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Toby Doeden - Unfiltered
Welcome to "Toby Doeden - Unfiltered," the podcast where we dive deep into the heart of South Dakota! Join host, Toby Doeden, as he tackles the most pressing topics, events, politics, and more that shape our great state.
From local topics that matter most to you, to broader events happening in our country, Toby brings a fresh and unfiltered perspective to the discussion. Listen as he invites guests to share personal anecdotes, challenge conventional thinking, and make each episode a time to unravel and engage in pressing topics.
Whether you're a lifelong resident or new to the area, "Toby Doeden - Unfiltered" is your go-to source for genuine insights and engaging conversations.
Toby Doeden - Unfiltered
Episode 6
In episode 6, Toby interviews State Representative, Kevin Jensen, on the proposed $1 billion prison project.
-Policy changes that put staff and inmates at risk
-Ignoring DLR Study that would save SD taxpayers $400-$700 million
-Why are SD taxpayers being lied to?
What an amazing place we live, south Dakota. My mission statement is simple to re-energize the true conservative values of South Dakota. You're listening to Toby Doden Unfiltered. Well, welcome to episode six of Toby Doden Unfiltered. I am your host, toby Doden, and this is a special week because it's Christmas week and I couldn't be more excited. So, first and foremost, merry Christmas to each and every one of you out there. I hope you have a great Christmas, a great New Year's, a wonderful holiday season and get off to a wonderful start to your new year in January.
Speaker 1:Now, as promised, we're going to talk to Kevin Jensen today. Kevin Jensen is a very accomplished professional. He's a small business owner. He has volunteered for two plus decades for two-plus decades, you know, helping with, you know meth addiction. He is a certified NRA gun safety specialist and trainer. He wears many hats, one of which he is a current member of the State House of Representatives and senator-elect in his district and will be serving as a senator in the 2025 legislative session and in 2026.
Speaker 1:Kevin has championed the new prison issue for more than a year. Kevin dug in. He had a lot of questions. He wasn't getting the questions answered and so he did his own research, and so we're going to talk to Kevin today in detail about the new prison proposal that was originally reported at a cost of $825 million on some land south of Sioux Falls. Now there's been reports that that cost could escalate to well over $1 billion. We're also going to talk about a DLR study that was done at the behest of the state for $300,000 back in 2021, and I think the report was finalized in 2022. That report laid out a very detailed multi-city, multi-facility plan that would have cost roughly $600 million but would have built eight new facilities, nearly 3,000 beds, and done dozens and dozens of very important and key and much needed renovations and upgrades to facilities all over the state and much-needed renovations and upgrades to facilities all over the state.
Speaker 1:And so, without further ado, let me welcome you to our guest today, the esteemed Kevin Jensen. I cannot be more excited to talk to the individual that we are going to be talking to today. We mentioned it last week on our Bitcoin podcast that we were going to keep it simple so we could focus on our prep work. For this week we are going to talk all things about the new proposed I guess nearly $1 billion prison plan that the governor's office in South Dakota has been pushing for and we are going to talk to somebody today. If you've been watching the prison issue at all, you've heard of Kevin Jensen. Kevin is an interesting guy and I've known Kevin. I've met him this year, happy to call him my friend, and Kevin didn't want us to do this. But I feel like it's a necessity to give you a little bit of background on Kevin before we get into the information on the prison.
Speaker 1:Kevin is a small business owner. He's a South Dakota state and an NRA certified firearms instructor. Kevin worked for nine years with the Department of Justice doing meth lab training. He trained first responders and law enforcement on meth lab issues. Kevin's worked on all nine Indian reservations in South Dakota and trained tribal entities and law enforcement. He served on the Canton School Board for 15 years. He was a 4-H leader, a deacon in two churches and, as a side note, I got to tell you he's an entertainer. He plays the guitar and he sings country and country rock very well. That is who we are talking today. We are talking to Kevin Jensen, who has been championing, I wouldn't say, the anti-new prison campaign, but he's been out at the forefront of at least digging up the facts. So the good folks and the voters of South Dakota, if it ever comes to that, has all the information they need to make a good decision. So, kevin, welcome aboard. It's good to talk to you today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, toby, it's good to talk to you today. Thank you, toby, it's good to talk to you too. Yeah, I've been living this whole prison issue really from the beginning, and it goes back over a year and a half, close to two years In fact. The more research I've been doing, this has been kind of going on behind the scenes for over two years, but I really kind of picked up on it last summer and over the last few months but I really kind of picked up on it last summer and over the last few months. A lot of things have come to light that I just that are making me very, very uncomfortable with this, and it's not just the location. I think it would be hard to find any legislator that doesn't agree that we need to do something with the prison system, that we don't have to upgrade a number of the facilities.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this, kevin like I, you're in the know, right, like you've served. You've served in the state house of representatives since 2017. You are the Senate elect. You'll be serving in the Senate the next two years, which is awesome. Thank you for doing that. I know it's a thankless job and thank you. But outside of people like you and you know folks that are in the know, I think most South Dakotans kind of got you know surprised by the whole prison thing. So when did the conversations first begin about even examining the existing prison?
Speaker 2:about even examining the existing prison. Well, back in 2021, we commissioned a study to find out what it would take to upgrade our current facilities. We know that places like Springfield and Redfield are kind of running down and they do need repair and we do need to expand. So there was a DLR study commissioned and that was about $300,000 the state paid for and that came up with a $608 million plan that would have upgraded a number of the facilities, including building a new prison for $338 million, building a women's prison and updating all the others. And that DLR group study came out in 2022. So we've known for a couple of years that we were doing this. The last three sessions we've actually been setting money aside for the incarceration fund and pretty much everybody was voting for that because we know, we knew we needed to do some things. It really kind of came to a head early last summer when they came out with a set of guidelines of what they were looking for for the prison and you know, a couple of those things were kind of innocent little things like, ok, the governor kind of wants it in Lincoln County and we want to be along the interstate near an exit for easy access, and of course.
Speaker 2:I was working with Ryan Bruner over the summer and I was actually helping them trying to find a location, with absolutely no clue that they already had this school in public lands seven miles from my house.
Speaker 2:And the location near my house is only part of the issue.
Speaker 2:But what happened is the day before the appraisals were released for that new area. That was the first I'd even heard of it, and Ryan Bruner called me up the night before and he just said, oh, we're going to be releasing the appraisal on the land tomorrow. And I said, well, what land? I had no idea they'd already picked a site and that's when they kind of dropped it. They were going to release on the next day and most of the people in my area didn't even know school and public lands owned that because there's a gentleman, a neighbor, a friend of mine has been farming it for well over 30 years and so it just it was really, it was really kind of a shock. There was land that we had been negotiating with along the interstate that I thought would have if we were going to put it there and the neighbors were OK with it and it's along the interstate, you know, there there wasn't a lot of pushback at that point, but it was kind of a bomb dropped on us.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you said something there interesting, kevin, and I want to go back to it because I think it's important. So, as a current member of the state legislature, as one of the leaders of our state, you didn't even know that the state had purchased millions of dollars of land, and you heard it secondhand.
