Strangle Hold
l3wis [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU2wAu4qE60&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
1st Amendment
Are we slowly chipping away at 1st Amendment rights and transparency since city clerk Owens was terminated?
I spoke at the city council meeting Monday night about public input and the lack of transparency in our city (I do want to apologize and correct my comment about city contracts, they are posted on the city website now.)
It seems to me that since Debra was fired they are slowly chipping away at all of the things she worked hard on. This is disappointing. Heck, even her termination proceedings were questionable (discussing her termination in executive session but voting on it publicly – WTF?).
Not sure if you read this interview I did with Erpenbach, but I found this line interesting;
It’s interesting to me that you claim so many people know the contents of conversations that were held in legal executive sessions related to private person- nel issues. It is a violation of state law to reveal information disclosed in executive session.
Well, Michelle, let’s talk about violating state law, shall we? From a SouthDaCola foot soldier;
The only way to get government to clean up its act is to make it more transparent – whether contracts, salaries and bonuses, public meetings, and abiding by open meetings laws.
I found it ironic that council leadership walked in the two resolutions to split the former clerk position into two different jobs and did so by breaking the open meetings laws.
If you recall this ordinance along with many others in Chapter II came through Public Services Committee on June 13 and went on to be adopted by council on July 11.
In less than a year the council themselves took action on agenda items w/o giving notice of the vote (so the public could not comment on the action until AFTER the vote was over.) However, their wrong doing is all the more grievous because they purposely revised the ordinance last year so that 24 hour notice would have to be followed. This is why there is a reference to State law in the ordinance. That is why it states the council CAN take immediate action AS LONG AS public notice was provided — which is 24 hour notice in state law. Â (See the last sentence in the ordinance below.) Â They willfully/purposely violated state law and their newly revised ordinance.
The ordinances;
Sec. 2-15. Â Agenda.
(a) Â Â Â Â All reports, communications, ordinances, resolutions, or other matters to be submitted to the council for consideration shall be delivered to the city clerk’s office no later than 10:00 a.m. on the Monday one week prior to the council meeting. If the Monday one week prior to the city council meeting is a holiday, the deadline is 10:00 a.m. on the preceding Friday. All documentation requiring council action will be delivered to the city clerk’s office in its complete and final format. The city clerk’s office shall prepare the agenda in both paper and electronic format and will furnish each member of the council, the mayor, and the city attorney with access to the information after 1:00 p.m. on the Wednesday prior to the city council meeting.(b) Â Â Â Â During consideration of new business, the mayor or any two city council members may bring before the city council any business that person feels should be deliberated upon by the city council. These matters can be added to the agenda by a vote of six city council members and will be considered under new business. Formal action on such matters shall be deferred until a subsequent city council meeting, unless consideration is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety of the municipal government. If the city council chooses to take immediate action on the newly calendared agenda item, and notice to the public is provided as set forth in SDCL 1-25-1.1, an affirmative vote of six members of the council is required for approval.
(Ord. No. 50-95, § 2, 3-20-95; Ord. No. 52-11, § 10, 7-11-11)
Is the city slowly chipping away at Owen’s hard work? (H/T – Crafty Ruckus)
I don’t know if you listened to Sue Roust’s presentation at the informational last Monday, but I thought she talked about a couple of interesting topics.
1) The spreadsheet on public input, &
2) that the CVB (convention visitors) had received an RFP (request for proposal) to host the International Institute of Municipal Clerks Conference in 2016 (see January 30, 2012 Informational meeting).
Our City Clerk’s office had met with the CVB and decided that because May 2016 is, “a busy time with elections and new Council members taking office.” that they would not pursue this invitation from IIMC.
Sue Roust, City Clerk, says, Â “There was a consensus that an even-numbered year was not very good, but that we would watch and see if the RFP comes around for 2017. That might be something worth looking at further.”
As a taxpayer, I was sitting there thinking, “Huh?!” We are most likely going to be asked to subsidize this monstrosity of an Events Center Complex (remember all three facilities: Arena, Convention Center, Events Center) are now going to be considered as one, and we have now TURNED DOWN an invitation to bid on a very high profile conference?! As everyone knows, Mike and his team sold the EC to the voters based on convention business being the MAJOR TENANT!
City Director Mike Cooper was asked if he had been aware of this, and his answer was NO. At the very least, there appears to be a HUGE disconnect and lack of communication going on here.
PART II
A separate issue is the redesign of the City’s website. Would we as citizens have access to the same amount of information as we have had in the past, or would this be an attempt to limit information? Unfortunately, it may prove to be the latter. If you have attended Park Board meetings on a regular basis for the past 4-1/2 years, often times, you can go on to the city’s website to view the minutes from past meetings. If you try to do this recently, you find that instead of the past three years being available that there now was only the previous month’s minutes.
The Director of Parks and Rec said the city is in the process of redesigning the website and that it will be rolled out in the next couple of weeks.
If you look at both the Board of Historic Preservation and the Public Parking Advisory Board’s minutes they both still show three years worth of past meeting minutes (they are both examples of the amount of information that should be available vs. the “new look” of the Park Board minutes).
Be on the lookout for missing info on the newly redesigned website.
SF City Council still looking at moving public input until end of meetings
Dean ‘No Goats’ Karsky is at it again, suggesting that the public waits until the very end of a council meeting before airing their concerns. (FF: 19:00) His reasoning? He doesn’t think city directors (who we pay with our taxdollars) should have to wait thru public input, because it would make things ‘smoother’. He also thinks people should have to sign their name if they are giving public testimony. Why? If they state their name before their rant, good enough for me. Why do some city councilors think the public’s opinion is unimportant and bothersome? Who elected you? Oh that’s right, Dean just had to kiss a few councilor’s asses to get elected.
Most people who come to give public testimony are doing it on their own time. City directors and other contractors doing business with the city are compensated very well by us to attend these meetings. The (volunteer) public should be able to air their concerns at the beginning of the meetings. Any attempt by the city council to change this will come with great resistance. GREAT RESISTANCE!
Use your brains for once and leave it as is. It is not broken and does not need to be fixed.
UPDATE: This is the document outlining the different public input variances. As you can see, all of the SD towns listed have them at the beginning of the meeting. And heck, the county doesn’t even have a time limit;Â public input spreadsheet
Leave public input as is
Here we go again, another set of city councilors want to make a bunch of changes to something that is not broken (informational meeting);
“Doing it on the front end of the meeting has never made much sense to me,†Councilor Vernon Brown
Huh? It makes perfect sense. The public should not have to WAIT for the city to do their business. City directors and others doing BUSINESS with the city can wait. Both are either getting paid directly from city taxpayers or benefitting from a city service. It is the one chance citizens can make their grievances heard without being inconvenienced.
Munson used to pull this crap where all of his rich developer friends got to speak first on an issue, the platting fee tax increase comes to mind. How did that turn out? The taxpayer’s got bilked and the developers have yet to put in any significant amount of money.
Citizens need to speak first.
There is one change though I would like to see and hope there is discussion on it. I think if a citizen directly asks questions from the mayor or city council, they should be afforded an answer. If they do not want to be questioned by the mayor or city council during their public testimony, they should have that right also. I just think it is kinda strange the mayor had to wait until the end of the meeting to respond. I also think it is strange that the Council chair just sat there with the gavel in her hand not knowing what to do with it. “Uh, what’s this pretty shiny wooden hammer for?” She could have allowed the constituents to respond to the mayor without it turning into a parking lot rumble.
Is public testimony uncomfortable? Sure. And if that bothers you, you are welcome to resign from your position. I’m sure Darrin Smith can fill you in on how to go about that.