Greetings to all,
The citizens of Sioux Falls need your help. As we have discovered in our efforts, the more we work to expose the inner workings of Sioux Falls city government, the more the administration works to shut us out. Our efforts in opening up the government to citizens is transparency of process. The administration is working to shut you and I out of all discussions.
I am sending this email to many of the people and groups I have been involved with during the recent petition drives and elections. None of our efforts would have been possible if the administration’s efforts to stifle debate would have been in place.
The City Council has scheduled two items for Tuesday we must have people ready to stop. The administration has two proposals.
The first item is dealing with a possible illegal car rental tax to fund a private entity’s construction project. This may not seem like something you and your organizations should care about but it is. It needs a full discussion since it is being dropped on the spring election ballot without having to go to the public for petition signatures. If you had a problem with the way the cellphone ban was short circuited at the Council, why should this questionably legal tax be fast tracked?
In the second item, the administration is planning to change the posting of meeting agendas to 24 hours prior to the Tuesday meetings . Our current ordinance requires posting by close of business on Friday. The problem with this change is close of business on Monday gives the ability to slip items onto the meeting without the public being able to know what is planned. How would you have been able read the posted at close of business agendas, research the items and then gather your troops to battle the proposal you worked so hard to win. It would be eliminated.
Consider the administration’s ability to drop a resolution onto the agenda leaving none of us the time to stop it. We would have no opportunity to inform the Council members of our concerns. Some of the Council gets confidential information with behind the scene emails and briefings. These items don’t get a full discussion now and with this proposal there will be less. The Powder House Road name change was dropped on us because of an internal city naming group made the resolution to change it. With the new proposed ordinance change, how many more things like this will occur? Resolutions are often dropped onto the agenda without any prior discussion letting us know the vote will occur.
In the past year our efforts to open up government to citizens has started to take hold and it is bothering the officials at 9th & Main. Our attention to process, agenda details and the willingness to bring them into the public discussion are at root to my arrest with prosecution for being a public nuisance. I was found not guilty because at least the court saw through these actions. If the council allows the city clerk to move forward with the change to the posting of agendas from our current short timeline to an even shorter one, we all lose.
Please contact me, bruce@citizens4integrity.org. We all need to help stop the abuse of our rights to be involved in Sioux Falls city government. There are ways to stop the erosion of access to our government but it takes you being involved. We are working to make the process easier to participate. Please don’t sit back and think someone else will save our rights. It is up to each of us.
Check out our process and progress at:
Bruce
Bruce Danielson
Citizens4Integrity
To make it easier to see what is being dropped out I made the red line text yellow, (DOC: AMENDING CHAPTER 30 CITY COUNCIL)