Speaker 2:Well, no, the School and Public Lands has owned the proposed site since the 1990s. Okay, proposed site since the 1990s Okay. What I didn't know is you know, I live seven miles away, like I said, and I didn't know that land was actually owned by School and Public Lands until that day before when they called me up and said this is the location we've picked. There's probably a lot of people, I'm sure all the neighbors over there knew it was School and Public Lands. But then what they actually did is they did an appraisal, which is another side issue. Land just in that same area just a few weeks ago sold for $14,000 an acre and $18,000 an acre, but they appraised the whole 320 acres at over $25,000 an acre, which is going to be a problem later on for taxpayers' evaluations and assessments and those things. But what they did then is they transferred about $9 million from corrections into school and public lands funds and then changed the title, changed ownership.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so, okay. So they already own the land. But as a legislator, you weren't even in the loop as to know that they had chosen that particular spot to put the prism. So was that solely made by the governor's office?
Speaker 2:Well, the Department of Corrections, I believe.
Speaker 1:yes, it was solely by them, yeah, but the Department of Corrections isn't going to choose that without the governor signing off, correct?
Speaker 2:Correct If you've been following our administration. Not much happens without the governor's blessing. But just to back up a little bit, I served on Corrections Commission for six years, my first six years in the legislature. Two years ago they took me off and it was kind of a surprise. I was also on the Juvenile Justice Reform Oversight Council for six years and they took me off of that too. So that's why I know these. You know, I suspect that these plans were in place for a couple of years, or at least the expansion of the prison was being planned. But the administration and people in Pirinomi pretty well, I have kind of an unfiltered mouth. Sometimes I say I have a size 10 foot, size 10 foot, but a size 11 mouth, and it fits in there quite easily. I just, you know, I want to keep everybody informed. I don't, I don't keep secrets and if I hear something I say something. And it's kind of interesting that whole process of taking me off corrections about the same time they were making these plans. It could be totally coincidental, but I doubt that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't believe in coincidences, Kevin. I want to go back one more thing before we move forward. You mentioned that the state legislature the money being set aside the last few years by the legislature. Was it specifically for renovations to the existing facility or was it just a generic fund for future exploration of where this thing's going to go?
Speaker 2:fund for future exploration of where this thing's going to go. Well, I think it started as more of a generic fund because we knew we needed upgrades around the state. So it kind of started as a generic fund. But then after the DLR study, dlr group study, it started becoming a little bit more specific and that study indicated a number of proposals. In fact I think it's about a 50 or 60 page proposal saying that what we needed to do around all the facilities.
Speaker 2:I really didn't, you know, I don't think a lot of us even suspected that that DLR study and I think I sent a copy to you that that study would actually be thrown in the garbage can and totally ignored. And I think the public largely doesn't even know that that ever existed. In fact, I didn't know it existed until last spring when Representative John Mills, who happens to be on appropriations and he's also a builder and a contractor, and he brought it to our attention and that's when the red flags went up and the bells started going off and I'm saying, okay, there's something not right here. We've got this study that tells us how we can upgrade at least 3,100 beds in the facilities around the state for about $608 million, and again, that included a new prison for $338 million, a new men's prison. It also stated in that report that the site location needed to be studied. And then, all of a sudden, the site location was picked with no discussion with the legislature and we will still have to vote on that.
Speaker 1:On that location, yeah, but that to me that's a smaller issue at this point so I'm looking at this dlr uh study that was done in 2022, uh, I think you said at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars, and in this study it's a. I mean, it's a. There's a lot of information there, so we're going to put this up on the screen so people can see what we're talking about. But this study that you keep mentioning, kevin, was to construct eight brand new, from the ground up facilities. That was going to house roughly 450 women, a thousand men, in various locations, plus the 1300 plus bed multi-custody correctional facility. So, plus, it was going to do literally dozens of updates all over the state at different facilities and at a cost of $600 million, which, yes, that's a lot of money. But as of now, we have the $500 million that the state set aside, plus, I think, roughly $72 million that they've earned in investment income. So, you know, roughly $572 million basically enough to pretty much pay cash for this DLR proposal.
Speaker 1:So what? What happened, kevin specifically, and who? Whose decision was it and and when, to say no. This DLR study? You know it's, it's, you know we did it, but we're not going to look at it, we're not going to listen to it. We're going to build a brand new prison that's going to cost probably two to four hundred million more and get one prison location, rather than dozens and dozens of upgrades around the state. When was that decision made? Who made it and who was in the loop?
Speaker 2:Well, what I would suggest is that and I just want to say on the outset I'm not accusing anybody of anything, but when I was on the school board, I earned the nickname a guardian of unintended consequences, and that's because I was a systems analyst, systems designer, before in an earlier career, and I always look at everything and said if we do this, then what's going to happen? So, to step back, about the same time all of this happened, you know, governor Noem had appointed Kelly Wasco as the new Secretary of Corrections, and that's about the same time that the decision must have been made at the administrative level. I believe that Kelly Wasco was brought in from Colorado prison system because it needed to fit Governor Noem's plan, and so I believe that you know, and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on this but I believe the whole thing started with Governor Noem having her concept of what needed to happen. Now, like you mentioned, you know, the study, the DLR study, was minimum medium, medium security, work release, women's prison, all of these things were involved. But right now the focus is on a 1,500-bed maximum security level, five maximum security prison, and I'll probably pontificate on that more later. But we only have 200 maximum security prisoners in the state of South Dakota. So why do we need? Yeah, on average about 200. Right now we have 200. Why do we need 1,500 beds, maximum security?
Speaker 2:Now, at the governor's address she said, well, this will be medium and maximum security prison, medium and maximum security prison. But at appropriations meeting, the Dunn group out of Texas that was spearheading all of this said that every cell would be maximum security and a maximum security level would cost an extra $400 million to make the entire facility maximum security. Now, that's on record, that's in appropriations, and that was just a couple of months ago. So there's, you know, I can see the wheels turning there, but there's so many more questions than answers and that's why a few weeks ago, I really started connecting the dots and say, okay, what's the real plan here? Because everybody to a person, except for maybe one or two, everybody says this makes no sense. It makes no sense to take this and move it 12 miles out of town. You're going to be 17 miles from the nearest medical facilities. Lincoln County now has to pick up any fires, which is volunteer fire departments, toby.
Speaker 2:I could go on and on and on about everything that's wrong with this, and I often do you know there's so many things to talk about but, like you say, to answer your question, really it had to come from the administration. On Corrections Commission, if you look at the state law, corrections commission says the mission says or the law says the corrections commission shall assist the Department of Corrections in assessing policy problems in the prison, updates, work with the judicial system to make sure that you know our laws for incarceration are staying in line. And as far as I know, talking to some of the corrections, the current corrections commission people, they were just as stunned as the rest of us with a lot of this. They were never informed.
