Mayor-elect Salamun talks gratitude, changing culture and ending plurality elections

Salamun, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, moved to Rapid City at age 11 and considers it his hometown. He returned after his military service along with his wife, Gwyn, raising two children in the years since. Salamun currently serves as chief-of-staff and executive pastor at Fountain Springs Church, a position he will be transitioning out of before assuming his role as mayor July 3.

The Mayor-elect held a press conference Wednesday to address the citizens of Rapid City and touch on his goals for the next four years.

"In case you don't know who I am, I'm elected to serve as your next mayor, and it is quite frankly very humbling. I'm grateful and feel very honored to be here today," Salamun said. "It's a little bit surreal. If you've ever had these moments in your life, that's what today is. So I don't know if this is reality or a dream, but we're going to call it reality."

Salamun put the reason for his success in his campaign to relationships, from church to neighbors and colleagues to friends.

"This victory isn't because I raised the most money, or because my last name is easy to say — I know it's not," he said. "It's about the fact that people knew me and I knew them — and if they didn't know me, they knew somebody who knew me — and they could tell you the truth."

Outgoing Mayor Steve Allender had lunch with Salamun Wednesday, sharing congratulations and advice. There's no emergency in the Mayor's Office, Allender apparently told him. He took it to mean the job is empowering city employees to best serve the citizens of Rapid City and working alongside the City Council to find common ground. 

"I think that was good advice, because you walk around town and suddenly you feel like 'Oh, that needs fixing.' You just look at it so much differently when you feel like you're responsible, because this position is temporary and I'm merely a steward," he said. 

The transition time between now and July 3, he said, will give him time to shift his thinking from legislative to executive. He asked for patience as he transitions and learns the nuances of his new role.

One of his first priorities is setting the culture inside City Hall — something Salamun believes you only get one chance to do. He wants to be upfront and clear about the values both he and the city will operate under, and called on leadership to serve as the role models. The city, he said, has great people working there now, but they want to create a healthy, positive culture to attract more of the best workers. 

Salamun's day-one, task-oriented priority is bringing an end to plurality elections with no runoff, a cost-saving measure for Rapid City he said is a priority for himself, several Council members, and the community.

"Elections have consequences," Salamun said. "You're talking about the entire direction of a city. And so we will work right away to restore the runoff elections to make sure that whoever wins Mayor [or] Council in the future has 50% plus one [of the votes]...That's the goal. The people deserve that."

He never wanted to be vague on his values or vision for Rapid City, Salamun explained, instead making it clear to the people who he was and what he stood for — put simply, "God, family, country, Rapid City." At a time when trust in institutions is at an all-time low, he said, truth is an outstanding need. Bringing back trust will require honesty and transparency, part of why Salamun made his own values crystal clear during the campaign, he said. 

Public safety was easily the hot-button issue of the municipal election, with all five mayoral candidates discussing it. Salamun said staffing and retention will be the first area to address, having been involved in increasing officer pay and benefits during his time on the Council. Being fully staffed is one part of making the city safer, he said. Funding those increases and benefits will require careful analysis of the budget, something he planned to start soon with Allender's help.

When asked what he believed his greatest success was during his time on Council, Salamun narrowed it tangibly to the renovation of Rapid City's Fire Station 1. The project, discussions around which began in 2016, was a piece of unfinished business when Salamun left the Council in 2019, having not secured Vision Fund dollars. Before his term expired, Salamun worked hard to secure funding for the design of the building, which he referred to as a "grind" to get. 

Salamun became emotional when talking about the project, because former Fire Chief Rod Seals, who shepherded the project for much of the end of his career, passed away earlier this year. Now when he looks at the building sitting on the corner of Main Street and East Boulevard, the memory of their friendship comes back, he said.

"Chief Seals became a friend of mine. I didn't want to bring this up during the campaign, because it was cheap to talk about. He'd encouraged me to run. 'Sure hope you run'; really excited when I announced...He had encouraged me all along," Salamun said. "Even though he had been retired, then he passed away and I got a message from his wife to let me know and...you know, it broke my heart. I take comfort in knowing where he is today; it reminds me life is short."

Part of Salamun's vision going into his term is changing how people interact with each other, learning to treat each other better and working to find common ground. He semi-jokingly brought up TikTok as a failure of his Council tenure, referring to the resolution he brought forward earlier this year, which would have directed City Legal to draft policies prohibiting the app on City devices and networks, and prevent City departments from having an account. That resolution was tabled in an eight-to-one vote in early January.

During Wednesday's press conference, Salamun said cybersecurity is significant, but working together to get ahead of the curve on things like infrastructure projects and Vision Fund allocations will be a focus of his administration.

Salamun, along with new City Council electees Josh Biberdorf (Ward 1), Lindsey Seachris (Ward 2), Kevin Maher (Ward 3), incumbent John Roberts (Ward 4), and Rod Pettigrew (Ward 5), will take their oaths at the July 3 Rapid City Council meeting.