After a tense back-and-forth Tuesday night, the Rapid City Common Council directed the city to move forward with discussions about the potential sale of a parking lot in downtown.
Many people support the concept of letting farmers voluntarily invest their own dollars in research and promotion. A smaller, but more vocal subset of people, is passionately opposed to checkoffs.
One of Rapid City’s fastest growing tech companies, Property Meld, is already in need of more space, but parking issues downtown may stall plans for expansion.
Critics of commodity checkoffs are making a fresh run at imposing new restrictions on the programs, including a prohibition on contracting research and promotion work out to organizations that lobby Congress or federal agencies.