Speaker 2:In fact, at a recent Corrections Commission meeting that I joined online as a spectator, I guess they were questioning why all this was happening. In fact, everybody on the Corrections Commission was kind of stunned. And then I think in my comment, open comment, I kind of mentioned that the Corrections Commission really had no opportunity to say anything or anything to do with this and Secretary Wasco flat out said I don't answer to the Corrections Commission, I answer to GOAC. Well, that's not necessarily true and I kind of gave her a pass because maybe she doesn't understand the difference between a commission and an advisory council and those kinds of things in South Dakota law. But the Corrections Commission should have been involved in all of these decisions all along and they were not.
Speaker 1:Well, wow, yeah, there's a lot of information there to unpack and I think in order to begin the process of doing that, we have to kind of step back and take a 10,000-foot view, so to speak. You know, and Americans all over the country started kind of losing some freedoms and some liberties. It took a while, but in hindsight a lot of people were able to look back and go, well, wow, we should have kind of seen some of the warning signs, right, I feel like that's kind of happening real time here with this prison thing. Like I don't care what anybody's opinion is, I don't care what your role is, if you're a citizen, if you're a state senator or a member of the house, it doesn't really matter. If you just look at what you said, kevin, we have 200 on average, roughly 200 maximum security prisoners at any given time in our current facility security prisoners at any given time in our current facility. Yet we are wanting to build a, you know, nearly $1 billion prison that can house 1500. So roughly seven and a half times the amount of of maximum security prisoners that we currently have. Like that alone is that we currently have? Like that alone is so alarming.
Speaker 1:Did they think that people were just like not going to pay attention Because, generally speaking, like and I count myself in this like the general public, right, and I'm a member of the general public largely for the last 50 years Like, generally speaking, we go to work, we go to church, we go have a beer on Friday after work with our friends and we don't pay much attention to these things, kevin. That's why we vote for great people like you. And so did they think people just weren't going to notice and they were just going to steamroll this thing through. Because, on the surface, I'm not saying whether we need a new prison or existing.
Speaker 1:Personally, I don't have enough information yet I surface I'm not saying whether we need a new prison or existing. I, personally, I don't have enough information. Yet I'd like to take a tour of the existing prison. I'd really like to do what you did, kevin, and really dig in and make my own decision. In the meantime, I can tell you as an outsider, just looking at that fact alone tells me that we have to do a lot more digging and we have to talk to people like you you know, one of the things I've been suggesting is that if you look at the current prison system, you know the Jamison, you know.
Speaker 2:Let me back up a little bit. I'm just going to say at the governor's address she said, she made a comment that really, really kind of stung and she said the current prison is older than the state and falling down. Well, the first part's only partially true. It's the oldest building, is older than the state, but it's not falling down. I want them to show me an engineering report that says that the structure is unsafe. It's not.
Speaker 2:We spend millions of dollars and millions of dollars upgrading that. We put in all new gates, we put in all new locks, all new sheet rocking, all new lighting, all new cameras, air conditioning a few years ago. The facility is as current as it could be for a building that age. But that's only a part of it. The Jameson Annex, which holds 745 prisoners, was opened in 1993, so that's only 31 years old. Then we have the D-Pod, which added 192 beds. That was opened in 2006. And then, in 2020, we spent $8 million building a new infirmary medical unit on the Jameson Annex. So the Jameson Annex, even if you go with the original 745, the end of November we only had 460 inmates in there. So we do have, and they moved a bunch of them from Sioux Falls down to Springfield. Now Springfield's a little bit overcrowded and we know that, but the numbers just don't add up.
Speaker 2:And what I really started looking at is the DOC owns 2,000 feet to the north of the current Jameson prison. We own 28.6 acres. The entire Jameson sits on 22.5 acres. Jameson Annex type prison, 2,000 feet away, which is only 1,000 feet away from the Sioux Falls sewage treatment facility, and we could build a two-story and house a minimum of 1,500 people right there. And that's why this location out of town. It only makes sense. It only makes sense and I'll drop my bomb right now it only makes sense if this prison is being designed for an immigration deportation center that, as Trump rounds up all the terrorists, murderers and rapists, you have to have a place to house them while they're being processed before deportation. So if you look back, I think I sent you a couple links CNN and MSNBC, who are no fans of Trump, both reported a few weeks ago that Trump's looking for 41,000 maximum security beds around the country. That as they round up the worst of the worst, the ones that have been released from prisons in other countries, the known terrorists. We have to have a place to house them while we go through the deportation process. We can't just throw them on a bus and send them south. So you look at the location out there Okay, so there's 1,300 more beds, so we could take 1,300 of them.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the location being out, just a mile off of a state highway and close enough to the interstate where the buses could run up and down without any threats or security issues of driving through Sioux Falls four or five miles to get to the interstate, you know I've been saying this now for over two weeks that if you look at everything that makes sense, that's probably the one that makes the most sense. Because when I look at the logistics and the cost of running our current system out in the country on farm ground, there's so many things that don't make sense, especially if the plan is to keep the Jameson Annex open, and that's what they've been telling us all along. So, as we, I know there's so much more here to unpack. In fact, sometimes I talk for several hours on this because there are so many issues. I think the smart thing to do for our legislators and what I'm asking them to do is just let's take a timeout. Why do we have to have this open by 28? Why do we have to have shovels in the ground at the end of March, early April, so another year to study this and look at the feasibility of building in Sioux Falls in place, but they refuse to even talk about it. I mean, they don't talk about the current location because of the pending lawsuit. Of course the group sued because they didn't have to go through the process of zoning or anything like that. The state's position is that they allow the counties to zone so that they don't have to follow those rules, and that's basically what the lawsuit's about. And now it's under appeal, but that appeal probably won't be heard until next summer. So again, they wanted to have shovels in the ground before the end of April for sure. So it's going to take a two-thirds vote in both houses to release that funding.
Speaker 2:But you're a businessman I know you're a very astute businessman. So if your employees came to you and said let's build another building, we're going to build another facility. Oh, and, by the way, it's going to cost three or four times what you think it's going to cost. But we need you to start building right now. But you have no idea what the daily operational costs are going to be. Well, what's it going to cost to operate that? It's going to be exponential over our current costs and just the sewage system alone. They're promising Lenox $50,000 a month into perpetuity to tie into their sewage system. That's 13 and a half miles away. We're only 1,000 feet away if we build right in Sioux Falls. I've heard a lot of people in Sioux Falls, just you know they say, well, part of it's the mayor don't want it. Well, it's not the mayor's prison. You know I've never talked to the mayor about this, but this is our prison and we should be doing what the people of South Dakota want, not just what the administration wants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like, well, we're going to go back to your theory here in a moment, but a wise person once told me, toby, if it's a good idea today, it'll be a good idea a year from now, and I have used that advice most of my career. I'll get you know, hey, let's do this, or this seems like a great idea, and oftentimes our best deals, kevin, that we make are the ones that we don't make. You know what I mean it's like. Take the amount of time to process it, and if it's a good idea today, it'll be a good idea a year from now. But so so it's your theory, and and and certainly a lot of the data you know points to to this being a at least a reasonable theory is that you know this new 1500 bed, you know maximum security prison could be used as a large deportation center for the worst of the worst illegal immigrants that are here. If that's the case and I talked about this this weekend because I had seen you say that in another interview we spent me and some of my family spent a couple hours talking about this this weekend because I had seen you say that in another interview we spent me and some of my family spent a couple hours talking about this this weekend, and it was so perplexing to me because, if that's true, okay, and we don't know, but it's a legitimate theory based on the evidence and I agree with you that that is a very good possibility. That's what's happening.
