Opinion: Vote ‘no’ on ordinance and then let’s start fresh

Talk about it

I wish to make clear at the outset that, while I serve on the City Council, I am writing as an individual and not as a representative of the city or the City Council. Nor am I writing on behalf of the mayor.

The City Council held several hearings to listen to the grievances, objections and rationale of (mainly lake) residents over the proposed swap of property that involved the stand of pine trees just off of National Guard Road. After those hearings, the City Council voted to reject the land swap. We listened to the citizens and did what they asked us to do. No further action had been taken by the City Council prior to the introduction of this initiative.

The wording of the initiative is problematic. The mayor and I have discussed the wording and agree that our mutual legislative experience — and other citizens’ lack of it — are a factor in the fundamental misunderstanding of the catastrophic nature of subsection “(3) All city owned property comprising or abutting the shoreline of Lake Mitchell.” Wording matters.

In this case, if petitioners had simply said “comprising the shoreline of Lake Mitchell” it would have frozen in place the 70-plus percent of the lakefront property owned by the city. It would have tied the hands of the newly formed, and vibrant, Lake Committee and required a vote of the people every time the city wanted to do something with property at the lake from now until the end of time or until the ordinance was repealed, whichever came first — bad, but not terrible.

Do trees not on the shoreline “abut” the shoreline? Certainly, they do not “comprise” the shoreline, since there is a road and intervening homes between the trees and the actual shore. Proponents argue that the road is no barrier and that the trees “abut” the shoreline. If the road were a barrier then the trees would be unprotected by this ordinance. And therein lays the problem.

The National Guard Armory, which is on cityowned land and merely leased to the National Guard, “abuts” the stand of trees across the road which abut the shoreline of Lake Mitchell, as per the wording of the ordinance. The airport abuts the National Guard armory. The water treatment plant “abuts” cityowned lakefront property. The proposed ordinance says that all of these places now must be parks, bike trails, etc., because it applies to “all city owned property … abutting …”

I know what proponents mean, but it doesn’t matter. It is what the ordinance actually says that counts. This is why there are 700 bills in the Legislature every year. It is because wording does matter and people think they are doing one thing and end up doing another. It is called “The Law of Unintended Legislative Consequences.”

Please vote “no” on this initiated ordinance and let’s start fresh on this issue.

Mel Olson is a current member of the Mitchell City Council and a former longtime member of the South Dakota Legislature.

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Tags: mel olson, opinion