Niemeyer: Do what’s best for Brookings

Three candidates vying for two seats on Brookings City Council

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Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of three stories that will appear in The Brookings Register this week, featuring candidates for Brookings City Council. Joey Collins, Cassie Juba and Ope Niemeyer are competing to fill two three-year seats on the council.

BROOKINGS – Ope Niemeyer sees Brookings as a town that comes together to get things done. He wants to continue leading that process so he’s running for a three-year seat on the Brookings City Council.

“Brookings has done well (with) the public taking the initiative,” Niemeyer said.

Early/absentee voting started Monday, but the city council/school board election date will move to June after action was taken by the South Dakota Legislature this week.

Niemeyer was raised on a farm in northwest Iowa where they grew a lot of their own food. He came to Brookings to attend South Dakota State University where he earned an ag business degree. 

“It’s an economics degree. I use it quite often on a daily basis,” he said.

He started his own business, Ope Niemeyer Flooring, LLC, more than 30 years ago and employs an average of 40-50 people annually. 

“Quite a few of them have records,” Niemeyer said. “If they have good hand skills, they show up on time, do their job, that’s all I’m asking for.”

His wife, Beth Niemeyer, is an engineer, and they have two grown daughters.

Niemeyer is wrapping up his third term on the council and one simple question encapsulates his philosophy of voting.

“What is the best for the citizens of Brookings?” he said.

He even asked for people’s opinions on whether he should seek a fourth term. 

“Most everybody immediately said yes; I didn’t get a no from anyone,” he reported.

He uses his degree and his business experience on the council. 

“I’m not necessarily a budget hawk, but I know how a budget works. We spend quite a bit of time on our budget every year, going through things, trying to prioritize where our money could be spent best,” Niemeyer said.

He knows Brookings needs to take care of things but thinks the future is bright.

“I don’t see it anywhere but going up,” Niemeyer said. “I always look at Brookings as one of the leaders in doing something new, willing to think outside the box.”

He sees certain things as priorities: affordable housing, childcare, mental health, workforce, and stormwater management.

Employers have said that they can’t get people to come to Brookings due to lack of affordable housing and childcare.

Niemeyer thinks the community needs to support places like the Boys & Girls Club.

“Most of those are thriving, they’re busy,” he said, adding the city has supported endeavors like the Teen Center. “Those are things we need to support, enable.”

He thinks the community can solve the workforce problems by taking better care of mental health issues.

“We have a workforce problem in this state, in most all of our cities, due to lack of proper medication or proper counseling availability (for) people who can’t hold a job because of a mental health issue. If we can get some of those people on a payroll somewhere, they’d be able to contribute to the community more,” Niemeyer said.

Getting those people the help they need would enable them to get back on their feet.

“It improves their quality of life and it also fills a position that we had open somewhere. If you’ve got a quality that you can bring to a job, there’s pretty much a job somewhere in this town for you,” he said.

Stormwater management is an ongoing problem.

“As we build more, that’s just that many less acres that are permeable for water to be taken in,” Niemeyer said. 

He suggested putting in a retention pond at Moriarty Park, which the council approved. 

“Something that had to be done there because that water just rushed right through and ruined some things,” he said. 

He’s glad the jail issue seems to be resolved. 

“We have other things to do,” Niemeyer said.

He sees public/private partnerships as key.

Niemeyer mentioned the 20th Street South interchange as a project where that is working well. He said the indoor recreation facility didn’t happen because “the public wasn’t willing to pay for it through an opt-out, which was fine. … We didn’t have the liquid cash to do it,” Niemeyer said. 

The Census results are important for Brookings’ future.

“It’ll tell us the age groups that we have. Give us an idea of what our society looks like in this city,” he said. “Once we get the results and the statistics from it, it might help us figure out our directions that we want to go.”

Traveling for his job, he gets to see that Brookings stacks up pretty well with other cities.

“Overall, I’ve enjoyed being a citizen of Brookings,” Niemeyer said.

Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.