks of Garretsen sat.
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Uh very old historic stone face building, just gorgeous.
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Uh, kept it intact all these years and and have kept it up pretty well.
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And it it just it's really cool.
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So go hit up the Garretsen Historical Museum when you come there.
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Another thing that we can uh touch on, you and I were discussing a little earlier.
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There is a uh a community leader, Chris Ferk.
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Uh, she has commissioned a an organization to do a video on Garretsen history.
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You want to talk about that a little bit?
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Yeah, Chris um had some very talented young photographers that she had worked with and uh was able to secure a grant um through some historical funding to get uh an actual um movie made about the history of Garrison and um as part of the South Dakota Tourism uh Department.
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And they just have finished up we shot the very last uh section of the video.
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These guys have been working for almost a year filming all over the area, and we shot the last interviews um last Saturday at the museum, and so we're hoping within she was planning by June 1st to have this actually done and we'll be able to unveil it.
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It's gonna be shown a number of places, but there'll be it'll be shown in the Historical Society uh on Saturdays.
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Uh we have set up there, and we're also gonna be opening up a small museum and theater room down in the the bathhouse in Split Rock Park, which is another historic building that was built back in the in the late 1800s.
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It's also made out of the same kind of stone, which is quartzite, which is mined locally.
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Yeah, gorge, very gorgeous.
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Uh there's there's a quarry, a couple of quarries up in Dell Rapids where it's mined.
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I think Sioux Falls has quartzite mining as well.
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Um, I'm looking very much forward to that, the release of that video, especially with the tie this year of being America's 250th birthday, uh, being able to release that video on America's 250 and having that connection is gonna be really, really cool.
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So definitely looking forward to that.
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Um, so let's go back uh talk about yourself uh again here for a moment.
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Tell us about your uh your path kind of getting into public service and how how that all came about and and you know what just explain, yeah, how how you got into public service.
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Well, that's everybody's got a story, right?
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It's an interesting, interesting story.
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Throughout my career, um, I did do volunteer work when I had a chance, but my career involved a lot of travel, so I didn't really um I wasn't able to give back the way I would have liked to.
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When I retired, I immediately started doing a lot of volunteer work.
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I worked for Habitat for Humanity Building Houses, I worked for the food pantry, I worked for one of the missions downtown serving food and doing a lot of those kinds of things.
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And then suddenly I found myself living in Garretson.
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Um, I'd lived farther south from that for 30 years, and I didn't know anybody.
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And so I thought, well, how do I find out about the town?
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So I just started talking to people, and somebody said, Well, you should go to um the council meeting um on Monday night.
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And I went to the council meeting and I learned a lot about the way that the city operated, and I started going to council meetings and asking questions, and they were all very open with um answering questions that I had.
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And I asked the uh uh, you know, the mayor or the council people various questions, and a couple of the council people pulled me aside one night and said, you know, you really ought to run for city council.
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The election's coming up in about three months, and there's gonna be a couple openings on the council, and you really ought to run um become part of the council, and I really wasn't sure, but I thought, well, okay.
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Um then all of a sudden they announced in the paper that uh there you could go get a petition to sign up and run for uh city council, but they also had an opening for the mayor because um the current mayor had served like four terms and he was done, and I thought, well, okay, if I'm gonna do this, let's go big time.
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So I ran for mayor.
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It just so happened that that two other people ran for mayor at the same time, and it was a big deal in Garretsen because nobody had had a a situation in 25 years where more than one one or two people ever ran for mayor.
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Oh, yeah.
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So it was quite a big deal.
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We had public meetings, we had interviews in the paper, um, and I didn't win.
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Uh-oh.
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I got second, but I didn't win.
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Yeah.
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Um, but the the gentleman who did win, Greg Beener, encouraged me to um run for city council, and I ran and I got a seat on city council.
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And then when um Greg did three terms, and then he got a promotion at work and was not gonna be able to run for another term, sure, and he pulled me aside and said, I think you really ought to run for mayor.
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And I said, Well, you know, last time that didn't turn out so well.
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He says, Yeah, but you gotta remember you'd only lived in town for three months, nobody even knew who you were, so you know, give it a shot.
