County

Dear Ms. Semmler and South Dakota Department of Revenue, I am writing as a concerned South Dakota landowner regarding the collection of road district fees. Your department has previously published materials that clearly distinguish between a special assessment and a special maintenance fee (SDCL 9-43-138), the latter being a tool available only to municipalities and…

Over the past couple years, I have learned something uncomfortable about local government in South Dakota: Transparency is often praised in public, but much harder to find in practice. I recently asked a local sheriff’s department for bodycam footage from a public road district meeting attended by a deputy while on duty. I was initially…

In South Dakota, the “Closed Loop” often relies on technical confusion to keep people out of court. Regarding Small Claims, there is a significant distinction between the Clerk of Courts and the Judge that the board’s lawyer likely used to get your case dismissed. 1. The Clerk’s Role: Procedural Acceptance In South Dakota, the Clerk…

A county can collect millions of dollars for ten years through fees that have no basis in state law. Yet, their likely defense is simple: “We thought we were doing it right.” This is the central flaw in South Dakota’s oversight system. The defense of “good faith error”—often used as a legal shield—means that as…

In a healthy county, when two people who have actually seen the “sausage being made” come forward with documented evidence of illegal bylaws and unauthorized taxes, we call them whistleblowers. In the “Closed Loop” of our county, we call them “annoyed troublemakers.” Our local State’s Attorney has apparently pioneered a bold new legal theory: If…

In our previous post, we exposed the “Good Standing” scam—how local road boards use illegal bylaws to block landowners from running for office, in direct violation of SDCL 31-12A-1.1. But there is a much larger question: Where are the adults in the room? In XXXXX County, the “Closed Loop” isn’t just about a rogue road…