Last night at the city council meeting there were three important first readings of ordinances. Mask mandate, meeting time change and moving public input dead last. While the proposed ordinances did appear on SIRE online with linked documents, there were NO hard copies available at the meeting (these usually appear in a white binder on a desk by the chamber’s front door). This is a clear violation of open meeting laws and the city council, city attorney, mayor and council staff ignored it.
What made it even worse was, out of courtesy, Cameraman Bruce let them know that they really needed to recess the meeting until copies of the ordinance could be handed out to the public in attendance. Nobody lifted a finger. The chair of the meeting, Paul TenHaken didn’t attempt a recess, the city attorney did not recommend one, the city clerk and city operations officer said and did nothing. Even after being told to correct this obvious violation, they all continued the meeting.
What does this mean? First off, an open meetings violation will probably be filed (more to come on that). If found in violation they could all receive fines and even jail time, it has already happened to a county official in the state for doing something similar. So who would be ultimately responsible for this fiasco and dereliction of duty? The chair, Mayor TenHaken could be but also the city clerk.
Even after warned to correct the issue, Paul just kept going. Why? Because of his deep, deep, deep hatred of open meetings and transparency. He will stop at NOTHING to make sure the public is NOT informed about what changes he is attempting to make at these meetings. He apparently will go as far as possibly violating open meetings laws to achieve his decimation of open government in Sioux Falls. Not sure what point he was trying to make?
I was actually astonished that they didn’t recess for 10-15 minutes to print out a few copies. It was baffling. What it showed me, besides the apparent disregard for the law, was extreme childishness, ignorance and stupidity of possibly openly violating the law when a constituent pointed it out. It’s like Paul was thinking, “If I just ignore Bruce, and pretend we are not doing anything wrong, we will be fine.â€
I have seen city government officials do some pretty moronic things, but this one takes the cake. It’s almost like Paul tries to one up himself of doing idiotic things. Which used to be monthly, but now is coming a weekly endeavor.
When you have 9 elected officials and about 4 appointed officials essentially ignore a possible violation (and not even raise their hands and ask the city attorney) you wonder who is running this rudderless ship called the city of Sioux Falls?
Speaking of public input. Councilor Brekke did a fantastic job of explaining to the rest of the council that they are essentially ‘guests’ at a meeting that is for the ‘public’ and this is why it should remain at the beginning. Councilor Starr reminded them of all the citizens that have come in the past to bring important issues to the council. It looks like right now the only ones opposed to the move are Starr, Brekke and Soehl.