OMG! Public Official Arrested for Violating the Open Records Laws!
Yes! You read that right. It was in 2019. Check it out here.
This is one of my favorite parts.
Did I miss the memo declaring that public officials should no longer experience shame for breaking the law? Publicly shaming elected officials for breaking the law is moral, necessary, and effective, even, sometimes, against the most shameless and corrupt of elected officials. We don’t hesitate to arrest and shame run-of-the-mill hoodlums on the street who wave shotguns and vandal murals. Why should elected officials not face cuffs and guff for violating the public trust?
I’m impressed that the person pushing for accountability is the county state’s attorney. Kudos!
We are on our own here.
We got some good news today via the Attorney General’s Office. We bypassed the ‘usual channel,’ because we actually wanted an answer. Turns out we had a more direct route. <sigh of relief> The good news is that we are correct in our assertion that road district trustees … are officers. And they have to follow the same laws as all other officers.
More on all that later. Cuz the lawsuits just keep piling up.
Instead of creating another post, I thought I’d add on to this one. I have a bit more respect for the AG than perhaps I did. I was unaware of the shenanigans going on on a larger scale.
This sounds all too familiar. I was actually trying to find some cases where county auditors were sued, and found quite a list of state officers being held accountable. When I was trying to get help from the state, I was told that I had quite a lot of evidentiary support, but they could not get to this for at least a year and I should talk to a lawyer.
I thought I was getting the brush off, but it appears they really did have larger fish to fry. I’m a bit more motivated to keep going holding this rogue board accountable. Especially now that we have vindication on a few of our contentions.
The longer all this drags on, the more we shown to be right. Therefore, conversely, the more they are shown to be wrong. And they are the ones with a duty to know, understand and follow the laws. Even if the county auditor told them something wrong, I think the road district board is responsible for not checking further. For not making sure they really understood that a road district board has the power to levy and/or impose a special assessment. This nonsense about utilizing a ‘special maintenance fee,’ because it is mentioned in SDCL 9-43, was laughable.
Anyway, when that gets published by the AG (this is an assumption), lots of road districts are going to be scrambling, and it will be interesting to see if some folks take them to task.