Open Government

Sioux Falls public inputer passes

l3wis December 26, 2025 0Comments

I nicknamed him Dennis the Menace. He was a conservative who would come to the podium and admonish the other public inputers who said unflattering things about our mayor and council. It was horrible trolling and most of us in the crowd would just laugh at his rants toward the public as just another ignorant right winger, and he was. He often blamed Muslims for the problems in our country. Yeah, he was one of those guys 🙂 But when I really knew he was full of it was during his rants about Seattle.

For weeks Dennis went on and on about how bad Seattle was (drugs and homeless). I have several relatives that live in suburbs of Seattle and work in Seattle. One of them told me that downtown is a s-hole and you don’t leave your locked vehicle when in Downtown. But other then that like most major cities the only drawback is traffic.

I decided to see if Dennis actually lived in Seattle. He did not. His obit said he lived mostly in Tacoma and when I looked up his past residence before leaving Washington state he lived in a small suburb about 40 miles South of Seattle. Seems like quite the distance between DT Seattle and where he lived. He did work in Seattle, which I also found ironic. Because he said he moved to SD to get away from all the Libs in Seattle. No he didn’t. He moved here so he wouldn’t have to pay income taxes in his retirement. Almost a 100% of his professional life was in the Seattle area. His last job was working a forklift at the Seattle Port Authority – My grandpa worked for them for 40 years as a delivery driver! I find it funny that a place that gave this man his welfare and wellbeing would trash such a place. When my grandpa retired, I think in the 1980’s, he never dreamed of leaving Seattle and retiring in Wagner (where he was born). But that’s typical of conservative boomers, use up what you can and move on and avoid taxes at all costs.

The other part I found funny was all the local newspaper articles I found online from the town that Dennis lived in. He was a frequenter at public input at his city commission meetings. And he said some nasty things to the council. I also found that odd since when he spoke at SF City Council meetings he was sticking up for our mayor and council.

I guess the entire city commission was Libs and that is the REAL reason he would admonish them. Libs according to Dennis (anyone who was NOT a registered Republican was a Lib in Dennis’ book). So I guess three-quarters of our country is Lib, who knew?

I will applaud anyone who is willing to speak publicly about their beliefs on government, what I don’t applaud is when they use that platform to spread hate and misinformation.

The City of Sioux Falls does as little as possible when it comes to open meetings

l3wis December 8, 2025 3Comments

Sure they follow state law, a law that was hijacked. When our current open meeting laws were implemented they were originally written by a Democrat, Nancy Turbak. But instead of the SD GOP opposing her bill, Dave Knudson convinced them to work with her on the legislation, instead, Dave gutted it leaving it up to local governments to decide what is open and what is not, kind of like the fox watching the hen house. Just look at how our city attorney ‘interprets’ our open meeting laws in this presentation to council;

• If a quasi-judicial item, then the applicant is allowed a rebuttal following public input. (while I think it is fine for an applicant to have a rebuttal, that equal time should be afforded to the opposition. Not in Sux, business owner first, citizens dead last.)

• General Public input must be included on the agenda and is limited to topics which did not involve those agenda items appearing earlier. (As I have said in the past, the council can’t limit what you can say during general public input, it is a violation of your 1st Amendment rights).

• Can the public body discuss the issue(s) first raised by a General Public Input Presenter at the same meeting?
No.

Then it may become an agenda item which was not properly noticed. (this excuse made me chuckle. If a constituent asked the age of a city councilor while standing at the podium and that councilor answered, that is NOT a whole new item. What a ridiculous excuse. Constituents used to be able to question council at meetings but Mike had that rule changed. This has NOTHING to do with open meeting laws. The council knows they can answer a question they are just to scared of the city attorney.)

• Are email discussions an “official meeting”? Official meetings can be conducted electronically. “A quorum of a public body who discusses official business of that body via electronic means is conducting an official meeting.” (this would explain why Fiddle says we have 500 meetings a year, he thinks sending an email to the mayor is a ‘meeting’.)

If you review our current State Open Meeting laws you will see they grant massive power to local governments to self-determine what can and cannot be transparent, in other words LEGALIZED CENSORSHIP.