BELLE FOURCHE—It is time to elect new members to the Belle Fourche City Council. Election will be held April 8, 2025, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Belle Fourche Community Hall, 512 6th Ave Belle Fourche, SD 57717.
There are three candidates running for Ward 1 and two candidates running for Ward 2. In Ward 3, Dean Brunner is running unopposed and in Ward 4, Bob Somervold is running unopposed.
All candidates running for City Council seats in Wards 1 and 2 will appear on the ballot. All terms are for three years.
Those running for Ward 1 are Ivy Zimmerschied, Karen Davis, and Kristal Steeves.
Ivy Zimmerschied is a life-time resident of Belle Fourche. She went to both private and public high school in Belle. She is a single mother with a 10 year old daughter named Isabelle. Her mom still lives in town and Isabelle goes to public school in Belle.
Zimmerschied is excited to be of service to her community. When explaining why she was running for Council she said, “to be of service to the community and to carry the voices of the people to the council and be a trusted, honored servant.”
She stressed that she is coming into this role with no hidden agenda. “I absolutely don’t have an agenda other than to just be of service. I have lived around here my whole life and I have personal opinion on some things, but I want to go in with a non-bias, non-agenda.”
She does realize that roads and sidewalks need attention. She brings with her previous experience on several different boards including holding the position of secretary. “I’m familiar with Robert’s Rules of Order and meetings style, and due diligence,” she said. “I am just here to be of service.”
Karen Davis was born and raised in Belle Fourche. She is the mother of three boys. Davis was an EMT for 15 years, and was the instructor for everything at that time, from first aid to defibrillators. As treasurer and secretary she helped with the inner workings of the ambulance service. She brings experience as a small business owner as well.
Davis ran for City Council last year but isn’t the type of person to give up, so she is trying again. “I really care about the people in Ward 1, I would like to be their voice on the City Council,” she explained. “I’ve been to all of the City Council meetings except four of them, I think, and I’ve been to quite a few of the board meetings, so I can stay in tune, so I know what’s going on somewhat.”
When Davis was going around with her petition to get signatures to run, she would take the time to ask voters what was important to them. “I asked people, what do they want to see happen? What do they need? What do you see that is missing?” she said.
Her priority, as she sees it, will be her constituents. “Letting the people of Ward 1 know that they are heard, that they can talk to the city, that they can get things done. Yes, growth is important. Yes, our roads and the sewer system is definitely important, but the people are important also,” said Davis. “Without the people living here, we wouldn’t have a town and we need to support that.”
Davis wants to be the voice of the people. She realizes that the city can’t solve all of everyone problems but they can help. She said, “We can listen, and if there is something that can be done, we can try and find the resources to get it done, I think that’s our responsibility to our Ward.”
Kristal Steeves grew up in Belle Fourche. Her mom, Jan Steeves still lives here. She is married with two grown children and a four year old grandson. After high school graduation, Steeves moved away for school. She went on to get her master’s degree. She lived and worked in Denver, CO for 30 years but is happy to be back home in Belle Fourche. “I recently moved back because I just want to really intentionally live well,” she explained.
Steeves also wanted to be closer to her mom and her mother-in-law. “I moved back to kind of help take care of my mom, she’s getting older and my husband’s mom, who also lives here in the community, she’s getting older,” said Davis. “We are just kind of coming back to help take care of family, and then I’m almost 52 and I really want to just have a different second half of my life than the first half.”
Steeves is running for council to help find solutions. She said, “I really want to be part of the solutions for this town. I intentionally chose to move back here, not just to care for our families, but also just to have a different quality of life in this second half of my life and I’m really invested in ensuring that this community continues to grow responsibly and then also provide for the economic conditions that are necessary for the community to grow.”
Infrastructure is one of the biggest things that Steeves see as a concern. “This area is growing a little bit faster and I think that in order for it to grow responsibly, then we’ve got to make sure our streets are good, we’ve got to make sure sewer and water systems are good, otherwise we’re just going to have all sorts of problems,” she said.
Her priority areas include water and balancing the budget. Steeves explained, “Increasing the ability for all of the new homes to get water has been currently going on and so continuing that is a really good thing, and then making sure that our budget is balancing—our rec center is in the red every year, so figuring out ways to make it profitable for itself, so we’re not pulling from budgets in different areas.”
She brings with her experience of being on multiple boards. “I was the vice president for the Colorado Association for Marriage and Family Therapists for many years, and then in other roles on that board. And I’ve been on various other boards throughout my life, in there, but nothing like City Council.”
“I would just encourage people to come to the Q and A at the 519 venue on the 27th,” said Steeves.
