Well, you know the old cliché, Lawyers are professional liars. They brought those talents to Pierre to try to get an open settlements law killed in committee;
“Transparency is a good thing, but at what cost?†said Sioux Falls lawyer Steve Siegel, who represented the trial lawyers. Siegel noted that parties in lawsuits use confidential agreements to keep embarrassing information out of the public, and he noted that the South Dakota Newspaper Association was in favor of the bill.
I guess we only have a right to information if it isn’t embarrassing? Only a lawyer would come up with such a ridiculous excuse. He also apparently tried to peg the SDNA as a tabloid and gossip rag organization. Hey Steve, they represent NEWS organizations, not the National Enquirer.
They also tried to use the tired old excuse that keeping things secret saves money. LOL. How would we know if the settlements are kept secret?;
David Bordewyk, the executive director of the South Dakota Newspaper Association, pointed to the secret settlement that Sioux Falls negotiated with contractors over flawed exterior panels on the Denny Sanford Premier Center. That settlement only became public because a lawsuit had not been filed. The settlement agreement showed that Sioux Falls officials mislead the public about receiving $1 million in cash from the contractors.
That settlement, in which we got $1 million of our own money back, cost taxpayers well over $100,000 to defend it’s secrecy in court. In fact, the Federal government forbids secret settlements because government secrecy tends to cost them billions of dollars a year.
This isn’t about saving money (a lie) but it is probably about embarrassment. We had a mayor who probably signed off on bad siding, and in order to cover it up he lied about a supposed settlement. And even after the city lost the Supreme Court case, the shame and embarrassment didn’t seem to bother him at all, in fact, in true Trump style he doubled down on the lies and to this day has refused to admit if he singed off on the Shi**y siding.
Opening up these settlements will save taxpayers in South Dakota millions of dollars, and maybe the ‘public embarrassment’ will keep these settlements to a bare minimum, if they are not truly deserving. But I don’t think the recipients are the ones that will be embarrassed, it will be the corrupt politicians who got our tit in a wringer to begin with, and to that I say OPEN THE BOOKS!