The Wagner Rotary Club hosted a District 21 Legislative cracker barrel Saturday, November 11th from at the Wagner Theater. Representatives included Rocky Blare, Marty Overweg and Erin Tobin. There were nine area residents in attendance.

It was a very lively discussion and included a vast array of topics. Dealing with mental health problems in our district as to whether or not to utilize keeping people in their home community versus building more facilities to send people to. The shortage of mental health providers in the state was of concern by both the representatives and attendees. This in turn led to discussion about the possibility of apprenticeship programs to educate more potential social workers and mental health care professionals through local training in addition to classroom learning in order to keep these professionals in the smaller, more rural areas. The possibility of legalizing recreational marijuana. The fact that South Dakota has legalized medical marijuana and how that will impact employers in addressing employees with medical cards in certain positions were also discussed. Education, ballot issues, abortions, re-instating the draft, and youth working/apprenticeships laws for younger children were also issues discussed, Margaret Doom talked about how she has personally seen the Thing 3D impact on the justice system, better funding for the Center for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment (CPCM) and more funding for juvenile court diversion programs. In her work with Call to Freedom she has seen the impact that these programs can have on juveniles and their families and asked the representatives to if they have a chance support these organizations with more funding should the opportunity arise.

The representatives talked about possible upcoming bills that included trying to create state compacts with surrounding states to be able to get more counselors into South Dakota in order to help with the growing need to address mental health issues across the state. Overweg discussed his worries about financial struggles across South Dakota at the county level and how some counties are currently facing bankruptcy. There was also talk about how a lot of the upcoming bills were drafted by the bigger cities and towns in South Dakota to address more of their current issues.