Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of four articles featuring the four District 7 candidates for the South Dakota House of Representatives.
BROOKINGS – Tim Reed has more work to accomplish for cities, the state, crime victims and the economy. That’s why he’s running for District 7 representative.
Reed, a Republican, along with Republican Larry Tidemann and Democrats Bill Adamson and Louise Snodgrass are vying for two, two-year District 7 seats in the South Dakota House of Representatives. Early/absentee voting has already begun, and the general election is Nov. 3.
Reed was first elected to the House four years ago; before that, he served on the Brookings City Council and was mayor.
Reed grew up in Brookings, graduated from Brookings High School and from South Dakota State University, with a degree in commercial economics.
“I just think that the economics degree has really helped me during my time in public service for both the community, for city government and at the state level,” Reed said.
His wife, Mary, works at 3M, and they have two adult children.
After college, Reed worked at 3M in materials control and supply chain planning. He moved on to a software company, then worked for the SDSU Foundation doing college development.
Reed serves on the Brookings Economic Development Corporation’s board and on the board for the Research Park, called the Growth Partnership Board.
He was elected to the Brookings City Council for five years, then served as mayor for eight years. While he was mayor, he left the SDSU Foundation. He resigned as mayor one year short of completing his third term when he was elected to the House four years ago.
He is now seeking his third two-year term in the House because “I want to use my almost two decades of public service experience” to help everyone economically recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
“I believe that I’ve been very effective passing several bills that have been good for Brookings and SDSU and also strengthening laws that help sexual assault victims get justice,” Reed said.
“I had a bill to make sure that victims didn’t have to pay for their sexual assault kits, the evidence kits. We’re working on making sure that somebody 16 years or older can consent to having a sexual assault forensic examination, and lengthen the time that anonymous kits – the kits that haven’t been reported to the police, so they’re anonymous … I got the law changed from one year to seven years,” Reed said.
For things that are good for Brookings and SDSU, he listed the right of public electrical power to grow as the city grows, which “helps keep electric costs down for the citizens of Brookings.” He also noted the push to strengthen precision agriculture and get the new building completed on the SDSU campus, and the bill last year to get started on a bio processing institute which will take products like corn and turn it into a higher value product, like with ethanol.
“The whole idea is to provide more jobs in South Dakota and increase the value of production for our farmers,” he said.
In nearly two decades, he’s learned “how to be very effective and get things done to help both Brookings and South Dakota,” Reed said.
Local government issues are a concern for the whole state, Reed said. One example was entities were unable to go into executive session to discuss security issues – the finer points of security that shouldn’t “fall into the hands of those that may want to cause harm,” Reed said, adding he came up with a statute that allowed them to go into executive session to discuss those issues.
He knows there will be economically challenging times ahead due to COVID-19.
“We have to make sure that we continue to grow the work force that’s needed for the industries and businesses that we have here in Brookings,” he said.
Reed thinks education is the way to do that.
“I’m proud to be from the district that values education,” he said and wants to make sure funding is available for the K-12 and post-secondary education system.
“We have to keep a focus on education. We have to make sure that we’re understanding the effects of COVID on the education system,” Reed said.
“We also have to focus on making this a very business friendly state so we have to be reasonable with our taxing and prudent in how we spend those funds,” Reed said.
He has a plan to move into that bright future, including continued work on the bio processing institute, and a bill to “improve our laws to help prosecutors pursue justice for sexual assault victims,” he said.
“I’ll continue to work on local government issues,” Reed said, not just in Brookings, but all the cities in the Municipal League, and see where they need help.
“Using the industry base that we already have here and along with SDSU, the possibility of growing new businesses and the opportunity of students that graduate to help those businesses, Brookings’ future, I think, can be very bright,” Reed said.
Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.
