‘Flight, fight or freeze’ response activates, with councilors choosing ‘freeze’, then ‘flee’.

By Gary Dickson, Editor – Siouxland Observer

Talk about something going to hell in a handbasket.

Or maybe Clown Show is a better description.

If it were a movie, the Oct. 21 regular meeting of the North Sioux City City Council might even be called The Three Stooges Meet Con Eth, the Hideous Monster of Accountability.

Let’s go back to the origins. The North Sioux City City Council held a special meeting on Sept. 26, 2024. One of the agenda items included City Attorney Sarah Kleber presenting a Code of Ethics and Conduct for Elected and Appointed Officials for the council to consider.

This was in response to many questions that Kleber and others in the administration and on the council had been asked regarding the “correct” way to approach things, and the City has not had a formal policy in place to address them. Also addressed in this Code of Ethics and Conduct is a section on conflicts of interest required for acceptance of the Local Infrastructure Improvement Program (LIIP) Grant from the South Dakota Economic Development District.

Kleber also said at that time that the code being presented was taken from a form used by the City of Spearfish, S.D., and that the council could use this form, choose another one or make changes to this one. She informed the council that this was to be a starting point – a draft.

The code the councilors were being asked to consider was included in their pre-meeting packets along with the meeting agenda and other supporting materials a day or so before the meeting. Therefore, the councilors had time to at least closely scan the document and ask questions of the city attorney when she presented the code in their meeting. Yet only Soulless Greg Meyer seemed to have any questions, and it was more like a demand — that he be given time to have his attorney look over the document before he signed off on it.

No one else said they thought they should have their attorney review the code for them, so I guess they all thought whatever Meyer decided was okee-dokee with them. There was no further discussion or questions about the code of conduct or ethics, which was odd given the outcome 25 days later.

No one asked how the code was developed or if they could suggest changes.

Nothing but crickets, I guess.

So, the code was tabled on September 26 for the council to have more time to review and request changes to the document. The council tabled action on the Code of Conduct and Ethics until the council’s next regular meeting on Oct. 7.

Or was that the special meeting on Monday, Oct. 7, because there was both a special and a regular meeting that day. The special meeting was held at a special time: 2:45 p.m. But the Code of Conduct and Ethics wasn’t on the agenda. The only thing that happened was that the councilors held the entire meeting in executive session, allegedly to discuss personnel matters. Isn’t that special?

So, the Code of Conduct and Ethics must be on the regular meeting agenda for Oct. 7. Nope. Not there, either. There was nothing in the minutes about that being discussed. I wasn’t at the meeting because I was caring for a family member who just had surgery. I checked my copy of Brand X, The North Sioux City Times for that week, but nothing was there about the codes, just a headline about the council thinking about streaming their meetings.

I thought maybe The Bobster was having difficulty accessing the online version of the code. The Bobster’s pretty good at not reading things he gets sent to prepare for the council meetings. Then again, maybe he sauntered along to Soulless Greg’s cave to have him interpret the Code of Conduct and Ethics for him. But Greg probably wasn’t home as he was meeting with His Dirkness, Dirk Lohry plotting, along with his MAGA cronies to blow up a multi-ethnic immigrant social clubhouse or set fire to a rural voting dropbox.

And so, since the Code of Conduct and Ethics was presented to the North Sioux City City Council, it had been 25 days. Three weeks and three days. Three-quarters of a month. It finally came up for discussion and approval on the council’s Oct. 21 meeting agenda.

One would think these folks would have plenty of time to read and digest a 10-and-a-half-page single-spaced typewritten document. It’s written in simple language which I’m certain that they all can understand. If they had questions, they could ask the city attorney, the mayor, the interim city administrator, the city finance officer or the South Dakota Municipal League.

Yet, on the page introducing the document included in the councilors’ packet for that meeting, the Administration wrote “‘No comments have been received‘. Therefore, the Administration recommends approval of the Code of Ethics and Conduct for Elected and Appointed Officials as presented. “

One would think that approving the document would be a done deal, right? After all, lots of businesses, professions, agencies, and yes, governments, have codes of conduct for their employees, professionals, elected officials and representatives. Why should this be any different?

