By David Bordewyk The South Dakota Legislature will convene on Jan. 14 and lawmakers will begin work on a plethora of issues important to our state. We hope open government and the public’s right to know are among the topics legislators will tackle. Open government is essential to good government. That is why South Dakota NewsMedia Association – which represents the state’s newspapers and online news outlets – will support a bill in the 2025 session that would require all public boards to review the open meetings laws once a year. Government transparency often centers on two chapters of state law: open records laws, which deal with public access to government records and documents, and open meetings laws, which deal with how public entities such as school boards and city councils notify citizens about meetings and conduct certain aspects of their official meetings. Keeping an eye on government and informing readers about public meetings are among the most important jobs for community news media organizations such as the Mitchell Republic. Sometimes, a local reporter may be the only person sitting in the audience for a city council or school board meeting. At times, the open meetings laws can be confusing and cause misunderstandings. Over the years, South Dakota journalists have reported many stories about problems related to compliance with our state’s open meetings laws. In November, the South Dakota Open Meetings Commission determined that various public boards across the state violated the open meetings laws in 10 of the 13 cases brought before it. The Open Meetings Commission is a five-member body appointed by the attorney general to consider complaints about possible violations of the open meetings laws. We believe a little refresher course each year would go a long way toward eliminating those unintended violations and missteps involving these important laws. The proposal as currently drafted is straightforward. It would simply require all public boards that adhere to the open meetings laws to annually review those laws. Materials provided by the attorney general would be the training tools. For instance, the open meetings guide prepared by the attorney general is an ideal educational tool to help public boards complete an annual review. You can find it on the attorney general’s website (www.atg.sd.gov) under the “legal resources” tab. Perhaps other tools such as an instructional video could be made available. Most government boards in South Dakota are comprised of citizens who volunteer their time and energy to serve in a public role. A little education would support those volunteer public officials in navigating an important set of open government laws. This would be especially helpful given the natural turnover of boards either by elections or other means. As we said, open government is akin to good government. We believe our legislative proposal will reinforce both of those important ideals. Let’s work together to convince 105 lawmakers as well. David Bordewyk is executive director of the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, which represents the state’s newspapers and various digital news outlets. ###