Speaker 1:But if that's true, this would have had to have been a multi-year backroom type of deal. Because, number one to my knowledge, there's very little, if any, federal funding going into this prison, which, if it's going to be used for mass deportation, the federal government should be footing a good chunk of this bill, right? So that's number one. Number two it would indicate that this thing's not going to be operational until near the end of Trump's term. Okay, so we're assuming that the Democrats aren't going to get back into office after Trump's four years and completely reverse all this nonsense again and open up the border right. And then, thirdly, it assumes that Governor Noem is willing to build a $1 billion facility at the behest of in this case, you know Trump or Trump's team, not knowing if we're actually ever going to use it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I know that's. You know, that's one of the reasons that it does seem like this would be a very odd way to do this. I also have heard comments. Well, we agree with Trump, we want these people out of here, we want to get rid of them. So why shouldn't we go head away and do this and I agree with you 100% if this was going to be used for federal issues the other, you know.
Speaker 2:Another side note is that maybe this could be a privatized prison at some point, that we you know to use an expression I've heard before sell the beds to the feds, so it becomes a federal facility. But the bottom line is why are they asking you and I to pay for it? Well, here's part of the issue I believe with that is, if you're going to use federal funds, they went about it the wrong way, because to do that, you would have to maybe propose a site and there would have to be an open comment period for at least 60 days, um, and if there's federal money involved, then we've got to talk about all of the uh, the unions and everything else that would have to be involved, and it would really complicate the process. So, if we can get it built and then fill it with federal man-mates. I guess they could come back and say, well, it's going to be cost neutral. But the problem is we didn't fix any of our other falling down, the real falling down facilities. In fact I'm projecting if we build this, if we go ahead and sign off on that money in this session, they're going to come right back around and say we need another $300 million to fix these other facilities, because one of the big pushbacks from the local people, people that have family in the prison is they might have a minimum security inmate in their family or a medium and we're putting them into a maximum security facility.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we've probably all seen what a maximum security facility, well, I think we've probably all seen what a maximum security prison looks like and it's. There's no way minimum security people should be in there. And then what about your work, release and all these other people? So you know, you know what I'm saying is a logical thing and I think that's part of it.
Speaker 2:But when you talk about the history behind this, if, if we look back at June or July of 21, when Kristi Noem first went down to the border and kind of made national news that she was going to the border and then in July she sent our National Guard troops down there. She's been down there several times and at the same time she's been campaigning for Trump and probably in good favor of Trump. And then, like I say, she sent her guards down there three times and one could speculate that she's built a national persona about being hard on the immigration and wanting to shut down the border and good, I mean, that's all well and fine, but if this prison is tied to that, then I think it's a little bit of smoke and mirrors, bait and switch. There's just again. You know, I'll just keep saying nobody's come up with a good, logical reason to build out in the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I certainly haven't heard one. So let's talk about Kelly Wasco here for a moment. You know I absolutely do not believe in coincidences. No-transcript Like were you able to find or did you look for a connection to Governor Noem and Kelly Wasco prior to her being appointed to this position? Is there a pass between those two ladies?
Speaker 2:Well, maybe, but I think the path would go through Texas. Maybe In Colorado Kelly Wasco was. I think she was commissioner of prisons, I can't remember her exact title there, but they were largely privatizing and turning the beds to feds. Privatizing and turning the beds to feds. And this group from Texas that's proposed it has done a lot of the background work on this. It's probably well aware of Kelly Wasco's credentials. And again, I'm just speculating.
Speaker 2:You know, there's so many things that have been happening through Texas over the last two or three years that possibly she was introduced to somebody that could come in and do this.
Speaker 2:We've gone through several or a couple of wardens in the meantime and one of the previous wardens told me that he was just called up relatively out of the blue and said we don't need your services anymore, we're going in a different direction, you know. And then the last warden that we had was pretty much shown the door, also without much fanfare or knowing exactly why. I'm just I'm speculating that they were pushing back and saying we don't need to do this and then they were replaced. And again, historically there's been some individuals that have been involved with the Norman administration excuse me, that did push back a little bit and they were replaced. You know and that's an observer saying this, but it sure appears that way, and I won't name names, but it just seems like that there's a plan by the governor and it's going to happen and I think Secretary Wasco was just the right person to bring in to do this because of the background that she has.
Speaker 1:Yeah, real quick, I've got something specifically I want to ask you, but you just said something that I think bears delving into a little when you said it appears from your perspective that dissenters of Governor Noem's agenda seem to just kind of get pushed to the wayside. Right Like, she came out with a book earlier this year that she is mostly recovered from, but it was disastrous. Right, you know there was. You know that she had shot her dog and all this stuff. And when you sat down and realize how many levels of people that had to go through the sign off on that book, right Like, I mean dozens of people all of it. So, like, right there, that tells you that she is surrounded by yes, people. Because if she had any strong, independent people on her leadership team, they would have said Christy, like, you can't put this in the book, people are going to be furious. But anybody that tries to talk again this is as an outsider. I don't know her personally. I'm just telling you what people have told me that if she wants to hear you say, yes, madam Governor, that's a great idea, let's do that. And people that say otherwise, they either get shoved out of the inner circle or they lose their job altogether. So let me transition back to Kelly Wasco quick. So Wasco was hired in 2022.
Speaker 1:A simple Google search, which I'm not going to get into the details, but she's had some legal issues in the past. You can search Oakley versus Ramish. It's a 2014 case some pretty serious allegations. She then shows up in South Dakota in 2022. And ever since she's been here. If you Google Kelly Wasco, it isy. After controversy, there are Department of Correction employees, even high-ranking DOC employees, that have not only questioned her leadership, but have overtly questioned her leadership so far as to accuse her of loosening and weakening specific policies at the prison to get a desired outcome of chaos to build momentum for the new prison. Can you speak on behalf of that, kevin? Did you dig into any of that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I can speak to that. I have spoken with numerous, numerous corrections officials, former wardens and inmates that have come out since she came in. We don't, I guess, to put it bluntly, we don't need a new prison as much as we need to go back to our previous policy decisions. It's been policy decisions that have created the chaos decisions. It's been policy decisions that have created the chaos. Just for an example, you know, in appropriation she says we're fully staffed, but I believe they've already run out of overtime for the whole year coming up. We've already run out of overtime.