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So I ran and and I'm the mayor.
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Awesome.
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That's that's great.
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Yeah, uh sometimes it's those first losses that that really help us get into public service and and and keep us active in the community.
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So tell tell me tell us a little bit about w in the past couple years that you've been mayor, what what have you learned that you maybe surprised you or something that you thought would be a little different?
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Well, I I I spent many, many years in business and in business management, and I learned uh a skill in those of how to work with people and bring them together and how to manage people and build consensus.
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I never thought that that would be something that I would use outside of business, but I've come to believe that it's probably one of the most important skills I have because I have I have six city council people.
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I have at this particular time I have four employees, and trying to bring all those people together into a consensus is just as difficult as sitting around in a room full of managers trying to bring them all to a consensus.
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And I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've learned is that city management is no different than business management.
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For sure.
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Yeah, no, that's uh that's something that I I too have learned.
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I've been in the private sector my whole life up until landing this job with Cummetric Growth Alliance, and I can totally relate, totally agree with you.
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So um so far, whether it's when you've been mayor or when you were on council, what do you think if you look back and think about the last two, six years, whatever it's been, what do you think is your biggest accomplishment so far?
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Well, I think I think we've had little ones.
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Um I think we've attracted some people, we've got some business.
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Um I think that if I had to pick the one thing so far that I think is is making a difference, it's actually city council.
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Um one of the things that I did when I became mayor was I started searching for younger people um to be in city council because I had to make appointments because nobody would run for, you know, uh some of the seats.
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And I decided I wasn't going to reappoint people who didn't run.
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So uh I had at one point I had three seats or half the city council open and I got to appoint the counselors for those seats and I picked younger people, and I think that's brought a huge change to the council, and I think people um uh who watch the things that are going on and seeing the the changes that are happening within the city, it's because we've got some young people who aren't afraid to stand up and say, Okay, folks, this is we've been doing it this way for this long, it's time we make some changes.
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So I think that's if I look at all the things that I've done, that's the one thing I've really accomplished.
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I also think we're so close right now, and I think to give you some credit too, Chris, is that uh economic development's been a real tough path for Garrison because we're so close to Sioux Falls.
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Sure.
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So it's tough to get it's tough to get growth there.
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Um but uh we've made some little incremental increases.
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We're right on the edge of making some really, I think, big increases and some big changes.
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And um, like I say, I I I have full confidence that we're gonna see some pretty major changes.
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We look at the if you look at the growth of Garrettson, we've had a nice steady growth in population.
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We've had a nice steady growth in small businesses.
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I think we're just right on the edge of just exploding.
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Yeah, I I would agree.
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I think I think Garretsen is is just on the precipice of uh of some major growth.
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Um we can actually just jump right into economic development and kind of what what's been going on with with the city and GED as far as projects that we've been working on.
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Um there's already been one housing development announced on the northeast side of town that should be breaking ground if it hasn't already this summer.
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Potentially a second uh housing development on the south side of town.
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So for a community to have potentially two housing developments going on at the same time is huge.
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That shows should it it'll show businesses that are looking to relocate to South Dakota, or maybe even businesses within Garretson or within South Dakota that want to expand, it'll show them that hey, Garretsen is ready for you, and this is the place you want to bring your business and bring your family.
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Another thing, too, um the city had been working for years and years and years on getting access into the industrial park off Highway 11.
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And so um some of the work that we've been working on the last couple years is to ask DOT once again for that access point to bring a road from Highway 11 and into the industrial park, and we were finally able to accomplish that last year.
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The the DOT awarded us a highway permit to be able to build that road, and so we're waiting on some pieces to fall together, but that road in the industrial park is gonna be huge for the current tenants of the park and any future tenants that come into the park.
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So that's those those are those are some big projects, and then let's talk too about this uh this Main Street revitalization project.
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You you had mentioned getting young folks on council and serving, and um we've got a a couple actually many young folks that are that are helping me lead this main street revitalization program.
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We won't name any names and and shock people on here, but um one person in particular, the Garretts and Economic Development's kind of let them just roll with it and take charge and and do what they see fit.
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And I think there's been a lot of buy-in from businesses and city council.
