From the Rapid City Journal:
HOT SPRINGS – One of the Republican candidates for Tim Johnson’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat was in Hot Springs last Wednesday.
Former S.D. Governor Mike Rounds toured the VA Black Hills Health Care Systems campus and then attended the Save the VA meeting on Wednesday evening.
“More than anything,” Rounds told the Save the VA committee, “I am on a fact-finding mission. I want to find out where you are and what I can do to help your efforts.”
Rounds faces four other Republicans in the June 3 primary; Annette Bosworth, Stace Nelson, Jason Ravnsborg and Larry Rhoden. The winner of the Republican primary will move on to the November general election, where Democrat Rick Weiland and Independent Larry Pressler will be on the ticket.
Rounds received a brief synopsis of the actions of the Save the VA over the past two-plus years since the VA announced its plans to close the Hot Springs campus.
Rounds spoke of his efforts in studying the question on where to build a new State Veterans Home, and how after receiving input, that he moved forward with the construction now taking place in Hot Springs. “I see this as being similar circumstances,” Rounds said.
The Save the VA group said that the major stumbling blocks that they have faced with the VA administration is that there is no acknowledgement of the veteran population served at the Hot Springs campus and that there is a misconception over the condition of the buildings at the facility.
Committee member Don Ackerman noted that the VA is using the same flawed data that it used in its original proposal in 2011.
“It was wrong then and it’s wrong now,” he told Rounds. “We’re right and they’re wrong; how can this happen?” Ackerman asked. “We need the support of all South Dakotans to make sure it doesn’t.”