Ward 2 has two candidates running for one council seat. They are Clark Sowers and
Lee Capp.
Clark Sowers is running for a second term. He ran unopposed for the Ward 2 Council seat in April 2022 for a three-year term. Sowers has Belle Fourche running through his veins, he was born and bred here. He and his wife Kathy have been married for 45 years and have 10 kids and 28 grandchildren. He has spent his whole life here and all of his businesses are centered in Belle Fourche. He is the owner of Black Hills Laundry here in Belle Fourche and has expanded that to laundromats in Sturgis, Spearfish and Rapid City.
Sowers is running for City Council again to continue the positive changes he has helped to start.
“This is the end of my third year, in the last four years, there have been significant changes, positive changes, especially on the financial end of Belle Fourche, getting things organized, hiring a city administrator—which I think was significant, something I wanted to do for 15 years from when I remember Sturgis was hiring a city manager—it’s a great concept. It’s just like the superintendent of public schools, you have one focal point,” said Sowers. “But it gives us a focal point of where all the information goes and it gives us a corporate history of the work and the actions of the city council.”
Sowers gets excited when he talks about all of the positive things going on in Belle Fourche. He has a lot of goals that he would like to see to fruition. “We need to finish the South Well, which we’re getting close on. We need to finish the water gallery, the water lines from the water gallery north of Spearfish, those are over 100 years old, and we need to complete them—update them. We need to work on a water treatment plant. We also have streets and infrastructure—the 11th Avenue Project is going to finish up this year…And then there’s the beautification of Belle Fourche and to clean up the nuisance,” he said.
One of his accomplishments was getting property taxes lower. “My first year, when it came to budget time, I made a proposal to lower the property taxes—everybody runs on taxes, taxes, taxes, but nobody ever does it—well, we lowered it and we maintained that level for three years,” explained Sowers.
Serving as the town’s Mayor from ’94 to ’96 Sowers has experience in City Government. He was also President of the South Dakota Solid Waste Association.
Lee Capp grew up in Belle Fourche and worked in the area most of his life. He left for a four year stint in the military. He and his wife Annie have five adult children between the two of them. He works in the area as a Realtor.
He is running for City Council to finish a path he previously started. He was on the Council to finish the term for Derrick Earhart for Ward 2 and stepped down at the end of his term because he and his family were thinking of moving. “We since changed our minds and we’re going to be here for in this Ward for the foreseeable future. I just felt like I wasn’t done running and giving back to the community, so with new election cycle I figured it was time to try to get back onto the Council,” explained Capp.
When Capp was on the Council before, he ran into a problem that he would like to rectify if possible. “One thing that really bothered me is that is that we took time out in the middle of budget season to take time to vote on whether or not council should get a raise, and we ultimately voted for a raise, and there was five that voted for and three against,” he explained. “I was one of the three that voted against it. I don’t think it’s right that council should be able to vote for its own raise, not saying that council doesn’t deserve some sort of compensation for their time, but I think the voters should be the ones that decide on whether they get a raise and how much.”
Capp says that the budget is always really important thing to scrutinize. “Everybody screams about roads in our town, they’re important, but some of the things that people don’t know is that sometimes it’s hard to get enough contractors to do the project,” said Capp. “Keeping an eye on that and having active conversations with the engineering department and making sure that they’re working hard to get it done—we just need to work together to make sure that it gets accomplished.”
Having served as a Ward 2 Council member in the past, Capp brings with him that experience and knowledge. He also served as President of the Chamber of Commerce.
Ward 3 only has one person running for office, Dean Brunner.
Dean Brunner graduated from Newell High School and then went to BHSU for two years, Denver Institute of Technology for electronics and then got a degree in theology from INSTE Bible College. He has lived in the Butte County area his whole life. He is married to Julie for 46 years and has two children.
He is running for City Council because he thinks that somebody needs to care. “As you can see, I’m unopposed,” he said.
As for his priorities coming into office he has none. Brunner explains, “There’s stuff that needs to be done, every city has the same problems really, but I’m not going to say that I’m going to fix this or do that, no I’m not going to say that, I ran to help. I’m going to try to help. I do not have any priorities. I don’t have my own agenda.”
He brings experience with him having served on the Nisland City Board previously.
Bob Somervold is running unopposed for the Ward 4 seat that he currently holds. Somervold was elected for a second term as Ward 4 City Councilman in April, 2022. Bob served as Council Vice President in 2021.
Belle Fourche Chamber of Commerce is hosting a Meet the Candidates Forum on March 27, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Venue 519. The audience will have the opportunity to write down questions and have them asked to the candidates. Water and light snacks will be provided.
Read the full issue of the Belle Fourche Beacon by clicking here.