Speaker 2:So what happened in one of the early policy changes was that where four guards were needed or required by previous policy on a certain post, they reduced it to two. Where there was two guards or officers involved or should be involved, they reduced it to one. We had one guard beaten almost to death by a couple of inmates and there was a lawsuit that actually came Finally. Actually, those two inmates were arrested for attempted murder and this fall they were convicted of attempted murder of this young man. In July one of our I'll call him one of our early whistleblowers that came out and said these policies are going to get somebody hurt. Well, he got jumped in June or July, hospitalized. That one never even made the news and then he received a settlement and part of that settlement according to him and I haven't had a chance to fact check it, but according to him. I told him he couldn't go to the media about this. But yeah, I've had, I know. As I was knocking on doors campaigning around the district I talked to a number of officials that work in the prison and they all said the same thing.
Speaker 2:It appears that the policy changes are designed to get somebody hurt and I hate they make that accusation because it it just. It's so not humanistic. I mean, it's not not what a Christian would do, I mean. So part of me just says that can't be true. But but on the other hand it is happening. And then when we look at they, they moved a bunch of prisoners from Sioux Falls down to Springfield, which created a significant overcrowding. But what they moved down there? According to the officers and according to some other staff they moved and from family members, from the people in Springfield, inmates in Springfield. They moved a bunch of gang members down there and then shortly afterwards we saw those riots in Springfield and the people, the prisoners that had been there on, you know, minimum security, medium security, were scared to death to even come out of the rooms because the gangs were taking over. But of course, you know corrections won't talk about any of this. You know they keep hiding behind that lawsuit and I hate to say they're hiding behind it, but they definitely won't talk about the location.
Speaker 2:But you know I hear these little things all the time, that, like even in appropriations that you know, she says they're fully staffed. And again, I'll go back to being a. You're a business person. Let's say you have a restaurant and it takes three fry cooks to run a 24-hour shift, but you can never fill that third spot. So you reduce your policy to say, okay, we're going to have two to run 12-hour shifts, now I'm fully staffed. And that's what I believe happened is we reduced the number of people on post that should be there to the ones that we have. And then we can say we're fully staffed and I, you know I invite them to come back and tell me I'm absolutely wrong on this. You know, I'd love them to show me proof that we are fully staffed and that we have safe working conditions, but people on the inside are saying that it's dangerous. We have people now that even the ones that work there that don't feel safe there, and when we you know, we have a former warden that used to go down and have lunch with the inmates and walk around and never had a fear of anything, and now all of a sudden, everybody's afraid to be in there. So again it comes back down. It's all policy change that's causing all this, and one of the things I'm asking for is again a timeout and then reverting our policies back to where we were and let's figure this thing out. I hate to say it, but somebody might get killed, and if we're creating a dangerous situation to say this is why we need a new prison, and if we're creating a dangerous situation to say this is why we need a new prison it's all smoke and mirrors it is because we, the D. I'll just go back one step further here.
Speaker 2:I talked about the D wing, the D pod, which was added in 2006. It was designed to add a second floor. In fact, kelly Wasco flat out denied it, denied it, denied it for months and finally I had somebody on the inside say, yes, it was because there's a space that's left for an elevator. There's no elevator shaft but there's a space for it and they're using it for sporting goods storage right now. And then we got a hold of the designer, the engineers, and they said yes, absolutely, it was designed for a second floor, but she's. And then finally she had to admit that it was. But now she's saying that the FAA would have to approve it. Now there's no way those plans were approved, you know, 18 years ago, if FAA hadn't been Now I'm a pilot, I've flown in on that, I've been on that glide path many times that building could handle a second floor and still be way out.
Speaker 2:The new site. The site 2,000 feet away is way off the glide path and there's already buildings out there, already taller than that. We did have one of our members in the Lincoln County group down here contact one of the supervisors for FAA and they said, well, nobody's come forward and even asked. And if they did, that decision could be made within 60 days. But I'm absolutely convinced I know enough about TCAs, terminal control areas, and that I know enough to know that it would not be a problem on that glide path and it's far enough off that the total height of that building would not be a problem on that glide path and it's far enough off that the height, the total height of that building, would still be less than the current prisons, the old portion of the prison. So I know I rambled on a little bit about that, but there's so much here to unpack that I didn't even know yeah sometimes I don't even know where to start and stop yeah, the faa stuff is just nonsense.
Speaker 1:We fly into that airport all the time too, and I mean there's towers and all. It's absurd that adding another 15 or 20 feet to the top of a building is somehow going to make it dangerous for incoming flights. So what really caught my attention on this story, kevin, and again, man, thank you so much. Nobody in the state has even scratched the surface of what you've been able to uncover and I'm hoping that you, coming on here today, you know we've been averaging, you know, roughly about 400,000 listens or views per month and almost exclusively those are in South Dakota. So we have a really big footprint here. I think we had 150,000 engagements on social media from our Bitcoin episode. So I'm really hoping that we're able to put the information that you put the hard work in to dig up and we're able to lay that out in front of folks around the state so they can kind of make up their own mind.
Speaker 1:But as a developer, we look at, I look at projects all the time Like this is one of my careers. So you know, we, you know, hey, you know we want to expand, we want to buy more property, we want to build more apartment complexes, all this kind of stuff. So we go look like what are the available projects there that I can get involved with. So we go look like what are the available projects there that I can get involved with. And, without exception, I always, if there's a choice, I will always look for a project of a preexisting condition. My infrastructure is there. I'm in a, I'm in a better neighborhood almost always.
Speaker 1:Like all the new construction, you know they go out of town. You know Aberdeen's building apartments way on the north side of town, basically in the country, but you know they keep annexing more and more so they can build these homes and they put the apartment buildings out there Like we buy apartment buildings. In fact, we're doing a large complex right now. It's like a multi-block complex of apartment buildings that were built right after World War II. Kevin, these things were built like fortresses Concrete walls, concrete floor, concrete reinforced concrete footings about twice what you would see today.
Speaker 1:And everybody in town, like a lot of the developers like Toby, just tear it down, start over. Why would I tear down a rock solid group of buildings when I can completely renovate them into new like properties and keep the existing location and keep the infrastructure? It saved me millions of dollars. And when I looked at this project, kevin, I'm like there is nobody on planet earth that is going to convince me that abandoning what you've done at that prison the last 30 or 40 years. You mentioned a lot of the new facilities that have been built in the last 30 years. You mentioned a lot of the updates that have been done to the existing facilities.
Speaker 1:There is not a private sector developer that I've ever met that would look and sit down at this project and think, oh yeah, let's just kick everything we've done the last four decades to the curb and go start from scratch. It's a losing proposition for a for-profit developer and this is, I guess, why people hate government so much is because government entities, generally speaking, have this attitude that they are above reproach and it doesn't have to make fiscal sense in order to do something. Well, I am the opposite of that. I think government should be run like a business. I think government should be able to sit down and go here's how much money we have to spend, here's our bills, and their goal should be to have more money left over after they pay their bills, like that, like. To me that just seems like common sense. So like what? What feedback have you gotten, generally speaking, kevin, from from your constituents as to whether they would like to see the prison stay in its current location and be renovated, versus the new prison south of St Paul's?
