From the Argus Leader, the Director of the Legislative Research Council seems to think there’s a “pestering” exception to the open records laws:
“When we stop being pestered by legislators and the public,” Legislative Research Council Director Reed Holwegner responded to an inquiry by the Argus Leader regarding when more than 70 materials that have been reviewed by the House Select Committee on Investigation prior to issuing a report recommending Ravnsborg not be impeached Monday.
If this is the kind of reverence for open government the head of the LRC has, I’m kind of wondering why they haven’t fired him yet.
Open government, and also – pestered by LEGISLATORS? Like, his bosses? Oof.
Stressful session?
Public officials usually hide behind bland, verbless word salads that reveal nothing but their lack of seriousness. So it’s bracing to hear one bureaucrat blurting out the truth how he really feels about the public. And here’s what the public thinks about Mr. Holwegner: “Time for that guy to learn code.”
Hell must have frozen over because the DWC and DFP both have threads in agreement on this poor excuse for a government official.
news outlets have only one reason for getting these records and that is to make money.
They are hoping to find something that will make people buy their publications or tune into their programs. There is nothing wrong with making money, but they pretend they are performing a public service by being the first to get their hands on the records.
The people at the LRC don’t work for them, don’t reap any of the financial rewards, and the news outlets don’t work for the taxpayers either.
What we have here is private organizations expecting a taxpayer-funded agency to help them make money, and complaining because the public agency is not making money for them fast enough, and the employees of the public agency complaining that they don’t work for the private organizations, they work for the taxpayers.
If the private organizations want the public employees to work for them, they should go old school and bribe them. It’s only fair.
The LRC works for the people and both the media and citizens have the right to public information.
What open disdain for those for whom his entire agency is to serve.
I will be disappointed if he has a job tomorrow.
This is a braindead take. The media isnt the only one who cant access it, the very taxpayers you love so much cant either. But cool, lets make it about the press and not South Dakotans’ right to know.
There is no reason it shouldn’t be made available to the press at the same time it’s made available to the public.
That’s what is really going on here: the press wants to get an advance copy so they can sell selected portions of it to the public before the public gets a chance to read the whole thing for themselves on line and draw their own conclusions from it.
You know who else has disdain for the press? Ian Fury.
No, EVERYONE wants it when it was promised. You are just pulling theories out of thin air, good lord.
He should be fired.
I would have expected that investigation materials would have been assembled in advance of the final report being issued. Since the stated goal was that the final report and supporting/background materials would be released at the same time, the only thing that needed to wait on final Legislative action (if editing were made necessary by Legislative action) was the acceptance of the full report. Of course, the delay could be a matter of not having enough staff to get that job done in addition to all the other jobs the LRC needs to do at the end of a Legislative session. That would also explain the irritation in the LRC’s response. Interesting that capacity wasn’t mentioned directly as an issue.
Mr. Wyland at 2:02… Your thoughtful responses on issues are always appreciated.
This matter should have been on the front burner and completed first. The LRC director’s peevishness at legislators and the public reveals a truly atrocious attitude and want of perspective.
If the director wasn’t making the place truly terrible to work at, maybe all his staff wouldn’t be exiting and he would have more capacity to get this stuff done.
a lot of to do about nothing….let the people work