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And do you want to do you want to talk about the excitement that's going on behind that Main Street project now?
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Yeah, I I really do.
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Um, you know, it Garrison's like a lot of small towns.
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Yeah, some of the buildings look a little rougher than others, and some of them look pretty good, but there's no kind of cohesiveness.
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And one of our our younger residents who's got a pretty good idea about design uh came to us and said, Hey, I think there's a potential here that without a whole lot of money, we can kind of bring this cohesive, you know, downtown together.
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Um, a few years ago, we'd spent uh quite a bit of money redoing the main street, put in some very nice uh decorative street lights, and so we've kind of got the start on it.
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And with um her ideas and the things that she's come up with and some grant applications we've made, I think we're gonna be able to get this done.
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We've already got some businesses who volunteered to be on the on the forefront of this and be some of the first ones to go with it.
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Um, and I think it's just good, it's just kind of exciting because it's not like somebody has to say, oh, I've got to spend$100,000 to do this.
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It's gonna be much smaller increments of money that will just kind of bring everything together.
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And I I I'm pretty excited about it.
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The first time I saw it, I'm just like, this is perfect.
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I wish I'd have thought of this.
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Yeah.
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No, it's it the the hope is that you know, do doing doing this revitalization, you know, making things appear healthy and giving people community pride.
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It will help fill the couple vacancies that we do have on Main Street.
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You know, new businesses or even existing businesses will will come in and see this vibrant, beautiful Main Street and say, I wanna I wanna plant my business here.
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This this looks like a place um that that I would want to do business.
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And so that's that's kind of one of the goals behind the program, too.
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And so yeah, we're we're really excited about that.
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And and going back to to you had mentioned appointing people to city council and trying to trying to get some of the young blood up and and wanting to lead the community.
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That I I wanted to mention this when you were talking about it, but that's that's one of the reasons why Sue Metro Growth Alliance, why we're launching this rural leadership development program.
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um this year in the middle of the year.
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There's we we hear so many times communities like Garretsen and a lot of our member communities, mayors like yourself are having to appoint individuals to city council because nobody wants to run.
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The civic organizations, it's the same eight or ten people on all six civic organization boards.
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And so we are we we've found uh you know the systemic problem in in rural South Dakota.
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And so we are we're developing this leadership cohort.
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Um it'll be a nine month program that we'll roll out here in uh hopefully the summer sometime giving community leaders in our member communities an opportunity to build and develop those leadership skills to hopefully show them and give them uh the desire empower them to want to run for city council and sit on these civic boards and and do the things that uh are are seem to be pretty difficult to find people to do in rural South Dakota.
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So that's that's one thing that we're uh that we're looking forward to and I gotta agree with you Garretsen just they're on the verge of of seeing you know a whole lot of whole lot of boom and it's exciting to me.
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Garretsen is one of my favorite towns in South Dakota and I'm not just saying that because I work there truly was one of the first places my parents brought me when I moved to South Dakota.
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They brought me to Palisades and I just completely fell in love and so love the area.
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Before we let you off the show though we never let anybody off the show without giving us their hidden gym in the Sioux Metro.
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It can be something in Garrettson or if you have a hidden gym somewhere else in the metro area the surrounding area it could be a restaurant a a park um we had somebody give us a view as their hidden gym just anything that every time you go there it blows your mind what what is your hidden gym for the Sioux Metro?
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Boy that's that is a tough one um I I think one of the things I'm and I'm gonna give a plug for Garrettson here for sure in that Garretsen has some of the most beautiful landscape and the most beautiful rock formations you will see in the whole eastern part of the state.
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Agreed you can't you can't see the things that are around Garretsen unless you go out to the Black Hills.
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It's just a completely different perspective and one of my favorite things is to either in the early evening or in the early morning to go down to Split Rock to the Split Rock park and put in a kayak and kayak up Split Rock in between all the big spires of rock and all the the cliffs and watch the birds and eagles fly.
