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in Sioux Falls with Minnehaha County's counting machine.
• Gant says a final report will be issued by Sept. 14.
• Davison County officials have said the ballot-counting problems did not affect the outcome of primary races.
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• HOWARD, S.D. (AP) -- A year after opening to much fanfare, a conference and training center in the eastern South Dakota town of Howard is closing because of financial problems.
• The $6.5 million Maroney Commons facility was funded largely through loans, including a $3.2 million from the federal Agriculture Department. It utilizes green energy, including geothermal, solar and wind power. When it opened, U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson said it could serve as a model for other rural communities.

• The for-profit facility has a hotel, restaurant, fitness center, and meeting and training space. It touts itself as "a place for leaders from small towns to design and build 21st century rural communities."
• Kathy Callies, president of the Rural Learning Center, a partner of Maroney Commons, told The Daily Republic newspaper that the facility was in good standing with vendors and lenders when its board made the decision to close.
• "What they did was to take a proactive view," she said. "They did not see that they could continue to meet obligations like they had in the past. It's not as though vendors or financial organizations came banging on the door."
• The Maroney Commons, named for businessman Pat Maroney, who gave $1 million to the project, was one of various efforts with roots in a group formerly called Miner County Community Revitalization, which was hatched as a way to combat the depopulation trend and its accompanying economic consequences. Howard has fewer than 900 residents. Callies said that even though the facility is closing, she does not consider it a failed venture.
• "It replaced some buildings that needed to come out of there and improved Main Street," she said.
• What happens to the building now depends on the lenders, Callies said.
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