Well-performing arsenic, undermining the food tax repeal, stalled sculptures & honoring the fallible

The city of Sioux Falls will request proposals from nonprofit organizations that might be interested in acquiring some or all of the Brockhouse taxidermy collection housed at the Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum. That was the consensus of a working group established by Mayor Paul TenHaken to study the collection following the zoo’s closure of the Delbridge last year. The recommendation came Friday following a detailed report on the collection that had been prepared by A.M. Art Conservation of Cold Spring, New York and internationally known taxidermy expert George Dante.

Some of South Dakota’s most influential special interest groups are joining forces in hopes of stopping a proposed food tax cut from passage this fall. Organizations like the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, South Dakota Cooperatives, the state banking association, the education lobby, the tourist industry, and agriculture groups like the cattlemen’s association and the Farm Bureau Federation have formed a coalition in opposition to Initiated Measure 28.

The language of a ballot question proposing a repeal of the state’s sales tax on food stipulates the measure wouldn’t apply to South Dakota’s towns and cities. But opponents of Initiated Measure 28 say the ability of municipalities to continue collecting a 2 percent tax on groceries — and potentially non-food items consumed by humans — isn’t that simple and could jeopardize the revenue source heavily relied upon by small communities.

PIERRE — After years of carbon pipeline policy debate dominating government chambers in South Dakota, voters this fall will get t…