Minnehaha County and ballot question committee Dakotans for Health have finally settled the lawsuit that resulted in an injunction of the county’s attempt to ban petitioners from most of the grounds of Minnehaha County government offices last spring. Minnehaha County has proposed and Dakotans for Health has accepted a policy that would ban petition circulators (and, we would assume, for the sake of First Amendment fairness) from only a small portion of the sidewalk immediately outside the well-trafficked west entrance of the Minnehaha County administration building:
As part of the agreement, Minnehaha County will formulate a new public use policy that removes references to a designated area for petition circulators and also removes language requiring circulators to check in with the county auditor before engaging in political activity on the central Sioux Falls campus.
Dakotans for Health agreed to keep petition circulators away from the area directly in front of the administration building’s main entrance doors and also away from an area a few feet west of the entrance so they don’t interfere with people with disabilities getting in and out of vehicles. The group also agreed not to “commence any new action or lawsuit” regarding the county’s policy as long as the prescribed changes are made.
The settlement agreement was signed by Dakotans for Health executive director Rick Weiland and Minnehaha County Commission chairperson Jean Bender [Stu Whitney, “Petition-Gathering Group Reaches Settlement with Minnehaha County,” South Dakota News Watch, 2023.11.21].
The policy evidently says you can’t stand around talking right in front of the admin building’s west doors or in front of the handicapped parking spaces immediately in front of and to the north of those doors. Of course, the policy doesn’t mark off the access spaces for parkers, or the parking spaces themselves, so I suppose the radical anti-democracy fundagelicals trying to stop people from signing the Roe v Wade amendment petition could lie down in the parking spaces and cry out for divine intervention….
I love it when people come together to settle a disagreement with a commonsense result. It’s too bad that Minnehaha County officials couldn’t have wised up a lot earlier. They could have saved themselves a lot of embarrassment and the taxpayers wouldn’t have had to pay out the expenses for their attempt at authoritarianism.
When I was gathering signatures at courthouses I would open doors for elderly and disabled folks and for county workers or attorneys carrying a load of files into the courthouse. I hope being a good neighbor won’t get anyone in trouble with this new policy.
Not good to protest right in front of building exits anyhow for various safety and accessibility reasons.
That red marked area isn’t very big so plenty of shouting can still be heard. :)
I went to the Minnehaha Country Admin. bldg. to renew my auto licenses & several petition folks were there at the west door. Ok, but also a fellow loudly shouting about hell, damnation, eternal torture for all your sins & such. I was mildly amused, but also somewhat annoyed.
I was amused at first, but the more I thought about it the more irritated I have become about what could be considered to be intimidation. Citizens should really not be aggressively threatened with eternal Hell right there at the door to the Minnehaha County building for signing a legal petition when in fact I was just there to acquire license plates. Yeah I was annoyed.
I was amused at first, but the more I thought about it the more irritated I have become about what could be considered to be intimidation. Citizens should really not be aggressively threatened with eternal Hell right there at the door to the Minnehaha County building for signing a legal petition when in fact I was just there to acquire license plates. Yeah I was annoyed..
Paul…people are going over the deep end. Mental Health, or lack of it, is a big issue and nothing like something as nebulous as a petition signing to bring out those receiving messages on their wristwatch.