‘Public comment’ time is for public to talk, not for showing regurgitated video clips

Two weeks ago, we ran an editorial about problems with public comment at Minnehaha County Commission meetings.

Hopefully, our readers recall, at the Aug. 3 meeting, public comment about an agenda item was not allowed during the normal public comment time since that item was elsewhere on the docket.

However, when it came time to discuss that agenda item, Commission Chairperson Cindy Heigberer wouldn’t take any public comment, as she felt everything pertinent for and against a C02 pipeline had been said at previous meetings.

In our editorial we gave some possible solutions so that wouldn’t happen again.

But this week, we saw another public comment problem that we also think the commission should act upon.

Now, we haven’t heard much from the county’s group of election deniers since the primary election in June when their candidate, Leah Anderson, won the Republican nomination for Minnehaha County Auditor through the same “flawed” process they had been complaining about for four months prior, against the same incumbent auditor who they had they also been complaining about during that time. This week, they were back in force at the commission meeting.

And here is where we saw a disturbing trend. Four of the five people to come up during public comment last week did not make any comments. They showed videos of election deniers during a Mike Lindell (the My Pillow Guy) symposium.

Current rules for public comment at the county level are that people have five minutes to say whatever they have to say. 

On Aug. 23, by splitting up who was showing videos on their phones, they could play everything they wanted. And this is where we think new rules need to be added.

“Public comment” is time for our Minnehaha County public to talk. It is not for people to play YouTube/Internet streams that people could watch on their own time.

To stop that, commissioners should make a rule to not allow such video presentations.

Those who want to address the commission can certainly watch the videos on their own, take notes, and report – even verbatim – on what was said.

Otherwise, we believe, commissioners and audience members will have to sit through much more Internet trash in the future, as people just stand at the podium and show their videos for five minutes, and then pass it on to the next person for five minutes, and so on, until Minnehaha County has heard the entire Internet.

At least, if people are required to speak, we know they have put some thought into why they are there.

And we feel our commissioners need to put in some thought, themselves, as to the best ways to make all of their public comment rules better for everyone.