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Last-Minute Amendments Bad for Transparency… But Fuss over City’s Legislative Recommendations Unnecessary

I suppose fair is fair: while the City of Sioux Falls is making it harder for citizens to amend the city charter, some city councilors want to make it harder for council members to bring last-minute amendments:

Council Member Greg Neitzert says that bringing these amendments up at the last minute is frustrating.

“I just want to state I’m going to vote no on any amendment that’s brought tonight because, frankly, the process is broken because we’re just springing amendment after amendment without talking to anybody else at the last minute,” Neitzert says.

Council Member Rick Kiley also refused to vote on any amendments brought forward and said the Council needs to follow the process.

Kiley says, “It has to go back to the process. I mean, there’s been a number of us that have been hit over the head with the word ‘transparency.’ This is anything but transparent. And so, I, like councilor Neitzert, am not going to vote on anything that is brought forward for the first time this evening.”

He also says that the Council needs to ‘do better.’

Neitzert also said that the Council needs to be given amendments ahead of time and given more than thirty seconds to process it [Katy Marie, “City Council Amendment Process Is Broken,” KELO Radio, 2019.08.20].

I second Neitzert and Kiley’s sentiment: last-minute amendments make it harder for citizens to organize testimony and oppose bad ideas that policymakers try to sneak in without any notice on the agenda. Style and form amendments are fine any time: fixing a poorly placed semicolon or ungrammatical sentence shouldn’t require 72 hours’ notice, but major changes in policy or the hoghousing of bills we see in Pierre should not take place without publication and reasonable review.

It’s just too bad that Neitzert and Kiley’s pro-transparency outburst came in a fit over a non-binding, non-action vote on the city council’s recommendations to the Legislature—essentially, a resolution about things the city can’t do anything about. Councilors Janet Brekke and Theresa Stehly tacked on an amendment urging the Legislature to heed Governor Kristi Noem’s exhortation to plant more flowers to rebuild the pollinator population. (No word yet on whether Governor Noem will add toads, spiders, and other bee predators to her Nest Predator Bounty Program.)

Even good ideas should not shielded from public scrutiny by surprise amendment. But the content of a mere resolution doesn’t demand or deserve a Rule 5-17 delay: have your fun debating, then get back to actual business. I look forward to seeing Neitzert and Kiley’s commitment to transparency and deliberation when they face a last-minute amendment on actual business that spends real city dollars on a project they like.

3 Comments

  1. Porter Lansing 2019-08-21 10:01

    I understand and employ great sympathy for the council. Imagine how hard it is to change in order to deny change. Change is hard. Especially when change involves changing.

  2. Debbo 2019-08-21 16:23

    I’d like to see more members of various governments on all levels demand transparency and fairness.

  3. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2019-08-22 06:19

    Mr. Ehrisman astutely points out that the Brekke-Stehly bee amendment (which makes all sorts of sense) is far from last-minute but is really part of a process of composing Legislative recommendations from the city that starts in May and isn’t finalized until December.

    That said, if four months out is “last-minute,” I’d love to see what Councilmen Neitzert and Kiley consider to be “on-time” service—city employees filling potholes a whole year ahead of schedule?

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