# Grow What We Already Love: Where I Stand on Rapid City's Economy _Walk downtown on a Saturday morning and you can see what Rapid City already does well. Coffee shops with a line out the door. Families on the sidewalk. Owners behind their own counters, sweeping their own floors._ By Zac Martin. Published 2026-06-13. Canonical URL: https://zac4sd.com/blog/economic-development-rapid-city Platform pillar: H. Economic Development and the Rapid City Region Walk downtown on a Saturday morning and you can see what Rapid City already does well. Coffee shops with a line out the door. Families on the sidewalk. Owners behind their own counters, sweeping their own floors. Then drive a few minutes north. North Rapid has carried this city's working families for generations, and it is still waiting on basics that other parts of town stopped thinking about years ago. A family court case brought my son to Rapid City in 2018. I followed him here, bought a house, and moved my life here for good. Eight years later I am running for one of District 32's two House seats. This district is downtown and North Rapid, the heart of the city. So economic development is not a theory to me. It is the streets my son and I live on. My economic principle is five words long: grow what we already love. Here is what that means when the votes get called in Pierre. ## No corporate carveouts When the state writes a special deal for one industry, every business that does not get the deal helps pay for it. Watch what happened in the 2026 session. SB 239 modified the state's reinvestment payment program in ways that benefit data centers. SB 135 took up the utility cost and regulatory authority questions that come with them. Notice the pattern: when a large, well-connected industry comes asking, Pierre finds a way to move. The shop owner on Main Street never gets that meeting. Nobody files a bill for the laundromat in North Rapid. I will oppose corporate carveouts. Not because I dislike any company, but because the state has no business picking favorites with your money. ## Back Ellsworth and the B-21, loudly Ellsworth Air Force Base sits in the next district over. I will say that plainly, because honesty about geography matters. But the benefit of Ellsworth does not stop at a district line. The B-21 Raider mission is a generational commitment to this region, and the paychecks, families, and activity that come with it lift all of Rapid City, downtown and North Rapid included. The state did its part in 2026 when SB 130 appropriated funding for Ellsworth roadway infrastructure. That is the kind of state investment I will back every time: public infrastructure, serving a national defense mission, lifting a whole region. ## Invest where District 32 actually lives The third commitment is the least flashy and the most important. Downtown and North Rapid need infrastructure, housing, and small-business policy that match how hard the people here already work. Streets and water that function. Housing that working families can actually afford. Rules that make it easier to open a business, hire a neighbor, and stay open. The heart of Rapid City does not need to be reinvented. It needs the basics done right so it can grow on its own terms. ## "So you are anti-growth?" It is the first objection I hear, so let me answer it straight. No. I am anti-favoritism. Growth that only happens because the state cut one industry a special deal is not really growth. It is a transaction, and it lasts exactly as long as the deal does. The growth I want is the kind this region already knows how to produce: a base expanding because the mission matters, a downtown thriving because the businesses are good, neighborhoods rising because the state finally treated them like a priority. Level the field and Rapid City will grow on its own terms. That is not hostility to business. That is confidence in Rapid City. ## "Ellsworth is not in District 32. Why is it your fight?" Because District 32 cashes the paychecks. The base may sit outside the district line, but the families it supports live across this city. They buy homes here. They eat downtown. They shop on our streets. A regional asset that size does not respect a line on a map, and a representative who only looks inside his own lines is doing half the job. I would rather be honest about the geography and right about the economics. ## "Isn't the Ellsworth road money just another carveout?" Fair question. The answer is no, and the difference matters. A road is public. Everyone drives on it, and the Ellsworth roadways serve a national defense mission the whole country depends on. That is what SB 130 funded. A reinvestment payment that lands on one industry's bottom line is something else entirely. Building public infrastructure is the state doing its job. Cutting special deals is the state picking winners. I will support the first, oppose the second, and never pretend they are the same thing. ## "What can a state legislator actually do for downtown and North Rapid?" More than most people think. Every bill named in this piece is a state bill. The reinvestment payment program is a state program. Utility regulatory authority gets decided at the state level. The Ellsworth roadway money was a state appropriation. Housing policy and small-business rules run through state law before they ever reach a city council agenda. Pierre showed in one session how fast it can move when data centers ask. I want it moving that fast when the heart of Rapid City asks. That is the job I am applying for. ## The ask District 32 elects two representatives on November 3, 2026, and you can split your ticket any way you like. I am asking for one of those seats, and I am telling you ahead of time exactly how I will vote on the economy: no carveouts, full-throated support for Ellsworth and the B-21 as a regional priority, and the basics done right downtown and in North Rapid. Read the full platform at zac4sd.com. If it sounds like your kitchen table instead of a boardroom, volunteer or chip in while you are there. Grow what we already love. That is the whole plan, and it is enough. --- Paid for by Zac Martin for South Dakota.