By Dave Baumeister, County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – After many public comments about public comments, the Minnehaha County Commission voted 4-1 to approve their new booklet of procedures that will govern future meetings.
The main point of contention surrounded limiting speaking time to three minutes, as opposed to the current five-minute limit.
Various commissioners did say that people rarely speak more than three minutes, anyway, so an amendment was made to keep the time at the present five-minute limit.
Two other areas of concern were limiting the overall time for public comment to 30 minutes, as well as moving the time for public comment to the end of the meeting.
However, Commission Chairperson Cindy Heiberger explained that the new rules would allow for more comment time during regular agenda items, and the time at the end would just be a “wrap up” for anything that wasn’t mentioned.
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However, no one had anything bad to say about any of the other procedures outlined in the new 22-page document.
Although, during the Sept. 27 public comments some of the speakers likened the changes to what the city of Sioux Falls has often proposed, their meetings are in the evening, and moving public comments to the end could delay them until after 10 p.m.
The change in comment time for the morning county meetings usually would only move them from 9:05 a.m. to around 9:55 a.m.
In the end, commissioners voted 4-1 to accept the new procedures, keeping the five-minute limit.
Commissioner Jeff Barth was the lone vote against the manual, as he had proposed doing public comment at both the beginning and end of the meetings.
He did acknowledge that he liked the idea that the document could be amended at any time if commissioners didn’t like something about it.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday, Oct. 4, at 9 a.m. in the third-floor commission meeting room at the Minnehaha County Administration Building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