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And it's it's such a peaceful um and calming thing and it's just beautiful and um it's there's a there are kayakers up there and just for another plug is we decided last year to work with a kayak group out of uh out of Sioux Falls so there's kayaks available at the Split Rock uh bathhouse and you can rent them up there and take this beautiful ride for yourself.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:26:04.640
Yeah that's that's that's awesome that was that was one of the best decisions I think the city has made over the last year is getting those kayak the kayak rental company there and it it sounds like you guys have made it really easy for people to go down there and they'd fill out something on their on an app on their phone and show it to the attendant and and get their kayak right then and there it's it's pretty cool.
00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:33.680
So and I I have to agree with you if you have not been to Garretsen Palisades Devil's Gulch Split Rock um Mayor is right there on the eastern side of of the state we the eastern side of the state is not the Badlands it's not the Black Hills it's it's flat there's core it's pretty farmland it's pretty farmland.
00:26:33.920 --> 00:27:13.920
Yeah it is pretty farmland but right out in the middle of nowhere in this in this flat part of the state is this these beautiful quartzite rock formations going up and down uh split rock creek uh throughout garrettson and it it is truly truly beautiful so just highly recommend going out there taking a a long Saturday go do some hiking check out garretsen and uh see what garretsen has to offer mayor I really appreciate your your time today and uh thank you for joining us and we will catch you back in Garretsen.
00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:32.240
Thanks Mayor Chris Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Girl Clays we hope you learned something new about our great communities who we are and what we do to learn more is great with us on the
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Welcome back to Growing Places, your one-stop shop for all things economic development in the Sioux Falls Metro.
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My name is Chris Fields, and I am joined here today with the mayor from Garretsen, South Dakota, Mayor Bruce Brown.
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Mayor, how are you doing today?
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I'm doing great, Chris.
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Thank you for having me.
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Yeah, great to have you.
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This this one's kind of special to me because part of our business model here at SMGA is that we contract with some of our member communities.
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We have contracts right now with Garretsen, Linux, Harrisburg, and T.
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And so you and I get to work, um, share an office together uh on occasion out in Garretsen.
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So this this will be fun.
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Um looking forward to it.
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Uh why don't you start, Bruce, by telling us a little bit about your background, where you came from, when you when you moved to the area, that sort of thing.
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Okay.
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Well, I was born and raised in Iowa, about a hundred miles from Garrettson.
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And um, I went to school at South Dakota State uh the uh and uh at the pharmacy school there, and I really, really like South Dakota.
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I took a job in Vermilion after I graduated and stayed there for about two and a half years, and then I got an offer from a large drug company to go to work for them, and so I did that and I climbed the corporate ladder for about five years and then got a chance as part of that climbing the corporate ladder to come back to South Dakota.
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I came back and I uh and I never left and I don't really plan on leaving except for an occasional vacation somewhere.
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I uh I truly became a South Dakota, and I uh I just love everything about South Dakota.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Yeah, um so part of uh part of the reason we asked you to be on the podcast, other than your affiliation with SMGA, is you are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to Garretsen history.
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You were at one point, I think, the president of the Garrettson Historical Society, if I'm not mistaken, or on their board of directors.
00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:45.520
Um with your knowledge, go ahead and tell us because Garretsen has a very unique story for those that don't know.
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Tell us about the city of Garretsen and how it came to be and what what it used to be like back in the day.
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Well, it's it's a fascinating story.
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Um and uh yeah, I was uh I was the president of the historical society, I am the vice president now.
00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:07.919
Um when I became mayor, I didn't have time to do both, so um I stepped down as president.
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But um Garretson is only here because of one man, and his name was A.
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G.
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Garretsen back in the late 1800s, and he was involved with a lot of railroad people, and as the railroads were expanding and connecting the United States, he saw a huge economic and potential profit benefit uh for himself and his friends.
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And as the Borthington Northern Santa Fe was expanding and moving south to uh link up with the southern railroads, um, South Dakota was where they were going through, and they had a potential uh a potential line going down through uh Sherman, South Dakota.
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And uh A.
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G.
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Garretson owns some land a little farther south uh from Sherman, and he thought it'd be a better idea to go through that land than it would to go through Sherman.
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So he started uh doing some negotiation, and the railroad basically told him that, well, there's no town there.
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Right.
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Um well there was a little town uh just south of where Garrison is, where actually Palisade State Park is today, called Palisades, that was a pretty nice little town.
