(Continued from page 16)

• We've seen its success with tracking down meth dealers and people involved in child pornography. Sex trafficking is an ugly crime against humanity that needs the spotlight that a task force provides.
• ___
• Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, June 5, 2013
• Competition, not monopoly
• The Sioux Nation grocery store has had its problems in recent years. A year ago, the Pine Ridge store was closed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe for selling outdated meat. Now the tribe has given the store's owners, Hi-Way 20, the boot and it will close on Aug. 4.
• As the only supermarket on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where will residents get their food?
• Not to worry, OST president Bryan Brewer wrote an open letter that the tribe will open its own grocery store within 48 hours of closing of Sioux Nation Shopping Center, and that no one will lose their jobs with the change. The new store would be clean, safe and offer fresh, reasonably priced food.
• The store's owners deny any health violations and say they have passed recent inspections.
• Shannon County is among the poorest counties in the nation because jobs are scarce on the reservation.
• Chasing off a privately run grocery store that has been in business for 46 years, and which will be replaced by a tribal-owned store or tribal-approved entity is not going to encourage private businesses to open or remain on the Pine Ridge reservation.
• What kind of message does it send when a longtime private business can have its lease canceled and its customer base taken over?
• A major reason that more private businesses do not locate on reservations is the unpredictability of dealing with tribal governments.
• The OST should be encouraging business competition, not run it off.
• The tribe could find that operating its own supermarket will be more difficult than it thinks.
• For the sake of Pine Ridge residents, we hope the transition works to the betterment of food quality and price. Traveling off the reservation for food is not an option for many residents. But the history of government-run businesses is not favorable.
• It would have been better, in our view, for the Oglala Sioux Tribe to encourage another grocer to come to the reservation and directly compete with Sioux Nation, and it is competition, not government monopoly, that is the surest path to quality food at lower prices.

(Continued on page 18)