Speaker 2:Well, in Lincoln County, almost to a person. Like I say, I've only talked to one person. That's absolutely all in for the new prison. But, like you said, a lot of our legislators are farmers, they're ranchers, they're business people. They're business people. Like you said, a lot of our legislators are farmers or ranchers. They're business people. They're business people.
Speaker 2:You know, like you, and for them to vote for this, as you well stated, it makes no sense. You know, you mentioned infrastructure From day one. When they told me that this was going to be out in the middle of Lincoln County, I said but there's nothing there. There's no infrastructure. It's going to take. Well, the original proposal said 150,000 gallons of water a day. Well, now, the most recent proposal is it's going to be 250,000 gallons of water used from our local water system every day and 223,000 gallons of sewage being pumped over to Lenox. But the nearest water line that we could tap into is southeast water and I believe it's going to be about seven or eight miles of pipeline to run the water over there. There's no infrastructure there. We are going to have to run some major, major power lines over there that are not there now. And then, one of the things I know they wanted to put in geothermal. They've already done some of the geothermal testing, but you still have to have a natural gas pipeline and nobody's even talked yet about where they're going to tap into that and how much that's going to cost. But we're talking about are we going to be using eminent domain or are we going to be running along the roads and the easement areas? None of that's even laid out. Maybe they have plans for that, but virtually nobody in the county has seen those. I don't think even the Lincoln County commissioners have seen these.
Speaker 2:In fact, to go back way to the back to the beginning, most of the Lincoln County commissioners were telling me they were left in the dark too. They didn't know this was this proposed site was going to happen until it actually did. But you're right, it makes from a business standpoint it's almost ludicrous because again, we have idea and they will not even give us a proposed daily operational increase or cost. Basically they said, well, we might know in January, but they want us to vote for it, probably in January. And I tell you what. It makes no sense and what I don't understand is how many people are good business people they're good people in the legislature and how they would even consider voting for this, not having any idea what the ramifications are going to be and the total operational costs. And you know we could go back over.
Speaker 2:You know the Senate Bill 201 and the RL21 debacle and why so many of those people that voted for it are not there anymore, because it was to me, it was a bad business decision to undermine the people. When we start undermining the people, our constituents, we deserve to be gone. We deserve to be gone and nobody in my, all my constituents, you know every there isn't a day goes by. I'm not in town or any area and somebody isn't thanking me for bringing all of this to the front, because it's not just a horrible location as far as destroying land values and everything within 10 miles of it and especially for those that live close.
Speaker 2:But this isn't a four-year project. This is a 100-year project and this thing isn't going to be there for four years and go away. It's going to be there for most of our life. Well, it'll be there all of my lifetime and probably my kids' lifetime, most of our life. Well, it'll be there all of my lifetime and probably my kids' lifetime.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. So it will have an impact and the other thing that nobody's really just one more thing that nobody really seems to be focusing on is you can't build a present out in the middle of nowhere for 1,500 people 400, I mean 400 support staff, basically a small town of 2,000 people, and not expect that there's going to be hotels and gas stations and everything popping up around it, which will really really be totally disruptive to Worthing, harrisburg and Canton, really be totally disruptive to Worthing, harrisburg and Canton or any future development. We elect our county commissioners to protect us from urban sprawl and to make sure that everything makes sense when it gets built. And this just all of a sudden, it just throws a wrench into everything for the next 50 years for Lincoln County.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the landowner thing, Kevin, is a great point, because the landowners are going to get screwed two ways. One, their assessments are going to go up, leading to higher taxes, but conversely, the actual value of the property is going to decrease, because people aren't going to want to buy property right next to the prison. It's like the double-edged sword for the landowners. You mentioned the state legislature Again. This isn't fact and I want to make sure people understand that this is my opinion based on what I know and what I have read, and certainly what Kevin has shared today.
Speaker 1:The leadership of the legislature changed 180 degrees going into the 2025 session, and I think most people watching this probably already know this.
Speaker 1:But we had every single legislature leadership position changed from the 2024 legislation session to the 2025 upcoming session. Why? Because of who was and who was not elected in the June primary and the November general election. So we have a far more conservative group of leaders in the state legislature than we had in prior years. I can only assume, Kevin, that the governor's office and the governor's team, when they looked at the prior leadership team in the legislature who were all very close confidants to the governor's office, that's well known they didn't anticipate any issues with getting the two-thirds vote needed to get this extra funding for the prison? Is that a safe assumption that Governor Noem thought she was going to walk through this vote in the upcoming session because of the existing leadership and then, of course, found out this year that we have all new conservative leadership and it would seem to me getting two-thirds of the vote in January is going to be impossible and this project's going to stall.
Speaker 2:I agree. I think and I hate to go back to it, but I think it was Senate Bill 201 that really made the deciding factor and the use of eminent domain and the use of carboninent domain and the use of carbon summit solutions just walking on people's rights was very, very frustrating to a lot of people. It brought a lot of conservative people that believe in the state and they believe in people's rights because we all work for them in people's rights, because we all work for them. You know we don't work. I should say the people don't work for our legislature. The legislature works for the people and I think the unswell of putting conservatives in if you look back at the primary vote, I think almost to a person. The ones that were lost in their primaries voted for Senate Bill 201, which was to basically thumb their nose at people's rights, and I think your assertion is probably correct that the governor thought she was going to keep those same people and she would have her two-thirds. I think the two-thirds right now in the Senate is extremely questionable.
Speaker 2:I've talked to a lot of senators and incoming senators and they all you know, as I talk to them, you know this isn't a vendetta against the administration? By all means, it's not. I'm not out after anybody. What I'm out after is common sense, what makes sense. And no matter how many times I twist this and turn it, I cannot make that location make sense. And I think it's the same is true with a lot of new legislators. What really has been very, I guess, invigorating for me is how many West River legislators, even though it's not in their backyard you know, nimby, not in my backyard Even though it's not in their backyard, they understand that it still has to make fiscal sense. And that's where I think we have a lot of new people. You know, we have a lot of people that are realtors and business owners and ranchers, and they all know that they have to make a balance sheet work in their own life. We need to make a balance sheet work here, and I think in the house they're going to have a hard time getting it through there, I think, unless they start negotiating with people and I hate to use that word, but if less, you know, if the administration starts negotiating with legislators and I think you know what I mean by that um, I think it's going to be a very, very hard sell to get a two-thirds majority in the senate. Um, I will say this I'm.
