At the door of Aberdeen’s City Hall, an agenda has been posted announcing a meeting of the Aberdeen Board of Ethics today, September 30, at 3 p.m. in the city council chambers. The agenda includes approving minutes from the September 16 meeting (which is odd, since the only meeting of which I am aware was the regular annual meeting on September 10), the statutorily required open forum (which is odd, since the only business one would bring before the Board of Ethics are ethics complaints, which Board rules require to be made confidentially), approval of an attorney to assist the board (which is odd, since the board has the City Attorney at its disposal), and an executive session.
In addition to physical posters at the meeting site, SDCL 1-25-1.1 requires that political subdivisions post their agendas at least 24 hours before their meetings on their websites. As of 6 a.m. today, nine hours before this meeting, the Board of Ethics webpage still says the board’s next meeting is September 10, 2019:
The Board of Ethics agenda does not appear on the city’s agenda page.
The Aberdeen City Council agenda is posted online and on the City Hall door. As my morning paper reports, the Council will take up Councilman Rob Ronayne’s hotly awaited ordinance to clarify the city’s conflict-of-interest policy.
“This proposed ordinance is the product of a compromise among the authors,” he wrote. “It does not forbid city council members from doing all business with entities that get promotional money, but it forbids us from doing business with those who get either a lot of money, more than ($100,000), or if the allocation is the majority of their annual revenue.”
Council members Alan Johnson, Dave Bunsness, Dave Lunzman, Mark Remily, Dennis Olson and Clint Rux are also listed as proposers of the amendment.
The meeting is at 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers at City Hall, 123 S. Lincoln St [Shannon Marvel, “Conflict Amendment on Agenda for Monday’s City Meeting {paywall},” Aberdeen American News, 2019.09.29].
This amendment, sponsored by two-thirds of the commission, would make clear that things like Mayor Travis Schaunaman’s bid for the city promotional funds the Chamber is offering for a new slogan and logo are not kosher.
Instead of unconstitutionally posting messages about dog in public schools, wingnuts would be better served posting the definition of ethics in every public governmental building in South Dakota.
Excellent point Mike.
I’m curious. Are there any women on the Aberdeen city council?
Not any more, Debbo. Jennifer Slaight-Hansen was the only woman on the council, and Aberdeen voters ousted her in favor of Mayor Schaunaman’s wingman Josh Rife.
That’s not good for Aberdeen. Studies are unanimous in showing that boards that are gender diverse make for more successful businesses. Undoubtedly the same is true for cities. That should convince the GOP “run governments like a business” disciples.