I used to tell Former Mayor Bucktooth & Bowlcut that just saying something is transparent doesn’t automatically make it transparent. It seems our school board suffers from the same affliction. After I grilled them about the unknowns and the lack of transparency they bragged about how transparent the process has been without answering my questions, and they were pretty simple;
• What is the final cost of this 30 year bond? The Finance Director fumbled around this question only saying the last bond was paid off early.
• Are we using super precincts and E-Poll books? No answer.
• Will the county be handling tabulation and absentee voting? No answer.
• What is the compounding affect of the tax. Super Maher said, “You will pay $2 per $185K valuation.” No answer.
• How will you fund staffing/maintenance of the schools? No answer.
• Another lady asked how many homes will be destroyed building a new Whittier? No answer except that they haven’t picked locations yet. How do you have a dollar amount of new construction when you don’t know what land you are going to purchase?
• Why was the survey sent to non-voters? They said this was for ‘educating’ purposes. Just because some has the information doesn’t mean they will vote. The survey doesn’t mean a hill of beans.
Like I said, there was a lot of back patting about how they took 18 months to get here, but little answers to the important questions.
A question I have often pondered is, “If you don’t tell someone the information to begin with, is it lying?” No. But it is incredibly deceptive.
… “If you don’t tell someone the information to begin with, is it lying? 
Guess that is a question best asked of the Argus, local TV, and the radio spinmasters.
SDCL 1-25-1.1 requires that all public bodies prominently post a notice and copy of the proposed
agenda at the public body’s principal office. At a minimum, the proposed agenda must include the
date, time, and location of the meeting and must be visible, readable, and accessible to the public
for 24 continuous hours immediately preceding the meeting.
Well they did post it Sunday morning on the website, so they certainly followed the time constraint of the law. My point was that Friday was the last business day before Monday, and would have made more sense to post it than. Not sure what the point was to wait until that last legal moment, oh, that’s right, they didn’t want the media blabbing about it all weekend.
At this point the media is on board with the school board. Friday? Monday? Really? What difference does it make?