SHOW UP: Keep the County Commission From Removing Citizen Oversight

Tue 7/16, 9:00 am, 415 Dakota Ave, 3rd Floor -- Co. Commission plans to remove your voice by making the Auditor, Treasurer, and Register of Deeds appointed instead of elected.

Ever since the citizens elected AN ACCOUNTANT to fill the Minnehaha County Auditor position, the County Commission has been in a frenzy.

Instead of welcoming the highly qualified auditor, they have done everything possible to make life difficult for her. Now they are going to the extraordinary length of trying to remove the elected positions of Auditor, Treasurer, and Register of Deeds to make it impossible for the citizens to audit what is happening with elections, fund allocation, meeting agendas and minutes, vehicle registration, property deeds, and tax collection in the county.

In the past, Minnehaha County used an under the table way of making sure the County Auditor was one of the “good ol’ boys”. They had one auditor resign and appointed a new one between election cycles. Then the appointed auditor ran without much opposition. Interestingly, these appointed auditors were not accountants. In fact, they did not have any auditing experience. This means the county has been operating for years with no qualified election or financial oversight. Then in 2022, the CITIZENS ELECTED A REAL AUDITOR.

Sadly, the county commission has been “out to get” the auditor ever since she was elected. First they paid her about half the amount her predecessor received even though she had more experience (yes, gender discrimination is alive and well in Minnehaha County). Then they made disparaging comments in the press and made threatening and condescending comments at commission meetings to try to get her to rubber stamp things rather than perform her job properly.

Since she has been unwilling to put aside professional ethics and become a rubber stamp, they want to change the process so citizens can no longer audit what is happening in the county.

When an auditor does his or her job properly (not just going through the motions like it appears that many of our previous auditors did), election vendors, the Department of Motor Vehicles, grant recipients, public servants, county employees, and others have incentives to do things correctly.

In the vernacular, no one wants to be caught with their pants down, so everyone cleans up their act.

After learning that the auditor found significant discrepancies in the 2020 election records one’s mind begins to wander. Why would a county commissioner think it is a bad idea to have an elected auditor who wants to really audit unless there is something they don’t want us to know. Were the voter rolls being padded, the vote tabulators being hacked, the books being cooked, the commission meeting agendas being improperly controlled? Was there some type of favoritism in contracts, …?

What do you think is going on at 415 Dakota Ave and how do you feel about losing your voice?

If you are concerned about losing your ability to check on what is happening behind the curtains, make sure you show up at 9:00 on Tuesday morning.