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They had a mill and a lot of shops, and he decided to go down there and um offer to move all the businesses and all the people who live down there to Garrison and would give them property, pay to have their businesses and their homes moved, got it all done, went back to the railroad, and uh they're like, oh, that would actually be easier because we wouldn't we would be able to eliminate a couple bridges.
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And meantime, the um the mayor of Sherman uh went to California on a six-month vacation thinking he had this uh whole thing all sewn up, and when he got back from vacation, the railroad informed him no they were going through Garretsen, which all of a sudden was a town.
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Holy cow.
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Yeah, it was quite a story, and Garretson was a thriving place because they had a they actually had a uh train depot there, a passenger depot.
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And so at one time the town was about 6,000 people.
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So it was huge.
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Um that would have been one of the larger towns in South Dakota, probably.
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Yeah, it was it was climbing right up there.
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It was actually climbing up into the Sioux Falls area.
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Um and it was beautiful.
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It everything we had two movie theaters there and hotels and restaurants and just a thriving community.
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Yeah, multiple banks, multiple grocery stores, right?
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Yeah, yeah, it was it was actually quite a quite an interesting place.
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And if you you actually ever get up there and go to the museum, there's tons and tons of pictures, and you look at them and you go, wow, this place was really uh this was a hopping place.
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Yeah, yeah.
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My uh my one plug uh here, well, there probably many plugs for Garretsen, but if you haven't been to Garretsen, or even if you have been to Garretsen, I highly recommend going up there and stopping by the historical museum.
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It's in the building where the original, one of the original banks of Garretsen sat.
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Uh very old historic stone face building, just gorgeous.
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Uh, kept it intact all these years and and have kept it up pretty well.
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And it it just it's really cool.
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So go hit up the Garretsen Historical Museum when you come there.
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Another thing that we can uh touch on, you and I were discussing a little earlier.
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There is a uh a community leader, Chris Ferk.
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Uh, she has commissioned a an organization to do a video on Garretsen history.
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You want to talk about that a little bit?
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Yeah, Chris um had some very talented young photographers that she had worked with and uh was able to secure a grant um through some historical funding to get uh an actual um movie made about the history of Garrison and um as part of the South Dakota Tourism uh Department.
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And they just have finished up we shot the very last uh section of the video.
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These guys have been working for almost a year filming all over the area, and we shot the last interviews um last Saturday at the museum, and so we're hoping within she was planning by June 1st to have this actually done and we'll be able to unveil it.
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It's gonna be shown a number of places, but there'll be it'll be shown in the Historical Society uh on Saturdays.
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Uh we have set up there, and we're also gonna be opening up a small museum and theater room down in the the bathhouse in Split Rock Park, which is another historic building that was built back in the in the late 1800s.
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It's also made out of the same kind of stone, which is quartzite, which is mined locally.
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Yeah, gorge, very gorgeous.
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Uh there's there's a quarry, a couple of quarries up in Dell Rapids where it's mined.
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I think Sioux Falls has quartzite mining as well.
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Um, I'm looking very much forward to that, the release of that video, especially with the tie this year of being America's 250th birthday, uh, being able to release that video on America's 250 and having that connection is gonna be really, really cool.
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So definitely looking forward to that.
00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:10.159
Um, so let's go back uh talk about yourself uh again here for a moment.
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Tell us about your uh your path kind of getting into public service and how how that all came about and and you know what just explain, yeah, how how you got into public service.
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Well, that's everybody's got a story, right?
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It's an interesting, interesting story.
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Throughout my career, um, I did do volunteer work when I had a chance, but my career involved a lot of travel, so I didn't really um I wasn't able to give back the way I would have liked to.
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When I retired, I immediately started doing a lot of volunteer work.
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I worked for Habitat for Humanity Building Houses, I worked for the food pantry, I worked for one of the missions downtown serving food and doing a lot of those kinds of things.
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And then suddenly I found myself living in Garretson.
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Um, I'd lived farther south from that for 30 years, and I didn't know anybody.
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And so I thought, well, how do I find out about the town?
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So I just started talking to people, and somebody said, Well, you should go to um the council meeting um on Monday night.
