Rookie Watertown city councilman and Kristi Noem’s son-in-law Kyle Peters is living up to his in-laws’ family name, helping businesses secure government favors. Bob Mercer reports that Peters lobbied for a rail loan that will boost Huron’s Advanced Sunflower make more money:
The $401,085 loan will help pay for the construction of a new railroad siding where Advanced Sunflower plans to load edible products into boxcars and hopper cars.
The state board made the loan to East Central Regional Railroad Authority. Terms are 2% interest for 20 years, with a balloon payment due in seven years, which have been standard on other rail loans. The siding would be owned by Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern Railroad.
Speaking in support of the loan request Wednesday were Danny Dale, Advanced Sunflower’s chief executive officer, as well as East Central chair Jeff Tschetter and Kyle Peters from A1 Development Solutions, a consultant on the project.
Peters had also spoken on Advanced Sunflower’s behalf during the state board’s August 16 meeting. He is the husband of Governor Kristi Noem’s oldest daughter, Kassidy. The governor appoints the state Railroad Board’s members [Bob Mercer, “Helped by Noem Son-in-Law, Huron Project Gets State Loan,” KELO-TV, 2023.09.20].
There may be a conflict of values between the professed capitalist values of the Noem–Peters family and their advocacy of socialist assistance in the marketplace, but there’s absolutely no conflict of interest, says Peters, who makes his money with former members of state government helping businesses get money from the state government that his mother-in-law runs:
A1 Development Solutions was founded in 2017 by Paul Kostbooth of Sioux Falls, who had been a division director in the state Department of Agriculture, and Mark Mickelson, a Sioux Falls businessman and attorney who at that time presided as speaker in the state House of Representatives.
KELOLAND News asked Peters and the governor’s communications director whether Peters’ involvement in the Advanced Sunflowers loan request was a conflict of interest.
“There is no conflict of interest as A1 is a third-party consultant to Advanced Sunflower,” Peters said. “A1 is not receiving any funds from the state of South Dakota nor are we receiving compensation tied to these funds in any way.”
“The governor’s office will not be commenting on this matter,” Ian Fury, the governor’s communications director, said [Mercer, 2023.09.20].
If you need a loan to float your business boat, call Kyle Peters, the Governor’s son-in-law, today! For the right consulting fee, he’ll make sure his mother-in-law’s appointees approve all the socialist assistance for your capitalist enterprise that he can!
Yay! It takes money to make money and socialism is about making money as inexpensively as possible.
PS ~ *The name “A1 Development Solutions” looks too much like “AI Development Solutions” . That’s a problem easily changed before Artificial Intelligence expands exponentially.
Isn’t promoting economic development part of the city council’s job?
Over the Labor Day weekend I attended a nephew’s wedding in Erie PA. We stayed in a run down air bnb that had once been an elegant Victorian-era 15-room home.
Erie is in decline. Curious, I looked into what had happened.
In the 1950s, the city made the mistake of not upgrading their port to accommodate international shipping. That mistake was the beginning of the end. It had been one hit after another after that one crucial mistake.
Keeping transportation infrastructure up to date is crucial.
That’s eerie, Mrs. Beal.
In South Dakota infrastructure suffers to prop up the state’s retirement system so, at a price of some $50 million+ (much of it federal dollars) the red moocher state chose an Iowa builder to replace the bridge across the Missouri River between Fort Pierre and the cesspool on the east side. Built in 1962, it was deemed in 2016 that the existing span is structurally deficient and functionally obsolete.
In 2020 South Dakota was 4th in the US in the number of structurally deficient bridges at 17 percent and 10th in the percentage of structurally deficient bridge deck area.
Larry, how does suffering infrastructure prop up the state’s retirement system? I don’t know this argument.
republicans all like you to think that they have brought themselves up by their bootstraps. Of course their bootstraps have always been tied to the government. In particular, South Dakota. Name one republican family or any family who has not gotten a dime of government help, you can’t. That is the way it’s supposed to work. You have to have the resources to expand or to dream and that is where government comes in to help you climb that mountain. Of course it all helps that you got the lands where that mountain is, for a pittance of it’s worth thanks to the theft from the original caretaker owners, but I digress.
So the non-communicative communications director, Sparky––not a great nickname for a grown-up, but if the shoe fits––says “[t]he governor’s office will not be commenting on this matter.” Reminds me of Mayberry’s Gomer: “Surprise, surprise, surprise.” Does anybody remember the last time Noem has answered anything of consequence. And left in her trail are a raft of unanswered questions. Smart people who are confident about their work have no problem addressing questions. She’s got a cocky air about her, but it is fueled by the adoration she gets from radical right who are content to listen to her preach, ad nauseum, about her selective “Freedom.”
Development “Professionals” have developed for themselves a lucrative scam to assist city and county officials who are too dense to read a Federal Register and apply for government assistance with projects. Grants are far and away better than Bank Loans and can be leveraged for a Bank Loan for adjuncts to the project. The differenc is often grants generally provide 80% or more of the funding and remove much of the risk for Banks and other investors to get involved.Not exactly “the Miracle if Free Enterprise.”
True entrepreneurs of capitalism have now been trumped by those peddling in middlemania – purveyors of favors…