The Sioux Falls City Council wants to point out that some people from the public are disruptive, unprofessional and disrespectful at the council meetings.
Really?
While that may be true, they should take a good look in the mirror. Before TenHaken took the helm there was backroom negotiations leaving several other councilors out of the process, in the open meetings there was often public shaming of fellow councilors from both sides. The chair himself would often cut off councilors or tell them they out of order (when they were not). Than there was the threats of ethics violations, etc, etc.
Trust me, while the public watching the meetings whether in person or on TV, they see this. We hoped with the new administration that some of this would end, NO more backroom deal making, NO more fighting at the meetings. It hasn’t.
Some have suggested to me since the Tuesday meeting that maybe instead of just making rules for the public, Â maybe there should be some rules on how the council treats each other at the meetings. It certainly lacks decorum. Not only is a lot of their actions uncalled for, some of it may violate open meeting laws (cutting deals via private phone conversations and emails without including ALL of the council in on the discussion).
I will say that some of the ideas about a compromise are worth taking a look at, but the process to come up with these compromises is not above board. The council really needs to either defer, or better yet, kill the current proposal and go back to the drawing board. This starts with having an open conversation in a working session hashing out the details. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have the public be included on a discussion about public input in the open? I think so.
We have had enough of ramrod negotiations by the previous administration and his team of council rubberstampers. In fact, many times the council meetings got contentious because of this awful way of governing. Mayor TenHaken needs to demand that the council drops the current backroom conversations going on right now and move this out in the sunlight, otherwise we have accomplished nothing but maintaining the status quo.