The Apple Dumpling Gang

Just got an email from Captain Conundrum, AKA Matthew Christensen… now also known as Amos Tucker.

They are holding a meeting in a couple days to vote on a resolution, but they do not include the resolution. They simply describe it as “The Saddleback Road District Resolution 3-2025 under consideration will maintain the current $500 per landowner annual Road District fee, in operating year 2026.”

Oh, so much to unpack here. Clearly the money set aside for a lawyer was not actually used on a lawyer.

I recently received the written response from the Attorney General stating that the Open Meetings Commission found in my favor and that the Saddleback Road District has received a public reprimand, as expected.

As you may recall, in that meeting, Bob Hummel admitted they were using a special assessment. They denied it repeatedly for months, and even lied to the court about it, but finally admitted it. 

The last frivolous response from the shyster lawyer actually stated that in fact they were using a Special Maintenance Fee, which can be found in the Special Assessments chapter SDCL 9-43. And it can be found there. It is mentioned once. I already wrote a post about this, but in a nutshell, it is for municipalities, not road districts.

So, it is NOT a Special Maintenance Fee, but a straight forward Special Assessment. However, Special Assessments can ONLY be imposed on properties that receive a special benefit and abut or front the ‘improvement,’ AND they are based on the footage, not a flat fee.

And this is where they lose their way again. A road district, by law, cannot make improvements, and this is not for construction of new road, so… this road district cannot impose a special assessment… period. Full Stop.

Yet, here we are.

The following is the current email thread regarding this. This is ongoing and I’ll be updating this as more emails are published. But you can see already that the board is doing what they can to just push this through, as usual, before the deadline.

This is unlawful and they know it. They know they do not have statutory authority to impose a special assessment on any of us, and the only lawful thing they can do is a levy… which we told them over a year ago, and which they would all be paying far higher than those of us on this road… which we also told them over a year ago.

That last email was from my brother. He was in attendance at the last meeting where they seriously just made up a 3 minute rule and then promptly broke it for Dale.

I’ll be forwarding this email thread on to the South Dakota Attorney General, the Department of Revenue and possibly the state auditors. They already know this is happening and said they simply did not have the time or resources to address this currently, so this will just be an update for them.

I’ll be attending this meeting. The meeting they no doubt scheduled with the intention of not having most people able to attend, and I’ll record it. It will make for quite an update here. As they have now been informed, in a semi-public thread that their actions are unlawful, I/we can file a legal action against them as individuals.

Update– no new emails, but in verifying procedure, I did find that whether they wish to call this a special assessment or levy, they have missed the deadline. So, this then begs the question… did they already submit the form and then realize they screwed up and are trying to back peddle?

I’ll look into that. I’ll see just what has been filed with the county auditors office.