South DaCola

Did the City of Sioux Falls (Mayor’s office) violate open meetings laws with dead animal meeting yesterday?

The short answer is NO. As it was explained to me, the city followed the ‘letter of the law’ just not it’s intent;


1-25-1.1. Notice of meeting of political subdivision–Agenda–Violation as misdemeanor.

Each political subdivision shall provide public notice, with proposed agenda, that is visible, readable, and accessible for at least an entire, continuous twenty-four hours immediately preceding any official meeting, by posting a copy of the notice, visible to the public, at the principal office of the political subdivision holding the meeting. The proposed agenda shall include the date, time, and location of the meeting. The notice shall also be posted on the political subdivision’s website upon dissemination of the notice, if a website exists. For any special or rescheduled meeting, the information in the notice shall be delivered in person, by mail, by email, or by telephone, to members of the local news media who have requested notice. For any special or rescheduled meeting, each political subdivision shall also comply with the public notice provisions of this section for a regular meeting to the extent that circumstances permit. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

The agenda was posted on Friday before the meeting (or so that is what is being said) so they did follow law with the 24 hour notice, and yes it is on the city website . . . buried on a page that is NOT the agenda page.

If you didn’t know the meeting was happening, you have NO intent on looking for the agenda, and even if you were looking for such an agenda, you wouldn’t find it on the agenda page, or board agenda page.

Even the calendar on the new website is inaccurate and doesn’t show ALL city public meetings (before the site changed, the calendar displayed ALL daily meetings.)

At the last meeting, they did schedule a meeting for December, so I guess if you were paying attention, you would have marked the date on the calendar, the problem, the meeting was scheduled for 8 AM, NOT 2 PM, and for TODAY, NOT yesterday;

Next meeting: October 19, 8:00 a.m., City Hall Media Room

So even if you wrote this date down, it would have been incorrect.

I have argued the city needs a Public Information Officer (the SFPD has had one for years) whose only duty is to disseminate public information, but most importantly, public notices and agendas. Those notices should be on ONE calendar, and on ONE agenda page. I don’t take issue with posting it on other pages, like the buried Mayor’s page, but that should NOT be the official spot.

I had a wonderful convo with a city council staffer yesterday about this, and have asked them to do a little digging and to find out WHY the administration is just willy nilly about their agenda posting. I was also not surprised to hear that each department is in charge of posting their agendas, which I told this person is wrong, and that the city clerk’s office should be the ones controlling and posting on the agendas.

We spent almost $500K on the new city website, for something that is worse than before. Let’s just assume that the web developer and the city agreed to have a public notice page that is easily accessible, it’s not a hard lift, other cities do it.

I always like to use Omaha’s website as a decent functioning city website, as you can see you are ONE click away from any public notices or agendas you may need;

As a city official said to me yesterday about this topic ‘I don’t think the mayor’s office is prioritizing transparency.’

Yah think?!

And that’s the other kicker, none of the city councilors knew about the meeting until a couple of hours before the meeting (the media was also unaware), except the two who sit on the board, Merkouris and Jensen. When were they going to tell the public, the media, or at least the other 6 councilors?

While the mayor’s staff followed the letter of the law, they certainly don’t understand the spirit.

I’m not sure I get the Mayor’s war on public information which wreaks of hypocrisy. Open government is NOT a partisan issue, it benefits everyone, the elected officials and the public, and it saves taxpayers money, even when it comes to Lenin’s Tomb and a bunch of dusty monkeys and goats.

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