Journal Editorial: Public comment ‘kerfuffle’ could have been avoided

A back-and-forth exchange that led to a threat of expulsion, and one citizen audience member leaving on his own never should have happened at the Aug. 2 Minnehaha County Commission meeting.

However, while we don’t feel like anyone was totally at fault, there still is some blame to be dished out.

Here’s what went down: Item No. 14 printed on the Aug. 2 agenda was to “consider a Temporary Zoning Ordinance on Gas and Liquid Transmission Pipelines” that the commission has been mulling over for several months.

Last year, Summit Carbon Solutions of Iowa came to Minnehaha and several other counties with their plans for a carbon dioxide capture system pipeline to run through eastern South Dakota on its way from Iowa to North Dakota.

As several counties, as well as the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, have seen, landowners – the “Davids” in this case – are uniformly against this project, and they are rightly feeling they could lose their land in a fight with the billions of dollars that “Goliath” Summit Carbon has to throw around.

At the Tuesday, Aug. 2, Minnehaha County Commission meeting, around 50 of those landowners were present to support the moratorium,

By South Dakota law, at every public meeting, there is time allotted for public comment.

The chairperson, in this case Cindy Heiberger, always very specifically clarifies that public comment is for people to speak about items “not on the agenda.”

But what happens when there is something on the printed agenda that the chair doesn’t open for public comment?

In that case, a taxpayer who could have something important to say about an issue is completely shut out.

And that is exactly what happened on Aug. 2.

Of all those there about the pipeline issue, only one man had signed in to speak. In the box on the form where it asked who a speaker represents, he wrote “landowners.” By the time item 14 came around, he was the only one of nine people on the sheet who had not spoken. He followed the rules laid out: he signed in with his name and address to speak, he didn’t talk during the “open mic” public comment, as what he was concerned about WAS on the agenda.

We even saw him speaking with commissioners prior to the meeting, so unless they were talking about how well the Minnesota Twins were doing, we have to believe they knew he wanted to speak.

But when agenda item No. 14 came up, things got a little nasty, as it became clear that Heiberger wasn’t going to let anyone speak on the issue. 

Another individual opposing the pipeline (not the man who was going to speak) became upset about their side not being heard.

Now, we are sympathetic to Heiberger’s situation, as commissioners are well-aware of everything that has been said before about the sanctity of land ownership, the damage caused by pipelines and the dangers of super-compressed CO2.

Did anyone have anything new add to these things? Probably not. Still, using a meeting loophole to keep a tax-paying citizen from speaking at a meeting for which he paid really looks bad.

The loud audience member was rightfully upset, but it may have been better if the person who signed in had been the one to challenge the “gag order.” And while Heiberger tried to stay calm in keeping order, a threat that never should have been made was thrown out.

(OK, in the world of threats, this wasn’t that bad, as she only said, “Mr. Meyer, if you cannot respect the rules of the commission, you’ll have to walk out.” But we are sure he felt the unspoken implication of the sheriff’s deputy standing behind him was “If you don’t leave on your own, there is an officer ready to take you out.”)

So, we have two suggestions so that this doesn’t happen in the future.

First, people who want to speak about anything should just sign in at the door, and when public comment time opens up, they should just start talking about whatever they want.

If what they have to say might fall under an agenda item, the chair can gavel them down; however, that same chairperson will then have to go on record to allow the person to speak when the item does come up. Because at a public meeting, the public should be allowed to speak on any item printed on the agenda, if they are not allowed to speak during the open public comment time dictated by law.

Or – and we think this is better – public comment can be moved toward the end of the meeting, after the regular agenda.

That way, people who didn’t have the chance to speak earlier – for whatever reason – would still be able to address the assembly at that time.

Following either of these suggestions would prevent the repetition of last week’s unfortunate events.

We have always been impressed with Minnehaha’s commissioners. Sadly, events like this are very commonplace occurrences at similar meetings in other counties.

Our commission usually handles their business and meetings well, and we don’t want to see avoidable incidents like this becoming the norm here.

 – Dave Baumeister

County Correspondent for the BV Journal