Speaker 2:My guessing from a tactical standpoint is they'll probably the other vote that has to happen is to approve the location. Now, location will only take a simple majority. So if they run the bill for the location first, it does complicate things a little bit, but then any bill can be amended, any bill can be. You know, we can, we can bring any bill back up and amend or or or repeal it. But that would be my guess on the tactical side that that's what they would do. But I think, when it comes down to I, I I've talked to legislators that think, well, this vote's going to happen in the first week. And then I talked to other legislators that say this is going to drag on all out, to right to the last minute, to the last day of session, and I'm kind of leaning more to the latter that it will drag on through the whole session, but right now, and one of the reasons for that would be that maybe they can convince a couple of these people to change their votes in the meantime.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the people here. One real quick. Have you seen any polling? Has anybody done any polling in the state of South Dakota to find out what the majority of residents or how they feel about the stupid prison project?
Speaker 2:I have not seen any. But one thing I know about polling is you can. You know. I had a financial guy tell me one time when I was in work at the corporate level. He said don't tell me how much money you want to make, just tell me how much you want to spend, or something like that. How much you want to spend or something like that. To that is basically you can. You can make any. You can make any survey work in your advantage, based on the questions and who you call. We all know. You know like at the presidential elections they they tend to lean heavily in calling democrat districts, so their surveys are skewed if it depends on how you frame that question. If you call people and say do you want to deport people, well sure they're going to say yes, let's build something. They're going to say. If we're going to say do you want to build a prison, not having any idea what it's going to cost, I think the average South Dakotan would say no. So again, I haven't heard of a survey. I'd be really skeptical.
Speaker 1:I'd want to know the questions. Yeah, that's a good point about polling, so let me just ask you the same question a different way. You've been at the forefront of this. You've talked to people all over the state. Is it your opinion that the majority of residents are likely not for the new prison or, at the very least, would like to see more research done on the existing facility?
Speaker 2:It's kind of a loaded question because I think, as you started, most people only know what they've heard in the news or read in the papers. And locally here, even in the Sioux Falls, minneapolis, lincoln County area, we really only have one TV station that's kind of taken a lead on putting information out and the others have kind of just kind of ignored it. When I get 10 minutes with people and explain to them what's going on, they change their mind. But most people say, well, yeah, we've heard that it's overcrowded and things are falling down. When the governor says the building is falling down and that's what they hear, but they don't get to hear the other side then yeah, I think you could probably get a lot of people saying that we need something new. And then of course, you get legislators that say, well, we have to build it somewhere, and I don't disagree, but let's build it where we are instead of, you know, somewhere. That doesn't make sense. I think if people even had five minutes of education they'd understand what the real problems are.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's important to note a couple of things. One, I'm going to look into't have proof of this, because I haven't done it. I believe strongly that this project of just, you know, blindly going to build this new prison without really looking at the other options, I think would be very unpopular. Okay, and so with, with, with that hypothesis as the background, um, you know you, you mentioned, you know, uh, state legislature, state legislators excuse me, you know negotiating all this kind of stuff. For the first time in the history of South Dakota politics, we have an apparatus now where, if a politician runs for state senate or state house and runs on a platform of conservatism and I'm going to protect the taxpayers' rights, I'm going to protect landowner rights, I'm going to protect the size of our government and make South Dakota more efficient these are all the things our people ran on. For the first time in the history of South Dakota, we have an apparatus where, if they don't live up to their promises to the voter, people like me have the resources to make sure they don't get reelected in two years. So that would be the warning. You see people like Charlie Kirk doing this nationally, and this isn't a threat or anything else, it's just a fact.
Speaker 1:My job as the chairman of Dakota First Action and getting involved in this, kevin, was to put my time, my money, my energy and my resources into protecting the citizens and the voters of South Dakota. And if there's somebody that I helped get elected and there was a lot of them and they go to peer and they sell out their constituents, I will single-handedly take them back out of office. And so I hope the people that hear that when they get approached by people to say, hey, what would we have to get, what would you have to get to get your vote on this prison thing, I hope they remember that because and I think they will like the people that largely won office and beat the incumbents are really good, solid Christian like, just like the guy next door, the gal next door, just good earthly people, and so I don't think we're going to have that issue. But this also goes to the rhinos. You know this goes to the. I know you have to be a little more careful than what I do, but Will Morton, casey Crabtree, taylor Ray Felt, michael Roll all these people that we know are going to support the prison. They supported RL 21. All these people that we know are going to support the prison. They supported RL21, like they're on notice too, because you know we took control of the power back in the state. You know, with all of our conservative leaders, and I don't know what our 2026 priorities are going to be yet, kevin, but if they continue to push back against what the people of South Dakota and in their districts want, we're going to find people to run against those folks too. So I don't need you to respond to that. I just wanted to say that because that's how passionate I feel about it.
Speaker 1:If I do polling, good polling, unbiased polling and 65% or 60% or 55% of South Dakotans want a new prison and they have all the information and that's the decision they've made, then I'll support a new prison. Like that's the way our system works. We are elected to represent the people, right, and so whatever the people want largely is what we should do. But sometimes the people don't have the right information and that's the point you were making. It's a great point. A lot of people might think, oh, we need a new prison only because they've seen one side.
Speaker 1:Amendment H, in the general, was the same way Amendment G. They got out the pro-amendment G, the pro-amendment H. People got out in front and early on were leading. We saw it in polling and by the time people like me and you and others were able to get that anti message out. Like you said, 10 minutes with a voter, kevin's like I can flip them on the prison, 10 minutes with a voter. We flipped them on H and we flipped them on G because they didn't understand the bills. So a couple of last things, kevin, and I think these last couple are important. Number one have you specifically, specifically, or has anybody you know specifically reached out to the governor's office for a comment on why they are ignoring the DLR study for upgrading and renovating and building new facilities all over the state at a fraction of the price of the new prison? Have you attempted to talk to Nome's office directly and, if so, have you heard back?
Speaker 2:Well, ryan Bruner. I've known Ryan Bruner for a long time, even before legislature, but when he was school and public lands commissioner we worked on a lot of projects together. So I have reached out to Ryan and right now, as far as the location goes, they will not even discuss it because of the lawsuit. They're hiding behind the lawsuit on that one. And I have asked Ryan basically why we've thrown that study out and it's just politely, just just no, this is the direction we're going. You know, I don't get a logical explanation. Um, when I look at when I talked to, I held a press conference about five or six weeks ago and out of that whole a little over an hour press conference, the only pushback I got was from ryan and basically said my timeline on one of the issues was off, but he didn't dispute anything else that I said. So I don't know. I think they're probably just avoiding public comment of any kind and it's befuddling. I mean it just kind of goes unexplained. It's befuddling, I mean just kind of goes, it goes unexplained. I have a couple of times questioned the secretary and I got pushed back that basically I was wrong. But you know, like to go back to your earlier comment for any legislator to vote for this not knowing what the future cost is going to be and I think I said it early on it's going to be the most fiscally irresponsible vote. You can't vote to spend future generations money into perpetuity without even having a clue how much it's going to cost, and I think that's what a lot of people need to know. Again, they won't even discuss. I started early on asking why they didn't look at the DLR study and they just refused to even talk about it. Basically because part of that DLR study was to be upgrading current facilities and they won't even absolutely will not even talk about the possibility of building near the current Jamison prison.
