Piedmont trustees approve revised annexation map despite lingering community questions

PIEDMONT, S.D. (KEVN) - The Piedmont Board of Trustees has approved the revised annexation map for the City of Piedmont.

During Tuesday night’s meeting between the community and the Piedmont Board of Trustees, concerns and questions were brought to the board regarding the end goal of this annexation. Many of the community members attending expressed their concerns regarding water, land, and other similar topics.

By the end of the meeting, the revised annexation had been approved, but some community members still had lingering questions.

“It’s still confusing; I still don’t see the threat that they’re talking about here, and listening to the community members around here and other landowners in the area testifying in the same way, they say there really isn’t a threat from what they see. So it’s still really confusing what the intent of the board is,” said concerned citizen Keith Swett.

While some community members were left dissatisfied with the approval, the president of the Piedmont Board of Trustees restated throughout the night that the main reason for the annexation was to help protect the citizens of Piedmont from urban sprawl.

“We don’t want to see what’s happened to the south of us with six apartment houses going up in Summerset; we have no jobs out here and very few services. The last thing we need is a bunch of apartment houses to be built out here and then turned into section eight housing, and they can’t rent them,” explained Piedmont Board of Trustees president Philip Anderson.

At the end of the night, disagreements between the city and some of the surrounding community members sparked a potential petition that would allow the community members to vote on the issue. Until then, the board of trustees plans to continue to move forward with the revised annexation plans.

Below is the revised annexation map for the City of Piedmont:

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