New Agenda from the Saddleback Road District Board – Same Old Problems

The board just sent out an agenda for a special meeting tomorrow night, and it’s another example of the ongoing transparency issues.

Here are just a few highlights:

• Item F: “Discussion and motion to enter representative engagement with GPNA”
  (For those wondering, GPNA is Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP, the lawyer they hired in a closed meeting a couple years ago to fight a small claims case. They couldn’t just say that?)
• Item G: “Discussion and motion to fill temporary Trustee Position”
  No explanation of which position or why it’s vacant. Agendas should be complete on their own. They should not necessitate prior knowledge of events.
• Item H: Executive Session for “assignment of Trustee roles”- This is highly questionable. Executive sessions are only allowed for specific narrow reasons under South Dakota law (such as personnel matters involving specific individuals, litigation strategy, etc.). “Assignment of Trustee roles” does not appear to qualify as a valid reason for going behind closed doors. This looks like an improper use of executive session.
• Item J: The classic catch-all “Old Business / New Business”

This is the same board that was already publicly reprimanded by the Open Meetings Commission. Yet here we are again with vague agenda items that don’t give landowners reasonable notice of what will actually be discussed, and another proposed closed-door executive session that appears questionable.

When board members use cryptic initials instead of plain language, and hide important topics behind vague wording, it makes it nearly impossible for the public to know what’s really happening. That’s not transparency — that’s the opposite.

The Open Meetings Law exists for a reason: so the public can see how their money is being spent and how decisions are made. Continuing to play these games after a public reprimand shows a clear pattern.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

The following is the agenda.

By the way, both in the email and the agenda, it states’ (Ruzicka’s Shouse), which we assumed was yet another typo, but which COULD be another abbreviation- “Shop/House”? Maybe?

Apparently it makes these people feel important to use code.