Sioux Falls City Council needs to put transparency policies into ordinance, ASAP!
Some may be wondering why NO one spoke at public input at last night’s final city council meeting before a new administration starts. As I said to someone, “Would it do any good to talk about transparency to the current outgoing councilors and mayor?” Not at all. I have tried for 8 years to get a more transparent government, but our mayor stuck to his guns to the end. He claimed that transparency with the public and council only costs us money because we ‘can’t get things done’ in a timely manner. I would argue on the contrary.
I don’t elect people to entertain me. No where in the Constitution does it say our government must entertain us.
I elect people to spend my tax dollars wisely on public safety and infrastructure and other social needs for the public good, and to do it in the open. The mayor’s ‘business acumen’ of secrecy has only cost us millions in debt. Nothing I will ever do will change the governing philosophies of Mr. Huether. And hopefully, he will never serve again in that capacity.
But moving forward the council has the power to change it, not only for the newly elected mayor (who has promised more transparency) but for future councils and mayors.
Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of snipping and griping going back and forth between current councilors about how new leadership will handle passing along information. For instance leadership has known for a very long time that the council’s broadcast equipment needed an upgrade, they just didn’t bother passing along that information to the rest of the council. This has been going on way before Huether stepped into office and it needs to end.
Instead of all the pissing and moaning behind the scenes, the first thing the council needs to do is have an open public discussion about how that information WILL flow. In other words the council needs to put on their big kid pants and inform leadership and the mayor that they WILL share all (early) information with them and the public.
After this very productive discussion, they should implement policies into ordinance that says that the mayor’s office and leadership WILL share the information. Not ‘maybe’ or ‘might’. And if it is sensitive to personnel or litigation it can be shared in an executive session.
I’m sick of listening to all the griping (and not just by me) about more transparency. It does no good to complain about it on this blog, in a letter to the editor, in front of a TV camera or at public input unless the council is at least willing to put legislation forward to fix the problem. If they can’t do this early and soon, the next four years are going to be just like the last eight, fighting like little kids on the playground about who gets to play in the sandbox.
The council and media may want to blame the public for poor decorum at the meetings, but all this secrecy is the lowest level of decorum that I have ever seen. Lets start acting like big kid government and pull open the blinds and let sunshine in.