Surprise, surprise Sioux Falls government ethics is in question. The Sioux Falls Board of Ethics was asked what should have been a simple question by City Councilor Theresa Stehly on April 25, 2019.
Can a developer, who is planning a major downtown project where they will be pitching a $24 million tax break, host a food and booze event without an ethics violation being levied against the invited city officials?
Anything can be can be questioned if it has de Minimis or nominal value. Even if there is no minimum or maximum value, if there is no minimum or maximum time period, it can be an ethical conflict. If dots can be shown or perceived or the optics can make it look bad, it is an ethical conflict. These have been the rulings in two previous decisions of the Board of Ethics.
What we learned in this meeting, apparently this does not apply to City Council or department staff if a developer wants to wine and dine the right people.
This was a preemptive advisory request by Stehly, not a post event ethics violation she was asking the Board to rule on.
The Board decided, since there is no “crime” yet, there was nothing they could do to preemptively advise the people in their jurisdiction to not attend the heavy food and alcoholic drink event designed to soften the $24 million TIF request.
The previous ruling requests were preemptive in nature, so was this one. Explain this to the cops and librarians, how South Dakota has only ethics laws affecting them (kind of).
While everyone has been pissing their pants over an over hyped internal auditor candidate, we overlooked the city’s move to gift one of their buildings for a Triage Center.
Let’s make it clear, it is a good piece of property and is well suited for the the center, but one wonders if this is just an attempt by the city to move the IT department to some new digs at the City Center?
Why wasn’t it just put there when the building was being built? Could have saved us a lot of money to just wire it at that time?
Also, what is going on with the liability litigation with the botched HVAC system. Crickets.
Make no mistake, while this Trojan Horse gift is a good thing, we all know the real reason behind it, to spend taxpayer money on more Empire building at the City Center.
Don’t believe me, just watch the informational meeting above. While they all talk about the money they want to spend from the surplus on the IT department move, they say little about what they are going to do with the triage building.
This last Tuesday night when I was able to leave work, go thru a drive thru, and grab something from home before going straight to the city council meeting at 5:30, at first glance I thought, “This is pretty cool, I can go straight from work to a council meeting, say my sh*t and go home, all before 6 PM.”
Then reality set in.
I have railed for years that the Minnehaha County Commission should have night meetings for the convenience of working people. In fact the Commission sails thru all kinds of things because they don’t have the scrutiny of the public. There is rarely public input at commission unless it is someone self-employed or retired.
Also, all the informational and committee meetings of the council would have to be held at an early time, in which would be difficult for members of the public, business people and even city councilors to attend.
Lastly, I don’t have kids, I don’t even have a dog to let out to pee. It would be difficult for members of the public to make the 5:30 meeting with all of the after work hectics.
So please, ignore my thoughts and lets keep council meetings at 7 PM. It is the most convenient time.
UPDATE III: Neitzert calls himself ‘Audit Manager’ in the Belfrage interview. Who is lying? He is the chair of the Audit Committee. All city council employees (including internal auditor) answer to the entire council and entire committee.
UPDATE II: Listen to the interview HERE from this morning. WARNING, not suitable for small children 🙂
I guess Belfrage invited Theresa and Greg on Thursday morning to discuss the robo-call and hiring of the new Internal Auditor, 8 AM.
Some observations I made while watching the meeting last night were kind of startling. While the 3 councilors that voted against Mrs. Nelson’s appointment (Brekke, Stehly & Starr) contended there were too many conflicts of interest and the process was not open and transparent. Brekke said she would have liked to see a more extensive search.
But what shocked me is how the council and city attorney, Danny Brown, blew off the conflicts as normal operating procedure. Brown referenced the state which is steeped in nepotism and conflicts and said if the state permits it (it’s legal) than it must be okay.
First off, it should be illegal. South Dakota State government gets an ‘F’ in corruption. I have often contended that is due to lack of transparency, conflicts and nepotism. But just because something is ‘legal’ doesn’t make it right, and those 3 councilors did the right thing.
There was also a relaxed attitude towards the fact that Mrs. Nelson lacked audit experience.
But one of the biggest shockers was when Neitzert said that the internal auditor works for management (the council) and NOT the citizens. He had a round about way of saying it, but you got the gist. This was disappointing, because as Stehly pointed out, ALL city employees should be working for the citizens.
Brekke made the best points all night. Not just about conflicts or finding qualified applicants, but one of her best points was about how the council should have had a consensus on this since it was their employee. In fact, the council has had a consensus on the hiring of all of their employees in recent history. The last time they did not have consensus was when they voted to fire Debra Owen. Janet pointed out that it seems when the majority of the council doesn’t want to negotiate with the minority they shut them out and move forward anyway. She said it was frustrating and made the point that when the council is this far apart on disagreeing with each other, that was the best time to talk and and work out their differences. AMEN!
UPDATE: Last night at the meeting Greg said it was urgent to hire Shana right away so she would not be in limbo for two weeks, then he says this in a press release today;
Nelson will transition into her new role over the course of the next month.
Greg made it sound like Shana needed to have an answer right away so she could transition into her new position right away. Now we hear it will take a month! I assumed she would probably be moved in by the end of the week or Monday. With the administration not thinking Shana is that important to them, you would think they would have allowed her to pack up her box of pencils, Chia pets and city plaques today. Funny how things change the next day when the dust clears.
UPDATE: The Ethics board determined they could not make a decision because they didn’t have evidence that the City Council would vote on TIFs. Stehly told them there was an Argus Leader article on it, but she didn’t have it with her though Bruce offered to show it on his tablet. Since they are quasi-judicial they have to have the physical evidence.
Bruce pointed out at the end of the meeting during public input that it was unfortunate that they did not offer an opinion because now if there are pictures of city officials and city councilors at the event and later they have to make a decision on TIFs, ethics violations could be filed against them for accepting gifts before the vote. The Ethics Board could get very busy next month.
The meeting will be at 10:30 AM this Thursday at City Hall. Stehly is asking if it is ‘ethical’ to be accepting FREE ‘Food & Drink’ from a developer that will be potentially asking for a TIF from the very people who are being asked to attend this event.
Personally, if I was a city councilor, I would NOT attend the reception portion of the event. It not only looks unethical, it likely is unethical. This will be an interesting Ethics Board meeting to watch and what laws are applicable. In South Dakota where we have very few ethics laws for lawmakers I could easily see a ruling either way.