Attended the GOP Luncheon in Brookings this last Monday to check the pulse of what locals are asking about when it comes to Law Enforcement, and to hear from our local State’s Attorney Dan Nelson. Great and informative talk from Dan on a number of topics, as he spoke about how the office handles conflicts of interest, working with the Attorney General’s office, and the crimes that impact the community.
Especially in terms of the questions from the audience, meth is a huge concern, and how it is getting into communities. He answered questions about how anymore most of it comes into the country up from Mexico by cartels who produce it and bring it in. It’s also of higher quality than several years back when the meth crisis started, as it’s produced on a larger scale and more highly refined than the stuff that people used to make in-state in the trunks of their cars.
The meth discussion dominated nearly the entire Q&A session. Although, I had to ask for my own clarification – what happened to the State’s Attorney’s facebook page updates of arrests and prosecutions? They once were constant updates and they literally went away a while back.
Dan explained that aside from being a staff member or two down, this great source of information and open government started being abused by people on facebook who were trying to not just provide their own narrative, but in some cases people were posting false information and false narratives about crimes actively under investigation that were causing issues as the local investigators were trying to solve them, so he made the decision to pause the updates until a solution could be found.
What other things came up? Aside from signing petitions for a couple of candidates, I did hear from one person who informed me that Matt Wagner, who had announced he was running for D8 House, and then suspended his campaign, may be “un-suspending” his campaign, as he had dealings with SDSU which may have been a conflict, and now with the new Supreme Court interpretation may no longer be in conflict allowing him to run.
While not at the lunch, I did hear earlier on Monday that Brookings County Commissioner Ryan Krogman, who has been serving on the commission for 12 years now, is not running again, leaving an open seat. With the Krogman name as well know in Brookings as it is, that takes a genuinely nice man and the toughest competitor out of the contest, making one of the two seats in play this year a wide open contest.
That’s the local 411 for Brookings politics.. stay tuned for more to come.