Apparently, Councilor Cody Benson thought it was okay. Maybe he’d read the code and considered it and how it applied to his office. Benson made a motion to approve the document.

Then the selective idiocy took over, and any rational, productive thinking flew out the door.

First, Councilor Lynn Hoffman said, “In the time I had been on the council, four or six years (I think she meant months), there had been no change in who was on the council, so maybe everyone understood what the policy was, but it has not been addressed in writing.”

Then Mayor Patti Teel asked her if there was anything in the Code of Conduct that they should not observe.

“That isn’t the question,” Hoffman replied. “The question I have. And I have looked at several codes of conduct, and ours is the most, as I see it, restrictive.” When I was asked to serve as liaison to Parks and Rec Board, I never understood that my volunteers would have to sign not to clap, boo, or raise their voices. I find some of these things are a little past what we need to do.”

What the heck does Hoffman mean by her volunteers? They are not her volunteers. The volunteers don’t work for her. A liaison is someone who facilitates a close working relationship between people or organizations. You don’t manage the people, Councilor Hoffman, neither do you own the Parks and Rec Board. Let the board members decide for themselves.

By the way, the Code of Conduct and Ethics being considered addresses this over-assumption and overreach of power and control by Hoffman. It states under section B. Conduct 4. Council Conduct with Boards and Commissions (c) Respect that Boards and Commissions serve the community, not individual Council members. Board and Commission members do not report to individual Council members, nor should Council members feel they have the power or right to threaten Board and Commission members with removal if they disagree about an issue. This may be one of the rules that Hoffman doesn’t like about the proposed code. She just doesn’t have the guts to say so in front of everyone.

Hoffman also defended her lack of initiative – actually resistance – to contacting City Finance Officer Amy Lilly because she apparently was tired of using email to communicate with other people. “That is what’s wrong with the world today, everyone wants to send an email. ‘(They say) I can’t respond because I gotta put it in an email because I gotta have it in writing.’ You know I’ve been spending my five months here working with Amy on questions that I have had. I don’t always want to be sending an email.”

What a bunch of horse pucky!

You know, between Hoffman’s lame excuse here for her lack of initiative and Davis’ not reading emails containing the budget and other important council materials one would think the citizens of North Sioux City would be getting tired of these two not doing the jobs they were elected to do.

Of course, Councilor Meyer had to jump in and say he thought the whole idea of a Code of Conduct and Ethics while worthwhile, should be discussed in public and not through emails.

Yikes! Besides this meeting, the council had one other regular meeting and two special meetings to discuss the code. Talk about swimming in the River of Denial.

City Attorney Kleber explained that she had gotten the form for the Code of Conduct and Ethics from the City of Spearfish. Kleber said that there was a city administrator when she worked with other communities on a code of conduct. However, there is an absence of a city administrator (because candidates have turned them down because of salary or because of Hoffman’s demand they live in North Sioux City.) Why would you restrict a candidate to living in North Sioux City? People who’ve lost their homes in the flood can’t even find places to rent in the McCook Lake area. She also said that she had told the council that during the first time she presented the code to them back on Sept. 26 “this is a starting point, that you could use that form or make changes and come up with your own form.”

This point apparently went over Councilor Hoffman’s head. Or she conveniently chose to forget it.

“I didn’t understand that,” Hoffman said, “because, at the end of our discussion, you said (it was) a draft. When I think draft, normally I see the words ‘draft’ written across it somewhere.”. Really Councilor Hoffman? Another excuse for your incompetence in office? Then why didn’t you say you didn’t understand at the time or why didn’t she contact Kleber with questions?

Meyer then raised the question of whether or not the council even wanted to have a Code of Conduct and Ethics. He thought the process had been done without the council’s approval, although he hadn’t said anything about this until now. Mayor Teel clarified that when the new council members came on the issue of not having any rules or procedures for the council was discussed. “While it wasn’t put forth in a motion,” Teel said, “it was asked for.”

Hoffman wanted to table discussion until the beginning of the year and thought maybe a subcommittee should be formed to study it. The original motion was defeated with Benson and Jim Christianson voting to approve the code and Joan Christensen, Davis, Green, Hoffman and Meyer voting against it. Bogenrief was absent.

