Sioux Falls

(USDA Photo by Lance Cheung)

Nonprofit tagged to enroll low income South Dakotans in monthly internet discount program

BY: - January 10, 2023

A Sioux Falls nonprofit is one of five recipients nationally of a new grant to connect people to the internet. Roughly one in six South Dakotans don’t have access to high-speed internet, according to state data from 2021. In Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city, roughly 15% of households lack internet access at home or […]

Jack Fonder is the community health worker for The Transformation Project in Sioux Falls. He was hired in September 2022. (Courtesy of Jack Fonder)

Transgender employee at center of contract controversy pledges to fight on

BY: - December 30, 2022

Jack Fonder trusted his doctor. He’d spent years under her care, and she understood his medical history. But that changed when he transitioned. “It was one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had,” he recalled. Fonder is a transgender man – a person whose gender identity is as a man, but was assigned female sex […]

Hibachi Grill and Supreme Buffet in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Feds recover $280,000 in back wages and damages from Hibachi Grill

BY: - December 15, 2022

The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered $279,070 from a Sioux Falls buffet restaurant that paid kitchen workers a flat monthly salary and denied them overtime wages for hours over 40 in a workweek, the department announced Thursday in a news release. An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found Hibachi Grill & Supreme […]

Water quality group gives Big Sioux River an ‘F’ grade over E. coli contamination

BY: - November 15, 2022

A water conservation non-profit gives the Big Sioux River an ‘F’ grade over E. coli levels beyond what’s considered safe by the state Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR). Nitrate levels in the river, fueled in part by agricultural fertilizer runoff, are also rising. The report card was presented Monday evening at Augustana University […]

Minneapolis Fed President: let immigration meet labor demand to boost economy

BY: - November 10, 2022

A steady stream of immigrants will be important to the funding future of entitlement programs in the U.S. and for the health of the economy as a whole, the president of the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis told an audience in Brookings this week. President Neel Kashkari shared those insights at South Dakota State University on […]

Exterior of the Bishop Dudley Hospitality House in Sioux Falls, pictured on Nov. 7, 2022.

Homeless task force votes to send recommendations to city leaders in Sioux Falls

BY: - November 7, 2022

The question of how best to respond to homelessness – and the cost of doing so – will soon land in the lap of the Sioux Falls City Council. The Sioux Falls Homeless Task Force, made up of city and county officials and community representatives in the state’s largest city, signed off on its recommendations […]

Sioux Falls leaders bring high-schoolers to workforce event with hopes of stemming ‘brain drain’

BY: - October 26, 2022

SIOUX FALLS — High-schoolers received special focus at a day-long workforce summit Wednesday at the Sioux Falls Convention Center. The Sioux Falls Development Foundation hosted the WIN Summit. The event featured guest speakers and community business leaders sharing insights, and opportunities for young people to build relationships with those leaders. Approximately 70% of in-state students […]

The exterior of the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center, pictured on Oct. 21, 2022. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)

Minnehaha County mulls $50 million juvenile detention center

BY: - October 25, 2022

SIOUX FALLS – Minnehaha County commissioners may soon ask property owners to foot the bill for a $50 million replacement of the Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) in South Dakota’s largest city. A new Juvenile Justice Center would supplant the 53-year-old JDC with a modern facility twice as large. The project would add 14 beds for […]