REMSA supports transparency, fooled me

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All of a sudden Gary Meyers and The Bride of Franken are claiming they are all about transparency, even B-N-B chimes in and says ‘It sounds like you are being transparent’ (Greg had to call a city official the night before for questions to ask Franken and Meyers).

I call BS on both of them, heck, all 3 of them.

Franken has said to councilors and the public in the past when asked to explain the new 980 policies that it was ‘too complicated to explain’ and buried herself in a hole. It is also rumored she was ushered off to Texas for a brief period to learn the NEW system.

Meyers says he has NO idea who Commissioner Barth is, even though Barth sits on the county medical board.

Meyers says you can come to their meetings that they are open, yet they often change the schedule of the meeting at the last minute and REFUSE to have the meetings recorded (with the backing of the mayor) so the public can view them later online or in replay on Channel 16.

As I have told the mayor during public input in the past, saying your transparent and ACTUALLY being transparent are two different things.

Here is a transcript of the show (it gets interesting at about page 8); 2017-06-22-belfrage-show

It is time Minnehaha County Commission has its meetings at night

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Don’t think they have not tried. Commissioners Barth and Kelly made an attempt to change the meetings to 5 PM a few years ago. The vote failed 2-3. My suggestion would be a 5:30 or 6 PM meeting on Monday nights.

The reason? Well there are several. For one, the working class of this county could attend the meetings. One complaint I hear from several people is that no one knows what the county is up to. If you watch the meetings in replay (which usually takes 2 days to post to YouTube) like I do, the County makes some pretty serious decisions when it comes to how your property taxes are spent and criminal justice. While the city is the road builder of the city, the county is really the caretaker.

So why the opposition? I could use the ‘Republican’ excuse and their desire to keep government as closed as possible, but that excuse doesn’t hold much water since Uber Republican Kelly supported the night meetings. But I do think there is a strong desire by leadership on the county to keep the meetings during the day when the public struggles to attend.

I think they should take another shot at it.

Transparency Irony

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Over the past couple of weeks I have been humored by the irony of our Council Vice-Chair Slick Kiley bragging about live streaming the Annexation Meetings and having them recorded to be viewed later (though they failed with the baby monitor with the 1st meeting). It also seems they think it is just AOK to record and live stream the re-districting committee meetings (just like the Charter Revision and Planning meetings). But for some reason, the very delicate and fragile elitists that serve on the Parks Board couldn’t be bothered by such transparent government, they may freeze up or have a nervous breakdown if they have to sit in front of a video camera.

Do I suspect a bit of Hypocrisy when it comes to transparency in regards to recording certain meetings? REMSA and the Parks Board can hide under a cloak of secrecy while spending millions of tax dollars or making health and safety decisions for the rest of us. But when talking curb and gutter, we need to open the floodgates of transparency.

C’mon Slick! Either all the way, or not at all.

Building Collapse Video disappearing act

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Friday afternoon I noticed that a new episode of Inside Town Hall appeared on the City of Sioux Falls You Tube page. It was the normal setup. City councilor Kiley had on the Director of 911, Matt Burns (SFPD) and the chief of the fire department to talk about their working relationships. The one thing I noticed when I started viewing the video was that it was 44 minutes long (most episodes are 30 minutes). While there was nothing revealing in the show itself, right at the 30 minute mark it went into a 14 minute (muted) video of the building collapse rescue efforts. There were several breaks in the video and it looked professionally shot, at one point it seemed also a drone was used (or shot from a fire truck ladder).

I gathered that this video was probably shot by City Link crew. While I commend them for doing this, it also got me thinking about a lot of other angles.

• What did it cost to have a city film crew on site for that long?

• While we won’t film parks board meetings, somehow the city found it necessary to film this event?

• Why would the city not do an investigation when they had this kind of crucial footage, which included them marking the cracks in PAVE’s wall, a crane holding up the wall, and pulling away the damaged car?

• Was the footage turned over to the insurance companies and OSHA?

• Why shoot this video (which included the rescue of the apartment dweller being pulled from the wreckage) when we don’t send a film crew to every fire rescue event?

• Were they planning on using this video as some kind of propaganda?

• And lastly, why was this posted to YouTube and now has disappeared from the site?

After watching the video, I talked openly about watching it to a group of friends at Drinking Liberally Friday night at the Taphouse. Did someone in the group (or near the table) report this back to the city?

It’s funny how transparency works in this town.

Fiscal Meeting NOT RECORDED again

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There will be no camera’s, no audio and no Fancy Feast at this meeting.

Sioux Falls city council’s fiscal meeting, chaired by Councilor Erpenbach will not be recorded for a second time.

**This working session of the Fiscal Committee will be held in the Carnegie Town Hall Multipurpose Room adjacent to the Council Chambers. The working session will not be audio or video recorded.**

It really makes no sense, because they have the meeting right next to the main hall where it could be recorded. As you know from OUR recording of the last meeting, nothing ‘special’ took place in the meeting for it not be recorded and live streamed on CityLink.

I’m not sure what point Councilor Erpenbach is trying to make by not recording these meetings, but this anti-transparency movement by her, the mayor, Kiley and Rolfing is just starting to look like childish games.