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And I went to the council meeting and I learned a lot about the way that the city operated, and I started going to council meetings and asking questions, and they were all very open with um answering questions that I had.
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And I asked the uh uh, you know, the mayor or the council people various questions, and a couple of the council people pulled me aside one night and said, you know, you really ought to run for city council.
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The election's coming up in about three months, and there's gonna be a couple openings on the council, and you really ought to run um become part of the council, and I really wasn't sure, but I thought, well, okay.
00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:30.159
Um then all of a sudden they announced in the paper that uh there you could go get a petition to sign up and run for uh city council, but they also had an opening for the mayor because um the current mayor had served like four terms and he was done, and I thought, well, okay, if I'm gonna do this, let's go big time.
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So I ran for mayor.
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It just so happened that that two other people ran for mayor at the same time, and it was a big deal in Garretsen because nobody had had a a situation in 25 years where more than one one or two people ever ran for mayor.
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Oh, yeah.
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So it was quite a big deal.
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We had public meetings, we had interviews in the paper, um, and I didn't win.
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Uh-oh.
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I got second, but I didn't win.
00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:02.240
Yeah.
00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:15.279
Um, but the the gentleman who did win, Greg Beener, encouraged me to um run for city council, and I ran and I got a seat on city council.
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And then when um Greg did three terms, and then he got a promotion at work and was not gonna be able to run for another term, sure, and he pulled me aside and said, I think you really ought to run for mayor.
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And I said, Well, you know, last time that didn't turn out so well.
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He says, Yeah, but you gotta remember you'd only lived in town for three months, nobody even knew who you were, so you know, give it a shot.
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So I ran and and I'm the mayor.
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Awesome.
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That's that's great.
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Yeah, uh sometimes it's those first losses that that really help us get into public service and and and keep us active in the community.
00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:12.240
So tell tell me tell us a little bit about w in the past couple years that you've been mayor, what what have you learned that you maybe surprised you or something that you thought would be a little different?
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Well, I I I spent many, many years in business and in business management, and I learned uh a skill in those of how to work with people and bring them together and how to manage people and build consensus.
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I never thought that that would be something that I would use outside of business, but I've come to believe that it's probably one of the most important skills I have because I have I have six city council people.
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I have at this particular time I have four employees, and trying to bring all those people together into a consensus is just as difficult as sitting around in a room full of managers trying to bring them all to a consensus.
00:14:02.159 --> 00:14:10.559
And I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've learned is that city management is no different than business management.
00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:11.360
For sure.
00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:15.600
Yeah, no, that's uh that's something that I I too have learned.
00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:24.720
I've been in the private sector my whole life up until landing this job with Cummetric Growth Alliance, and I can totally relate, totally agree with you.
00:14:24.879 --> 00:14:39.120
So um so far, whether it's when you've been mayor or when you were on council, what do you think if you look back and think about the last two, six years, whatever it's been, what do you think is your biggest accomplishment so far?
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:43.120
Well, I think I think we've had little ones.
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Um I think we've attracted some people, we've got some business.
00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:58.480
Um I think that if I had to pick the one thing so far that I think is is making a difference, it's actually city council.
00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:17.519
Um one of the things that I did when I became mayor was I started searching for younger people um to be in city council because I had to make appointments because nobody would run for, you know, uh some of the seats.
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And I decided I wasn't going to reappoint people who didn't run.
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So uh I had at one point I had three seats or half the city council open and I got to appoint the counselors for those seats and I picked younger people, and I think that's brought a huge change to the council, and I think people um uh who watch the things that are going on and seeing the the changes that are happening within the city, it's because we've got some young people who aren't afraid to stand up and say, Okay, folks, this is we've been doing it this way for this long, it's time we make some changes.
00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:06.159
So I think that's if I look at all the things that I've done, that's the one thing I've really accomplished.
00:16:06.320 --> 00:16:20.399
I also think we're so close right now, and I think to give you some credit too, Chris, is that uh economic development's been a real tough path for Garrison because we're so close to Sioux Falls.
00:16:20.559 --> 00:16:20.639
Sure.
00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:24.240
So it's tough to get it's tough to get growth there.
