Editorial Roundup: South Dakota

Black Hills Pioneer. April 30, 2022.

Editorial: Amended minutes cloud governmental transparency

The recent action of the Butte County Commission to slash a portion of its meeting minutes following the objection of a board member flies in the face of governmental transparency.

Initiated Measure 26, which legalized medical cannabis, garnered the support of nearly 70% of votes cast in the 2020 General Election. In Butte County, 61%, or 2,888 residents, voted in favor of legalization.

It required municipality and county governments to offer the opportunity for at least one dispensary establishment license within its boundaries. However, the number of licenses and types of facility licensure permitted falls under an individual governmental entity’s discretionary umbrella.

In recent months, a group comprised of more than two dozen Butte County residents have continued a sustained effort to fight the county commission’s stance which led to the October 2021 adoption of its amended ordinance regulating medical cannabis establishments within the county.

First amassing at the Feb. 15 meeting, the group has made appearances in each of the five meetings since, sometimes only a handful attended, and others hosted more than two dozen members.

On at least two occasions, the group drew large numbers, necessitating last-minute changes in venue, moving the crowd from the smaller commission room adjacent to the county’s second floor register of deeds office to the third-floor courtroom.

The ongoing dialogue between the commissioners and the concerned citizens at times got heated. When peppered with anxieties and queries from residents, the responses from the commissioners frequently turned defensive, reacting with justifications to rationalize their actions on the now six-month-old ordinance.

None of the group’s members attended any of the numerous meetings leading up to the commission’s adoption of the ordinance.

The collection of county residents often responded antagonistically toward the board, tossing around accusations of rushing the ordinance through its paces and proceeding on the regulation armed with woeful misinformation. In fact, at the March 15 meeting, Butte County Sheriff Fred Lamphere attempted to deescalate some of the residents a handful of times, insisting those participating in misconduct behave in a respectful manner.

On March 15, Buck Casey, a resident who recently moved from California, was placed on the agenda to speak in opposition of the county’s medical marijuana ordinance. He spoke for 43 minutes, fielding a handful of questions from commissioners.

With 12 years’ worth of law enforcement experience under his belt, Casey pleaded with the county about the corrosive effect he believed legalized cannabis had on his home state.

At its subsequent meeting on April 5, Commissioner Karrol Herman, who was not present at the March 15 meeting, protested approval of the portion of the meeting minutes that detailed Casey’s lengthy presentation. Alleging the 793-word thorough account of Casey’s discussion was inappropriate as she believed his testimony was comprised of his opinion.

“We deal with facts here,” Herman said, proposing the detailed account be stricken from the county’s official record.

Additionally, she declared that publishing minutes of that length in the legal newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, as required by state law, constituted a “wasteful” expenditure of tax dollars. Meeting minutes are recorded in the legal newspaper which serve as the permanent record and an unbiased, third party.

So, what does state law say?

According to South Dakota Codified Law 7-18-3, the “board shall publish a full and complete report of all its official proceedings at all regular and special meetings and shall publish proceedings as soon after any meeting as practicable.”

So, is publishing the more detailed minutes “wasteful?”

We don’t think so. Butte County, from March 15, 2021, to March 31, 2022, spent $6,992.14 on legal notices with the Black Hills Pioneer. Those legal notices included meeting minutes, notices of hearings, planning and zoning changes, highway bids, and so much more. All these critical informational items add up to 0.0013% of the county’s $5.35 million budget. That’s thirteen-one-thousandths of 1%.

Although the specific extent of detail required to be recorded is moderately ambiguous, the law indicates that meeting minutes should give a complete and objective account of what happened at a particular meeting.

On April 19, the commission approved the amended minutes for its March 15 meeting, which contained 764 fewer words. The document was revised to an abridged 29 words, slashing the official record by 96.34%.

Where is the transparency in a 43-minute dialogue summarized by 29 words?

We have questions.

Why would the commission allow Casey to rant for nearly an hour? Especially as his agenda item was not slated as an action item.

Was it the commission’s aim to provide Casey a platform from which he anticipated that his concerns would be heard and earnestly considered with open-mindedness, only to find that his passionate and time-consuming communication fell on deaf, unmoved ears?

Why did Herman not seek legal advice from the state’s attorney as was requested she do?

Were 792 words really necessary to provide a “full and complete report” of the agenda item? Perhaps not. But 29 words certainly does not present a true account.

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Yankton Press & Dakotan. May 3, 2022.

Editorial: Beds For Kids And What We Don’t See

How well do you know your own hometown?

That may have been the biggest underlying question that emanated from a story in Tuesday’s Press & Dakotan about a generous local action that meets a local need that few people likely knew or dreamed existed locally.

The story profiled the work of a group called Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP), which spent part of last Saturday at Yankton High School’s CMTEA/RTEC facility constructing beds to be distributed to local kids who otherwise don’t have beds to call their own. The group’s motto is simple and, when you ponder it, stark: “No kid sleeps on the floor in our town.”

Since the fall of 2020, SHP has distributed 130 such beds to kids in Yankton.

“Believe me, going into these homes and seeing the children, they are really needing those beds,” former Optimist Club President Mary Milroy, who is part of the local effort, told the P&D. “We’re not there to upgrade (old) beds, but if a kid is sleeping on the floor, couch, on an air mattress, with a parent, anything like that, where they do not have a bed, automatically, they qualify.”

This isn’t a problem you might expect to see in Yankton, or in any other town or city where you live — a fact that Milroy noted. “‘Oh, my gosh, we have this in our community? This is a need?’ That’s the remark I’ve heard from many people,” she said.

It’s a reminder not only that we tend to overlook these issues that fall through the cracks, but also that modern communities generally have become quite adept at hiding their problems, such as homelessness and hunger. It’s not done out of unfeeling malevolence or indifference; rather, it’s simply a means of coping with some social issues.

On the other hand, this matter is also a reminder that there are usually organizations, civil groups and volunteers working to address these problems that are otherwise swept out of sight and out of mind.

The local SHP group got its idea from the Brookings SHP chapter, the members of which have their own stories of the needs within their community. The Brookings group has provided indispensable help to Yankton’s efforts.

Unfortunately, these efforts are needed.

And that need does give you another view of life in Yankton or Brookings or Sioux Falls or anywhere else where these issues exist.

We can be appreciative of the organizers and volunteers that work to address these needs that we didn’t realize were even there.

And realizing that the problem exists is usually the first, best step in the right direction.

END