Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of three stories that will appear in The Brookings Register this week, featuring Republican candidates for two District 7 seats in the state House of Representatives. The top two vote-getters among candidates Doug Post, Tim Reed and Larry Tidemann will move on to the November general election to face Democratic challengers.
BROOKINGS – Tim Reed wants to utilize his education and background to help District 7 come back from the COVID-19 shutdown. That’s why he’s running for a two-year seat as a state representative for District 7.
The primary election is June 2, with the top two District 7 Republican candidates moving on to the Nov. 3 general election.
Reed has lived in the area all his life, graduating from South Dakota State University with a degree in commercial economics. He worked for 3M in materials control and information technology. His job with a technology company had him traveling all over the United States. While with the SDSU Foundation, he did development work for the College of Engineering.
He and wife Mary have two adult children.
Reed retired from outside work during his stint as mayor.
He was in local government for 13 years, serving as mayor for eight of them. He’s served four years as a state legislator.
Reed’s served on the Growth Partnership Board, which operates the Research Park; is on the board of the Brookings Economic Development Corporation and represents South Dakota on the Streamline Sales Tax Governing Board, a group of states working to simplify tax structures for remote sales tax collection. The chief justice of the South Dakota Supreme Court appointed him to the Drug Court Advisory Council.
“A lot of my committee work has been focused on mental health care. I served on the Access to Mental Health Care Committee a couple of years ago, then I led a task force on community services caregiver supports,” Reed said.
He was on a committee over the summer that dealt with the issue surrounding electric services in annexed areas. He represented Brookings on that committee, and in quite a few bills. Another area he focuses on is helping victims of sexual assault.
“I’ve always felt that having an economics degree has helped during my time in local government and in the state Legislature,” Reed said.
“I’m running right now to make sure that we recover from the social and economic hardships that have been caused by the pandemic, and I really feel that we’re gonna need an experienced leader and that’s where I hope to use my eight years as mayor, four years in the Legislature to make sure we recover as soon as possible,” Reed said.
“I continue to see a very good place for business growth, and we have to continue to work on creating a workforce within the state. I think a lot of that has to do with investing in our education system and that includes K-12 and higher education and our technical schools,” Reed said.
Everyone’s big priority is recovery from COVID-19, he said.
“I think Brookings has been an innovative community, and I want to promote that in the Legislature,” Reed said.
“District 7 is well-positioned because of having SDSU in the community,” he said. “We’re not just a university town, we’re more than a university town because we’ve capitalized on the resource of SDSU.”
Reed has a plan to help South Dakota recover.
“We’ve got to invest in the basics and that’s our education system, that’s roads, and economic development,” Reed said, adding one thing that will help is the work in the last session pertaining to getting a bio processing center in the Research Park.
He thinks balancing the needs of all is important, but focusing on “the workforce is extremely important” for business growth.
“When it comes to workforce, we always want to make South Dakota attractive (so people) move here but then we have to grow from within also. So we have to make sure that K-12 and the technical schools and higher education are focused on what we need in South Dakota for a work force,” Reed said.
His plan includes the big picture and the small picture.
“I think it’s important to be fiscally conservative, but I’m still willing to invest in things like education, economic development and roads,” Reed said.
He prefers that state government stay small and that local government stays in control.
“I believe that if you can get your decisions made at the local level or the community level, that’s the best for the people,” Reed said, using the example of individual towns handling the COVID-19 pandemic as necessary in their communities.
“You gotta give local communities the tools to thrive” especially in regard to job growth, he said.
“I do believe it’s time to systematically – and I’ll say smartly – get to a new norm for businesses with us being in the pandemic. I think as a community, we’ve done just a terrific job flattening the curve. I like that the hospital’s got a plan in place, so I think we can start to look at re-opening businesses. I think those businesses will have to be wise and follow guidelines that have been put forth, but I think we need to figure out the best way to balance out the economy and making sure our health care system isn’t overloaded,” Reed said.
Contact Jodelle Greiner at jgreiner@brookingsregister.com.
