$2,500 Later, We Still Don’t Have Answers

At the May 26, 2026 Special Meeting, the Saddleback Road District Trustees voted to hire outside legal counsel and increase the District’s legal budget.

According to the meeting minutes, the reason was two public information requests submitted by a district member.

The Board subsequently engaged the law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore and allocated additional public funds for legal services.

The public may reasonably assume that if a government body hires an attorney to respond to records requests, the response will finally provide clear answers.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened.

Question #1: How Was the Fundraiser Determined To Be Unlawful?

At the 2026 Annual Meeting, Trustee Matt Christensen stated that research had been conducted through the South Dakota Secretary of State’s Office and the Custer County Treasurer’s Office regarding whether the Road District could conduct fundraising activities.

That statement immediately raised questions.

Neither the Secretary of State nor the County Treasurer are generally responsible for interpreting the powers granted to road districts under SDCL Chapter 31-12A.

When asked who he spoke with, Mr. Christensen later stated that he had not spoken with anyone and had merely conducted research through the websites of those offices.

When asked what information he relied upon, no specific webpage, publication, memorandum, legal opinion, or other authority was identified.

The records response supplied meeting minutes and email correspondence… with the district member asking the question.

What it did not provide was an answer to the question:

What specific information led the Trustee to conclude that fundraising was not authorized?

Ironically, the answer may be far simpler than the explanation presented at the Annual Meeting.

Road districts possess only those powers granted by statute. SDCL Chapter 31-12A authorizes specific funding mechanisms and specific governmental powers. Fundraising events are not among them.

If that was the legal conclusion, it could have been stated directly.

Instead, residents were told the conclusion resulted from research through offices that appear to have no direct role in interpreting road district powers.

Question #2: How Did The District Go From 34 Landowners To 33?

The second request was even simpler.

District records have referenced both 34 and 33 landowners.

The question was straightforward:

What changed?

The response received from the District included a current list of landowners.

However, the attorney’s cover letter also stated there had been:

• No boundary changes.
• No exclusions.
• No ownership changes.
• No reclassifications.
• No exceptions affecting the count.

If none of those things occurred, the original question remains.

Why did the reported number change?

Providing a list of current landowners does not explain why previous District records reflected a different number.

Again, the central question remains unanswered.

What Was Accomplished?

The Board discussed these requests during a public meeting.

The Board hired outside counsel.

The Board increased its legal budget.

The Board spent public money responding.

And after all of that, residents are left in essentially the same position they were in before.

The fundamental questions remain unanswered.

The Larger Issue

This is not really about two records requests.

It is about a pattern.

Simple questions become complicated.

Straightforward requests become legal matters.

Public money is spent.

Lawyers become involved.

And yet clarity remains elusive.

Government works best when simple questions receive simple answers.

Who was consulted?

What information was relied upon?

What changed?

Those questions should not require legal counsel to answer.

The documents received in response to these requests are attached below.

We encourage readers to review them for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

Transparency works best when the public can see the records and decide what they think.

At this time, we do not intend to pursue these particular questions further. The ‘records’ have been published, and readers may evaluate them for themselves.

Letter from the lawyer:

The first PDF consisted of meeting notices, agendas, meeting minutes, and email correspondence regarding the fundraising issue, all of which is already published on this site.

According to those records, Trustee Matt Christensen stated that he researched the fundraising question using information from the South Dakota Secretary of State website and the Custer County Treasurer’s website.

We have searched both websites and have been unable to locate any information addressing whether a road district may or may not conduct fundraising activities. (Again, however, we already know it is not lawful by simply reading the SDCL 31-12a-21, Powers of Trustees)

That does not mean the information is not there.

So we invite our readers to take a look for themselves.

If you locate information on either website discussing road district fundraising authority, please leave a comment and provide a link. We would genuinely like to review it.

After all, if that information formed the basis for the District’s conclusion, it should be easy for anyone to find and verify.

Certainly our Secretary would not simply make such a claim without some source to support it.

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The second PDF consisted largely of meeting notices, agendas, meeting minutes, and a current list of landowners within the district.

The question asked was simple:

How did the district go from 34 landowners to 33?

The response included a list showing who the current landowners are.

What it did not appear to include was an explanation of what changed.

If we missed it, we welcome correction.

Please point us to the meeting notice, agenda, minutes, or other document where the Board discussed:

• why the number changed,
• which property or landowner was involved,
• what action occurred, and
• when it occurred.

If that explanation exists within the records provided, we would be happy to review it.

At the moment, however, we remain unable to locate an answer to the original question.

Addendum:

The response to our request raised another question.

We asked how Trustee Matt Christensen determined that a road district could not lawfully conduct a fundraiser.

The explanation previously provided was that he researched the matter through the South Dakota Secretary of State website and the Custer County Treasurer’s website.

When we requested records relating to that determination, we expected to see something showing the basis for the conclusion.

For example:

• correspondence,
• notes,
• links,
• screenshots,
• memoranda,
• guidance documents,
• or some other record reflecting the research that was performed.

Instead, much of what was provided consisted of meeting notices, agendas, minutes, and documents that were already publicly available.

Some of those documents provided by the lawyer, appear to have been obtained directly from this website.

That is certainly one way to gather records.

However, it still leaves unanswered the original question:

What information led the Trustee to conclude that road district fundraising was not authorized?

If the answer came from a source on the Secretary of State website, we would be interested in seeing that source.

If the answer came from information on the Custer County Treasurer’s website, we would be interested in seeing that source as well.

If neither website contains such information, then perhaps the conclusion was reached some other way.

At this point, we simply do not know.

The question remains the same today as when it was first asked.

$2500 well-spent.