00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:29.279
Um but uh we've made some little incremental increases.
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We're right on the edge of making some really, I think, big increases and some big changes.
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:43.200
And um, like I say, I I I have full confidence that we're gonna see some pretty major changes.
00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:49.120
We look at the if you look at the growth of Garrettson, we've had a nice steady growth in population.
00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:52.559
We've had a nice steady growth in small businesses.
00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.519
I think we're just right on the edge of just exploding.
00:16:55.840 --> 00:16:56.879
Yeah, I I would agree.
00:16:56.960 --> 00:17:03.519
I think I think Garretsen is is just on the precipice of uh of some major growth.
00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:14.000
Um we can actually just jump right into economic development and kind of what what's been going on with with the city and GED as far as projects that we've been working on.
00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:24.240
Um there's already been one housing development announced on the northeast side of town that should be breaking ground if it hasn't already this summer.
00:17:24.559 --> 00:17:28.559
Potentially a second uh housing development on the south side of town.
00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:35.440
So for a community to have potentially two housing developments going on at the same time is huge.
00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:53.680
That shows should it it'll show businesses that are looking to relocate to South Dakota, or maybe even businesses within Garretson or within South Dakota that want to expand, it'll show them that hey, Garretsen is ready for you, and this is the place you want to bring your business and bring your family.
00:17:54.079 --> 00:18:05.839
Another thing, too, um the city had been working for years and years and years on getting access into the industrial park off Highway 11.
00:18:06.160 --> 00:18:24.079
And so um some of the work that we've been working on the last couple years is to ask DOT once again for that access point to bring a road from Highway 11 and into the industrial park, and we were finally able to accomplish that last year.
00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:41.680
The the DOT awarded us a highway permit to be able to build that road, and so we're waiting on some pieces to fall together, but that road in the industrial park is gonna be huge for the current tenants of the park and any future tenants that come into the park.
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:50.720
So that's those those are those are some big projects, and then let's talk too about this uh this Main Street revitalization project.
00:18:50.799 --> 00:19:05.519
You you had mentioned getting young folks on council and serving, and um we've got a a couple actually many young folks that are that are helping me lead this main street revitalization program.
00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:22.000
We won't name any names and and shock people on here, but um one person in particular, the Garretts and Economic Development's kind of let them just roll with it and take charge and and do what they see fit.
00:19:22.079 --> 00:19:26.400
And I think there's been a lot of buy-in from businesses and city council.
00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:31.599
And do you want to do you want to talk about the excitement that's going on behind that Main Street project now?
00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:33.200
Yeah, I I really do.
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:36.319
Um, you know, it Garrison's like a lot of small towns.
00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:43.599
Yeah, some of the buildings look a little rougher than others, and some of them look pretty good, but there's no kind of cohesiveness.
00:19:43.920 --> 00:20:02.480
And one of our our younger residents who's got a pretty good idea about design uh came to us and said, Hey, I think there's a potential here that without a whole lot of money, we can kind of bring this cohesive, you know, downtown together.
00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:16.000
Um, a few years ago, we'd spent uh quite a bit of money redoing the main street, put in some very nice uh decorative street lights, and so we've kind of got the start on it.
00:20:16.079 --> 00:20:26.400
And with um her ideas and the things that she's come up with and some grant applications we've made, I think we're gonna be able to get this done.
00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:34.480
We've already got some businesses who volunteered to be on the on the forefront of this and be some of the first ones to go with it.
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:42.319
Um, and I think it's just good, it's just kind of exciting because it's not like somebody has to say, oh, I've got to spend$100,000 to do this.
00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:48.720
It's gonna be much smaller increments of money that will just kind of bring everything together.
00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:51.039
And I I I'm pretty excited about it.
00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:53.920
The first time I saw it, I'm just like, this is perfect.
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:55.279
I wish I'd have thought of this.
00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:56.240
Yeah.
00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:12.319
No, it's it the the hope is that you know, do doing doing this revitalization, you know, making things appear healthy and giving people community pride.
00:21:12.400 --> 00:21:16.640
It will help fill the couple vacancies that we do have on Main Street.
