Conservatives and liberals worked together to kill tax increment financing for the proposed Libertyland theme park/mixed-use development in Rapid City. Voters overturned the city’s promise of the largest TIF ever offered in South Dakota with a 70% No vote on Tuesday.
John Tsitrian reports that the con–lib alliance didn’t have to work too hard to secure that resounding victory for non-crony capitalism:
The idea had strong support from Elevate Rapid City, the city’s Chamber of Commerce-like center of the business community. Given the non-stop media barrage and signage throughout Rapid City during the weeks before the election, TIF-backers shelled out a pretty decent sum of money.
By contrast, opponents had next to nothing in signage (the one above is the only one I saw in town) and a few radio spots in the days before the election.
A knowledgable source told me that the pro-TIF folks spent more than $600,000 and that the opponents spent about $16,000 [John Tsitrian, “Rapid City Voters Say ‘No!’ to Libertyland Theme Park, Soundly Reject Tax Increment Financing (TIF) for It,” South Dakota Standard, 2026.01.22].
The mainstream Republican spin machine whines that a politically diverse group of citizens coming together to resist crony-capitalism poses a threat to his Republican party (and, yeah, such resistance to a China-style state-controlled economy does undermine the SDGOP’s decades-long dominance), but Tsitrian, who says he generally supports TIFs, looks beyond the petty politics and says investing tax dollars in a theme park was not likely to pay off:
Theme parks just aren’t as popular as they used to be. Six Flags is having its troubles and a theme park named Libertyland in Memphis shut down altogether in 2005. Diminshing crowds were a major reason for the shutdown. Considering that metro Memphis holds about 1.2 million people I have to wonder how metro Rapid City, which has maybe 150,000, could support even a downsized version of the Memphis Libertyland.
Possibly, proponents had their eyes on the scores of tourists that come through the area each summer. Problem with that thinking is that most of those tourists are out here to see the unique destinations (Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, the Badlands, Deadwood, Crazy Horse Mountain, among others) that make this region what it is. They’ve probably got theme parks within striking range of their homes. They don’t need to drive all the way to the Black Hills to see another one.
If Rapid City thinks a theme park can pull significant numbers of summer tourists away from our well-entrenched attractions, I think we may be experiencing delusions of adequacy, never mind grandeur [Tsitrian, 2026.01.22].
If there’s money to be made in the Black Hills, folks will come find a way to make it without government handouts. At least that’s what I thought back when I was a Republican. In the case of the LibertyLand TIF, that’s what 70% of Rapid City voters think.
Where does Earth hater Pat Powers believe the workforce to build this stupid project come from? Same question for a billion dollar prison, CJ Schwan’s and all the data centers?