Sioux Falls City Council passes a ‘tiny’ transparency ordinance

Last night during the council meeting, the main sponsor, Rich Merkouris introduced an ordinance that will give the council the authority to approve contracts over $100K. According to Rich, the contracts are now hidden from the public and only the council can view them privately upon request (Item #72);

The proposal requires council approval of contract that are in excess of $100,000 per vendor, for each calendar year. Those contracts involving the expenditure of funds less than $100,000 will be noticed on the agenda. The proposal requires that all contract subject to council approval be delivered to the City Clerk and placed on the consent agenda. Contracts/agreements that are subject to the state’s executive session laws will no require council approval. Existing ordinances that duplicate SDCL are removed.

If you look at the attached documents, you will see this isn’t as transparent as you think;

(b) Each contract or agreement of the city shall be executed in the name of the municipality by the mayor, or his or her interim successor, and shall be attested by the city clerk. The city clerk shall affix the corporate seal. Any contract or agreement for park purposes may be reviewed by the parks and recreation board prior to council consideration. All contracts involving the expenditure of funds less than $100,000 that are entered into by the mayor and are not subject to council approval shall be noticed to the city council on the consent agenda under communications. All contracts or agreements which are subject to approval by the city council shall be delivered to the city clerk office pursuant to § 30.014 and placed on the consent agenda under approval of contracts and agreements. Change orders in excess of $100,000, involving the expenditure of funds, shall be noticed to the city council on the consent agenda under communications. Deductive change orders do not need to be noticed to the city council.

(c) Contracts and agreements pertaining to subjects that are permissible for executive session shall not be subject to this section.

While it is GOOD that the city council will now be approving these contracts and the public will be able to see them, councilor Merkouris mentioned during the discussion he worked with the finance director to put this together and it seems the administration probably got what they wanted. More stuff on the consent agenda.

The issue with the consent agenda is most of the time the council doesn’t discuss and just passes it all at once and most people don’t know you can view the items online, and they certainly don’t provide a print-out of them at the physical meeting (AND THEY SHOULD).

While this is GOOD progress, especially from a new councilor, they need to pass more ordinances opening up the books. Hopefully Merkouris will get a new set of councilors this Spring that will work with him to pass loads of open government ordinances! Secrecy be Damned!

SPEAKING OF A CLOSED GOVERNMENT LACKEY, IT SEEMS COUNCILOR JENSEN MAY BE GETTING OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE

Like I said recently, I have no idea what Jensen is going to run for, but he may have given us a hint that he isn’t running for anything;

“I am focused on finishing my term on Council,” Jensen said of his decision not to run against Peterson (in Legislative District 13).

Notice the word FINISHING. So is he in or not?