All told this bout of ridiculousness took up 18 minutes of the council’s meeting. Sigh.

So, what happened?

My impression is that when it comes right down to it, the Three Bandidos – Meyer, Davis and Hoffman – really don’t want to be held accountable for their actions on the council going forward, or in the past.

Councilor Meyer has continually sabotaged city progress, especially when it comes to the Union Crossing housing development with motions about whether or not a plat has been correctly presented and dated. He loves to try to confuse presenters before the council with inane questions about processes. Meyer has tried to undermine the development by organizing various petition drives against it.

Councilor Davis has been Meyer’s wrench-throwing buddy on several of those as well. On one, at the end of November and the first part of December, 2023 Davis was circulating a petition to keep the city from giving money to PBR Capital for the workforce housing project. Davis apparently approached a city employee to sign the petition and revealed that Meyer had told him to circulate it. The petition contained several erroneous assumptions about the project, including that it was a city project (It isn’t. PBR is a private firm. The city’s only role is to approve zoning standards and plats.). The project is receiving $2.7 million in funding from the State of South Dakota. However, no city tax dollars are being spent on the project itself. The developers will be requesting the creation of multiple Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) Districts to help fund the infrastructure.  These funds come from the tax dollars generated from the new properties being constructed.  A TIF district does not increase anyone’s property taxes, nor does it take any property tax revenue away from the City.

We’ve learned over the last year that information accuracy isn’t either Davis’ or Meyer’s strong suit.

Meyer was re-elected and Davis and Hoffman were elected to the city council primarily due to their selling out to the McCook Lake Association headed by Dirk Lohry. The Lake Association placed ads in Brand X as well as online on the Isaac Walton League’s website implying that other candidates for city council (and even current council members) supported a canal between the Missouri River and McCook Lake. This was definitely a misleading statement on the association’s part, but it did lead to a voting block of three people on the council willing to vote for Lohry and the association’s interests.

Both Davis and Hoffman have construction-related businesses. It would definitely be in their interests to vote against PBR and the Union Crossing development as their competitors are likely already involved in the project.

Davis and Hoffman have shown their inability to do their jobs to this point by rejecting the technology to improve communication and looking for ways to return the city to the previous century. Indeed, The Bobster has been overheard at a city meeting pining away for the days when the El Forasteros had a big influence in North Sioux.

What a guy, that Bobster.

I think the El Forasteros faded out of importance about the time Davis Realtors and Councilor Davis and his ex-wife, Bonnie’s tax preparation and bookkeeping business got caught in the Big Wringer for some sort of mortgage shenanigans that resulted in Bonnie losing her realtors license and subsequently leaving town in the late 80s or 90s. That also was about when The Bobster faded out of his first involvement in North Sioux City and Union County government as he was a city councilor in 1984-88 and mayor in 1988, as well as a Union County Commissioner for a short term, starting in 1988. But I’m not sure of the dates. You’d have to ask Councilor Davis as to exactly when he threw his ex-wife under the bus.

So North Sioux City, you’ve got a mess on your hands with this Clown Car being driven by Greg Meyer and carrying Lynn Hoffman and Bob Davis. There’s room for others in there. I’m not positive but I think Joan Christenson would like to catch a ride with them. If these Bozos can’t bring themselves to read the Code of Conduct and Ethics and generally see its importance for city councilors. Then they should be able to apply it to themselves, make notes, ask questions, get clarifications, do some Internet research on alternatives and discuss it in the two weeks since it was first presented.

The councilors should not be silent during the intervening time, make up lame excuses about not liking to use email, not understanding that it was a draft version, not reading it at all, try to delay acting on it because you want to make sure a petition changing the type of government the city has gets circulated and vote gets taken before you’d have to deal with this code, or you are worried because you’ve already done so many unethical and questionable things in the past while serving in your position as a city councilor and you want to do more of the same that you don’t want something like these rules to hinder you.

Yeah, if I were you North Sioux City, I’d be thinking it was time to get rid of these three Yayhoos from the council. They don’t do the job they were elected to do. In my opinion, Meyer, Davis and Hoffman are doing nothing but holding the city back and maybe even returning it back to the previous century.

I don’t think the community deserves that.