The Jerry Wright Information Page
Because Truth Should Be Most Important
This page is dedicated to sharing the truth about Jerry Wright of Rapid City, South
Dakota. Jerry Wright is a former alderman for the Rapid City Council and is a former
council president. Prior to that he was in charge of Rapid City's landfill for many
years. During his leadership extensive fraud occurred. How much fraud? That is up
for debate. Many estimates put that figure over $1 million of taxpayer money lost. You
can read about why the criminal case was dismissed by clicking here. State's
attorney Glenn Brenner summed it up by saying it was, "....because of the sloppy
negligent management of the landfill. It's made our job impossible at this point. I used
to say difficult, now I'm saying impossible. And that lies in the hands of the
supervisors of the facility at the time." Jerry Wright supervised the landfill.
The City went on to win a civil lawsuit in which the garbage hauler admitted to
committing "a series of fraudulent acts." Click here to read the article.
Jerry Wright is also the ONLY Rapid City councilman to be unanimously reprimanded
for his behavior. Why? He attempted to get a former council member fired from his
job working for a nonprofit helping people who had brain injury. Three weeks after
Jerry Wright's visit the former councilman was suddenly and unexpectedly let go
from his employer of over 20 years. He was let go without cause.
Why did Jerry Wright try to get a former councilman fired? That is a good question. It
was in response to this column that was written and published in the Rapid City
Journal. It is the last half of the column. That column includes a compliment of Mr.
Wright and was to be protected by the First Amendment. Instead Jerry Wright went on
the attack, trying to suppress free speech and attack the livelihood of the writer.
This page has been created so that there will be information on the internet with facts
and legal documents. Why? Because Jerry Wright has repeatedly attempted to attack
and slander the same former council member. He has tried to create himself as the
innocent victim. For example, he reportedly called a business that had a campaign
sign and referred to that former council member as "despicable." That is not the
behavior of someone who is contrite. This also was done while he was still serving
on city council. Fortunately his term expired in July 2017.
Click here to read the Rapid City Journal article regarding Jerry Wright's unanimous
reprimand from the City Council. It should be noted that Jerry Wright was not contrite
and has never apologized directly for his actions. In the Journal article photos, one
photo shows Wright smiling.
In 2020 Jerry Wright spoke up in support of a council member who was thrown off the
council for her conduct (which was extremely similar to his own).
In 2020 Jerry Wright decided to run for City Council again. He used the slogan
"Trusted Leadership." This is another example of Mr. Wright trying to rewrite his own
history. His leadership shows that he disregarded his oath of office to protect the
Constitution of the United States. Instead, he unsed his position to limit a person's
First Amendment rights. He was Council president at the time. He was also supposed
to have been written up and reprimanded for his role in the Fish Garbage scandal.
Clearly he was relying on name recognition and the short memory of voters. He
finished second in a race of three people and requested a recount (it was within the
legal bounds for a recount of less than 2% but was over 1.5% and over 60 vote
margin). After several days, Jerry Wright decided to withdraw his request for a
recount. He wrote in an email: "Having learned Friday, June 5, that the recount of the
Ward 3 election results would result in actual dollar cost to the City of Rapid City, I will
not seek a recount of the votes," Wright wrote in the email. (Rapid City Journal).
The vast majority of citizens would be aware that a recount would cost money. A
former elected official should know that. If not, that former elected official should
never be elected to office again.