00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:25.920
You know, new businesses or even existing businesses will will come in and see this vibrant, beautiful Main Street and say, I wanna I wanna plant my business here.
00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:30.480
This this looks like a place um that that I would want to do business.
00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:34.000
And so that's that's kind of one of the goals behind the program, too.
00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:36.880
And so yeah, we're we're really excited about that.
00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:49.680
And and going back to to you had mentioned appointing people to city council and trying to trying to get some of the young blood up and and wanting to lead the community.
00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:59.519
That I I wanted to mention this when you were talking about it, but that's that's one of the reasons why Sue Metro Growth Alliance, why we're launching this rural leadership development program.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.319
um this year in the middle of the year.
00:22:03.119 --> 00:22:15.519
There's we we hear so many times communities like Garretsen and a lot of our member communities, mayors like yourself are having to appoint individuals to city council because nobody wants to run.
00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:23.440
The civic organizations, it's the same eight or ten people on all six civic organization boards.
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:32.640
And so we are we we've found uh you know the systemic problem in in rural South Dakota.
00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:38.240
And so we are we're developing this leadership cohort.
00:22:38.480 --> 00:23:13.759
Um it'll be a nine month program that we'll roll out here in uh hopefully the summer sometime giving community leaders in our member communities an opportunity to build and develop those leadership skills to hopefully show them and give them uh the desire empower them to want to run for city council and sit on these civic boards and and do the things that uh are are seem to be pretty difficult to find people to do in rural South Dakota.
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So that's that's one thing that we're uh that we're looking forward to and I gotta agree with you Garretsen just they're on the verge of of seeing you know a whole lot of whole lot of boom and it's exciting to me.
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Garretsen is one of my favorite towns in South Dakota and I'm not just saying that because I work there truly was one of the first places my parents brought me when I moved to South Dakota.
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They brought me to Palisades and I just completely fell in love and so love the area.
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Before we let you off the show though we never let anybody off the show without giving us their hidden gym in the Sioux Metro.
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It can be something in Garrettson or if you have a hidden gym somewhere else in the metro area the surrounding area it could be a restaurant a a park um we had somebody give us a view as their hidden gym just anything that every time you go there it blows your mind what what is your hidden gym for the Sioux Metro?
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Boy that's that is a tough one um I I think one of the things I'm and I'm gonna give a plug for Garrettson here for sure in that Garretsen has some of the most beautiful landscape and the most beautiful rock formations you will see in the whole eastern part of the state.
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Agreed you can't you can't see the things that are around Garretsen unless you go out to the Black Hills.
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It's just a completely different perspective and one of my favorite things is to either in the early evening or in the early morning to go down to Split Rock to the Split Rock park and put in a kayak and kayak up Split Rock in between all the big spires of rock and all the the cliffs and watch the birds and eagles fly.
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And it's it's such a peaceful um and calming thing and it's just beautiful and um it's there's a there are kayakers up there and just for another plug is we decided last year to work with a kayak group out of uh out of Sioux Falls so there's kayaks available at the Split Rock uh bathhouse and you can rent them up there and take this beautiful ride for yourself.
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Yeah that's that's that's awesome that was that was one of the best decisions I think the city has made over the last year is getting those kayak the kayak rental company there and it it sounds like you guys have made it really easy for people to go down there and they'd fill out something on their on an app on their phone and show it to the attendant and and get their kayak right then and there it's it's pretty cool.
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So and I I have to agree with you if you have not been to Garretsen Palisades Devil's Gulch Split Rock um Mayor is right there on the eastern side of of the state we the eastern side of the state is not the Badlands it's not the Black Hills it's it's flat there's core it's pretty farmland it's pretty farmland.
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Yeah it is pretty farmland but right out in the middle of nowhere in this in this flat part of the state is this these beautiful quartzite rock formations going up and down uh split rock creek uh throughout garrettson and it it is truly truly beautiful so just highly recommend going out there taking a a long Saturday go do some hiking check out garretsen and uh see what garretsen has to offer mayor I really appreciate your your time today and uh thank you for joining us and we will catch you back in Garretsen.
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Thanks Mayor Chris Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Girl Clays we hope you learned something new about our great communities who we are and what we do to learn more is great with us on the
