By Dave Baumeister
County Correspondent
SIOUX FALLS – While not on the regular agenda, Minnehaha County Commissioners talked about changing their future schedule at the Tuesday, Nov. 10, meeting.
Except for special occasions, the commission meets every Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., but Chairperson Jean Bender brought up the possibility of cutting out one or two meetings a month from January to April, in order to limit interactions.
Since this was not on the regular agenda, no official action was taken, but it did open the floor up to thoughts from other commissioners.
While Commisioners Dean Karsky, Cindy Heiberger and Jeff Barth said they were open to the change, Commissioner Gerald Beninga took the idea a step further and suggested meeting start times be moved to 8 a.m.
Whatever changes – if any – come from this discussion, Karsky stressed that “consistency” be paramount.
He said they needed to have a regular schedule to which they adhered.
Apart from the 8 a.m. start, other options they discussed were eliminating meetings on every second Tuesday and elimination of any meeting on any fifth Tuesday that might occur.
Everyone recognized that this would make other meetings longer, but commissioners recognized that people in the building would not be exposed to as many “germs” as they would from people coming in each week.
There was no motion or discussion on when this would be taken up officially.
No compromise
Commissioners voted 5-0 to take no action on a request to compromise three liens totaling just over $10,000.
According to Commission Assistant Melinda Storley, the petitioner currently listed her residence as the St. Francis House and was asking the county to forgive her liens.
However, she had outstanding liens for legal bills, which Beninga and Heiberger said they were not likely to forgive at this time, but Karsky pointed out that since the petitioner didn’t have any real estate or other transactions pending, she didn’t have to worry about the liens right now.
He emphasized that he was glad to see her taking steps to solve the issue, but as the county doesn’t charge interest on liens, he said there was “no pressing reason” to waive the liens at this time.
Karsky suggested that she pay off other debts she may have where interest was being charged.
Although commission members voted unanimously not to take action, they did say the petitioner was able to re-apply for a compromise in the future.
The Minnehaha Commission has its regular meetings each Tuesday at 9 a.m. on the second floor of the county administration building at 6th and Minnesota in Sioux Falls.
These meetings are open to all, and public comment is always encouraged.
