Sioux Falls mayoral candidates weigh in on city government transparency

The recently released documents of a settlement regarding faulty panels on the Premier Center has many questioning city government transparency in Sioux Falls. The mayoral candidates weighed in.

All of the candidates KSFY News spoke with echoed the same things: It's important to be as open as possible with the citizens of Sioux Falls especially when tax dollars are involved. And many offered solutions for how they'd handle things, should a similar situation come up.

"I believe that government works for the people and it works when the people know what it's doing," said Jolene Loetscher. "And it's so important especially now when a lot of that trust has been eroded."

Some candidates said that trust has been eroding on an even larger scale.

"South Dakota's got a little bit of a problem," said Nick Weiland. "We're not open, we don't have a transparent government. It's a very secretive, lopsided government and I think, Sioux Falls can be that change, can be different."

The dispute was settled last week by a state Supreme Court decision after Argus Leader Media sued the City of Sioux Falls and several of its employees for not releasing the details of a confidential settlement that detailed payment for rippled panels on the Denny Sanford Premier Center.

Other candidates said this settlement dispute is an opportunity to do things differently next time.

"As a candidate, it's a great learning experience to go, 'OK, that's clearly not how we wanna do it,'" said Greg Jamison.

"Now we need to sit back and say, 'Could we have done things better?' and then let's move on," said Jim Entenman.

"I would've consulted with the City Council," said Jamison.

"There's gonna have to be a lot more digging into -- do we go into negotiated settlements or not? Or do we go into court cases? Which is the best use of the citizens' money?" said Entenman.

"I would want to be sure that we're open and transparent," said Loetscher. "Above all, this is the people's city and the people's government and if they don't know what's happening in it -- they really lose a lot of hope and reason to believe in it."

"I think our meetings that are involved with any kind of tax dollars-- they should be live and I think people should be able to have direct involvement -- you know, as it's happening -- someone can monitor comments," said Weiland.

Paul Tenhaken, Mike Gunn and Kenny Anderson, Jr. were not available for in person interviews on Thursday, but offered these statements.

TenHaken said:

“Unfortunately, the public doesn't have all the facts and getting at the ones the taxpayers do have has been a challenge. The City government needs to be open and transparent with taxpayer dollars, which includes settlements like the one in question. We all can agree that bringing openness to historically closed door processes of City government is a great move."

Mike Gunn said:

"Transparency is crucial to any successful administration. The fact that this situation has devolved to the point that we are parsing whether 'cash' or 'bucks' mean the same thing is embarrassing. The City Council being kept in the dark this long about the details of the settlement is inexcusable. The mayor's continued defense of his actions is simply unconscionable. This is an unfortunate low point for an administration with an already loose relationship with the truth ."

Kenny Anderson, Jr. said:

"The process that the City Council is going through is valid as they are doing their due diligence insuring the public's funds are being apportioned in the manner it was approved for. I feel the issue of making the agreement confidential, brings up concerns of public trust in our government officials. Each branch of our city government is responsible to be open to the citizens, respectful to the processes and rules of running our city."

KSFY News also reached out to David Zokaites for comment, but we haven't heard back yet.