By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
As another year begins, changes can often be seen, but 2023 will begin with a huge change for Minnehaha County. Jeff Barth and Cindy Heiberger retired from the county commission, taking with them a combined 28 years of experience.
Barth will wrap up his 16-year career, and Heiberger steps down with one less term at an even dozen years.
Barth: the ‘county commissioner’
While he does live in the city of Sioux Falls, Commissioner Jeff Barth has always prided himself on being the “county commissioner,” a title he claims from his long-time service on the planning and zoning commission, coupled with his general knowledge of Minnehaha County.
In an interview before Christmas, Barth said he didn’t believe there was a road in the county he hasn’t driven.
Barth began his first four-year term in January of 2007, but he said his time with the commission started much earlier, as he used to attend many of the county meetings as a private citizen.
That attendance led to the start of a “tradition” that has become a staple at most county meetings.
“On Aug. 27, 2002, we were close to the one-year anniversary of 9-11,” Barth, a military veteran, explained. “During public comment, I suggested that the commission meeting should start with the Pledge of Allegiance.
“(Later at that meeting, Commissioner) Mike O’Connor made a motion for meetings to start with the Pledge, but it died for lack of a second.”
Although, Barth went on to say, the next week, O’Connor leading the meeting as the vice chair, asked everyone to rise and say the Pledge to the United States flag, and ever since, commission meetings have started that way.
2002 was also the year Barth first ran for the county commission. He lost that race, but in 2006 veteran commissioner Jim Zweep was stepping down, and Barth ran again and won a place on the Minnehaha board.
Barth realized the fact he was running for office as a Democrat at the same time he proposed starting the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance (a motion made by O’Connor, another Democrat) may have played a part in that motion not going anywhere, but he readily acknowledges that politics do not play a part in the way the commission runs now.
And that is saying a lot, coming from the lone Democrat on the commission.
“We are family,” Barth stated proudly. “All of the (current) commissioners are honest…there is not a single commissioner I wouldn’t trust with my wallet!”
But that wasn’t always the case. Although Barth had positive things to say about commissioners on the board when he was first elected, he felt that personalities and politics played a strong role in how they operated.
Commissioners at that time, Anne Hajek, Carol Twedt, Bob Kolbe and John Pekas didn’t always get along.
Barth recalled that when certain commissioners spoke others would “look at each other and roll their eyes.”
But he does credit Pekas with giving him some of the best advice he has ever had, and advice he readily passes along: “Don’t let the law stand in the way of justice.”
Barth references that quote about a woman whose husband, a military veteran, had a 100% disability. Because of that, he would have been able to get a property tax exemption, but due to the illness, the house was put into the wife’s name, which made it no longer eligible for the exemption…under the law.
And this was a case when the law didn’t stand in the way of justice, as the commission voted to move the exemption to the wife.
Still, apart from this, Barth said he saw much of the in-fighting that other governing bodies around the state and nation see today.
But he again emphasized that isn’t the case with the current group.
“We work ‘hand in glove’ to get things done for the county.”
And then Barth chuckled and repeated, “We are a family. I always thought of Cindy (Heiberger) as my ‘work wife’!”
Both Heiberger and Barth said of all the other commissioners, “We may not always agree, but everyone is always respectful,” adding that there is a difference between disagreeing and being disagreeable.
But Barth has a few regrets, and those mainly come in how tax revenues are divided.
Currently, other than some licensing, motor vehicle and highways fees, the county funds itself mainly through a fraction of total property taxes paid, even though, the county treasurer’s office is responsible for collecting 100% of all property taxes.
Plus, the county must fund law enforcement (sheriff, state’s attorney, public defender, etc.), the jail, the highway department, voting, and a variety of other aspects of daily living in Minnehaha County.
This point was brought home recently when the Sioux Empire Fair Task Force reported that while, annually, the county nets less than $100,000 in profit for operating the fairgrounds, the state and city of Sioux Falls realizes nearly $2 million in revenue from the annual event.
Barth feels that the county should see a share of the taxes generated by the fair. And he echoed that for all alcohol sales, as well.
“My house doesn’t drink, so why does my house have to pay (to fund law enforcement)?”
Specifically, he referred to how most of those who end up in jail, and who accrue state’s attorney and public defender fees, started by drinking alcohol.
According to Barth, the county does get a very small amount of the alcohol tax revenue, but not nearly enough to cover the costs it incurs and believes the county should get a larger percentage of that money.
And while both Heiberger and Barth mentioned some of the construction projects in the county – the jail expansion, the new highway department building, the extension office, the county’s historical museum storage building, etc. – as major accomplishments during their time in office, Heiberger said she was sad she wouldn’t be around for one more.
Heiberger: From mom to commission to grandma
Four-time Minnehaha County Commission chairwoman Cindy Heiberger came to the attention of the commission in the early part of this century when she came before them to advocate for “saving the Bookmobile.”
The 10-year veteran of the Tri-Valley School Board and rural Hartford resident became involved when the commission was looking at “defunding the Bookmobile,” as part of money saving efforts when “pocketbooks closed up” following the destruction on Sept. 11, 2001.
When the children of Hartford were looking at being deprived of their main connection to the county’s library system, Heiberger became the voice of the Friends of the Bookmobile.
“That was the first time I ever did TV and magazine interviews,” Heiberger, who graduated from USD as a Registered Nurse, said.
“Jim Zweep told me that I was now the director of the Save the Bookmobile committee,” she laughed, but Heiberger and others did manage to raise the money necessary to continue Bookmobile services throughout the county.
During that time she came to know Commissioner Carol Twedt, who served as the liaison to the rural library board.
Twedt admired Heiberger so much that when she was going to retire from the commission in 2010, she encouraged Heiberger to run as her replacement.
When elected that year, Commissioner Heiberger took over a very important charge that Twedt had led for juvenile justice reform in the county.
The passion for children Heiberger has always nurtured is coming to fruition as the commission gets ready to vote on funding a new juvenile justice facility, and while Heiberger is happy to see that, where she is still sad is that she won’t be a part of that final discussion and vote.
“We need more programs and diversions for young people,” Heiberger said.
She added by using different techniques, there has been a reduction of juvenile detention by 80% in Minnehaha County.
“Any changes can always be better,” she said, “but we need to look at things like home detention and community service more.”
The trick is, she said, to see if juvenile offenders can safely be in the community.
“Can they go to school, not re-offend, and will they show up for court?
“We can hurt kids by putting them in a detention center,” Heiberger said. “We don’t want to take kids who have committed low-level crimes and put them in with rapists, arsonists and murderers.”
She said that this was one of the issues the current Juvenile Detention Center was cited for in a recent study, and she is looking at the options of the new Juvenile Justice Center to correct this mixing of low- and high-level offenders.
Even though she won’t be continuing with the county commission, Heiberger hopes to still serve some of the juvenile justice committees on which she currently sits.
But that will come later. Right now she says she plans to go back to a “normal mom life.”
During her 12 years on the commission, her four children have added 11 grandchildren, ages seven months to seven years, to the family.
And for now, she wants to enjoy that aspect of her life more.
The final full meeting for Heiberger and Barth was on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2022, but they should be in attendance when the current commission adjourns, and new Commissioners Jenn Bleyenberg and Joe Kippley are sworn in on Thursday, Jan 5 (rescheduled for weather).
They will be joined by returning Commissioners Jean Bender and Dean Karsky, along with Gerald Beninga, who was re-elected to another four-year term last November.