Speaker 2:As far as the incoming legislators seven of the new legislators going into the Senate are probably exactly as you have described. They're grassroots, they're concerned about spending, they're concerned about the money. One of the things that just throws me off the deep end is the governor needed to come up with $258 million more to add to the $659 million to be able to fully fund the $825 million. Well, $175 million of that money is coming from other people's money, not just taxes, but these are people. That is the unclaimed property. We got about $229 million coming into the unclaimed property fund this year and she wants to take $175 million of that and move it over to the prison fund. Now this is done.
Speaker 2:All the time Been working with the treasurer's office and I think at this point right now, if they got my numbers right, we have about $600 million in liability on the balance sheet already that if people would all come forward and claim their money, we still have to pay that. So we take that $175 million out to build a prison. All of a sudden those people come back and say, hey, I want my $175 million, we've got to find it. We've got to find that money because we are liable for it. One of the things we're going to be subjecting is putting the unclaimed property money into a trust fund and only being able to move the interest off that account into the general fund and protecting those dollars, because right now every administration's done it to a certain level. You know it's frustrating when we end up at the end of the year with a $85 million surplus or a $90 million surplus 110.
Speaker 2:Covid years we had a lot more, but it's been pretty much done by every administration and what we call it? We call it sweeping funds. You sweep funds from an account that hasn't been used for a while. I've seen that happen a few years, a few times, and it just strikes me as wrong. It's not our money. It's not our money but we take that money out of somebody else's fund and put it into the general fund because it hasn't been used for a while. Fiscally, there's so many things. I think a lot of these new legislators are going to wake up and they're going to see some of these things and they're going to. It's a head scratcher. You know, we fund. Obviously it's hard to fund our government, but you know what? We don't have a taxing problem. We've got a spending problem. People have heard that over and over and over, but I think in this case this is going to be a spending problem and it's not going to go away.
Speaker 1:We're going to be stuck there for decades. Yeah, don't get me started on the unclaimed property. I've been digging into that for months now and I'm going to talk about it at a future date. But so many of our leaders in this state specifically governors for many years have mismanaged the unclaimed property that should have been put in a trust. Many, many years ago.
Speaker 1:South Dakota had the opportunity the last 20 or 30 years to be the most self-sufficient. Dakota had the opportunity the last 20 or 30 years to be the most self-sufficient, frugal, shrunk down government in the history of the United States from a state perspective. And what did we do? We got more bureaucratic, we got larger and we got more reliant on sources like the federal government, sources like unclaimed property. It's beyond frustrating. Let me leave you with this last question, kevin, because I mean, at the end of the day, I think this is what people want to hear from you as somebody who has done as much, if not more, research into this prison in the state the last year. If I could wave a magic wand today, what exactly is it that you would like to see done?
Speaker 2:moving forward, Well, I'd like to see a timeout on the funding. What I'd like to see is a rollback to our a slow rollback to our policies within the prison back to the 2020-21. And not because of COVID-2020 when I say that, but when we look back at 2018, 2019-20, we did not have the riots, we did not have guards being threatened. We had a bit of a staffing issue because we weren't paying enough, but what I'd like to do is see the policies rolled back, prisoners moved back to where they belong. In fact, we have the only death row inmate in the state of South Dakota is supposed to be, by law, separated from the rest of the facility and that person has been allowed to walk around. I think we're violating state laws by not keeping that person under lock and key, and you can argue the humanity of that, but state law says they're supposed to be separated. Then what I'd like to see is that we take the D wing. I'm just speculating. $20, $25 million. We could add that second floor under the D-Wing, add 192 beds right there. We could maybe build a 300-bed medium security facility in Yankton, kind of go back to the DLR study. But let's get back to where it's safe. Let's get back to where guards are not afraid to go to work in the morning. Let's pay a decent salary, get staffing back up to level and then look at actually building at that 28 acres to the north. I think it's very doable and very affordable.
Speaker 2:I think one pushback I've heard is well, we already have $59 million in contracts, roughly. You know we're too far along to throw that money away. So I ask them I say well, if you gave me $59 million today and I turn right around and give you $300 million, would you take that deal every day of the week, right? So yeah, maybe we've squandered $59 million, but if we can save $300 million, I think it's well worth it. Let's take a timeout. Let's change our prison policies. Everything we've heard negative about policy came after South Jerry Wasco came, and all the people in the same former wardens will tell you the same thing. You know we got a lot of people that will tell me that. A lot of them don't want to go on record, of course, but they have.
Speaker 2:I held a meeting in Canton with a bunch of with I invited 25. I got eight legislators to show up. We had seven corrections officials openly speak about the policies and the changes and what was bad and and I wish I could have gotten more there, I wish I could get more legislators to listen to this stuff, and I wish I could have gotten more there, I wish I could get more legislators to listen to this stuff. But actually I've kind of laid out place for that facility. Just because of the location it's hard to staff. But I think in the long run let's get the facility up to speed. Where you know people want to work there, let's pay a salary where people want to work there and I guess going forward that would be.
Speaker 2:My hope is that we could just not pull a plug on the whole prison issue but go back and look at what makes most sense with the dollars and put some of those dollars back into the taxpayers' pockets and not into. You know I know there's, you know we're looking at property tax issues right now and you know I know there's a proposal to raise the state sales tax. That's a two-edged sword. That's a battle we're going to have to fight. But property taxes are a huge issue and I think if we could use some of that money and give it back to the taxpayers you know $300 million if we could save that and I guess again, I'm just basing it on the fact that you know they want $825 million for the prison. Then we're going to have the ongoing expenses and what we're not talking about is how many $100 million it's going to cost to redo the roads and build new roads and infrastructure, and all of that. In fact, on January 6th there's going to be a meeting. Dot is holding a meeting that they're going to. They want to improve five miles of the highway between Highway 115 and Highway 11, one mile away from the prison.
Speaker 2:If we weren't building a prison, would we need to be looking at those millions of dollars in expense? So much of that is going to be added on top of the $825 million, and I've been projecting from day one that this is going to end up costing somewhere between $1.2 and $1.4 billion when you look at everything. And that's just to get the doors open. So again, you asked my idea. I've laid out a plan. Of course I don't have any architectural drawings, I don't have anything rock solid, but I think it makes sense. It's just common sense. Let's add 200 beds to where we can right now. We could get that done in a little over a year and relieve the overcrowding, and then let's have a real conversation about where we need to go have a real conversation about where we need to go.
Speaker 1:Amen, brother, very, very well said. Thank you again for being on with us. Of course, this again was Kevin Jensen, senate-elect Kevin Jensen, who is actually just basically finishing out his existing term in the state house. Kevin, thank you for all the work you've done on this. Merry Christmas to you and your family, and I'm sure we'll talk soon.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much and Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, take care, Kevin. Thank you, yep, yep. Thank you for listening to Toby Doden Unfiltered.