At the Mitchell Republic, Christopher Vondracek reports in Noem's daughter given unique stipulation agreement for realty appraiser application, former director testifies:
Sherry Bren made her first public appearance on Tuesday, Dec. 14, before a legislative committee that sought questions related to whether protocols were broken in Kassidy Peters' application to be a state-certified realty appraiser.
A former director of South Dakota's realty appraisal program says an application by Gov. Kristi Noem's daughter enjoyed various unprecedented interventions from state government higher-ups, including edits to an agreed disposition and the issuance of a novel stipulation agreement to ensure Kassidy Peters succeeded in her certification quest.
The stipulation agreement, which was released by Peters last month to stave off a subpoena request from legislators, differs from any previous arrangement worked out for a realty appraiser certification applicant, Sherry Bren testified to lawmakers on Tuesday, Dec. 14.
Bren, the former realty appraisal program executive director, said the stipulation agreement was effectively sealed during a controversial meeting Bren attended at the governor's mansion on July 27, 2020 with Noem, Peters, Secretary of Labor Marcia Hultman and others.
"This meeting is a little bit of a fog to me," said Bren, speaking on Tuesday to the Government Operations & Audit Committee, about the July 27 meeting. "Once I got there, I was very nervous and quite frankly intimidated as you can imagine."
The GOAC committee appeared split on purposes of Tuesday's hearing, with Sens. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton, and Wayne Steinhauer, R-Hartford, redirecting Bren to talk in generalities about a realty appraisal certification process largely decried as a pipe-jam for realtors. Other members -- including the committee's two Democrats -- sought to put the spotlight on Bren's dealings with Peters' application. . . .
Read the details at the Republic. Vondracek closes:
Tuesday's hearing resulted from a subpoena request approved both by GOAC and the legislature's Executive Board in November, as Bren has been under the terms of a nondisparagement agreement with the state as part of the settlement. It's yet unclear whether Tuesday's revelations will bring additional political scrutiny for Noem.
In November, Peters issued a statement saying she'd been attacked by the media and legislators and would cease working as a realty appraiser at year's end.
Update: At the Associate Press, Stephen Groves reports in Official: License for Noem’s daughter got unusual treatment:
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s daughter received unusual treatment in an application for her real estate appraiser license, including an extra opportunity to obtain it after failing to meet federal requirements, the former director of a state appraiser agency told lawmakers Tuesday.
Sherry Bren’s testimony before a legislative panel was the first time that she has spoken in depth in public about Kassidy Peters’ application and about a meeting that her mother called last year to discuss the appraisal process. The panel began looking into the July 2020 meeting at the governor’s mansion after The Associated Press first reported on it in September.
Noem called the meeting a week after the state’s Appraiser Certification Program notified her daughter that her application was headed for denial. Peters ultimately obtained the certification four months later, in November 2020, and Bren said she was subsequently “forced to retire” from a program that she had led since its inception in 1991.
Bren testified that she felt “intimidated” at the July meeting, where she said Peters’ unsuccessful application was discussed in detail and a plan was formulated that gave her another chance to apply.
Bren said that she could not remember the agency forming what’s called a “stipulation agreement” for any other appraiser at that point in their application. She said it broke with established procedures, giving Peters a third chance to pass a work review; applicants are usually granted two opportunities.
Yet even before that, Bren said, Peters’ application had departed from established practice, when Noem’s labor secretary took an unusual, hands-on role that spring.
The panel’s inquiry into the program comes as Noem has positioned herself as a prospect for the GOP presidential ticket in 2024 and shown a willingness to jab at potential rivals.
Noem has denied wrongdoing, casting her actions as an effort to cut red tape to address a shortage of appraisers. Noem also has insisted the agreement was not even broached at the July meeting and said her daughter had only given “her personal experiences through the program.”
“There’s been a continual narrative that I did something to help her get licensed, which is absolutely false,” Noem said at an event Monday.
In testimony Tuesday, Bren said she had expected to see Noem and her labor secretary at the July meeting, but was surprised that it included others, including Peters and the governor’s top aides. . . .
As she testified, Noem spokesman Ian Fury posted on Twitter that the agreement showed that Peters had to meet additional requirements to get her license.
In an email, Fury also questioned Bren’s credibility, pointing out that the agency had previously entered into a “stipulation agreement” with an applicant in 2017.
But Bren said that 2017 agreement was reached as part of the proceedings of a third-party review board, called the Office of Hearing Examiners, to which appraisers can appeal if they believe the agency mishandled their license.
“Once our case goes to hearing, then these documents are outside of my authority or control, and it would not be the same thing as what we’re talking about today,” Bren told the committee.
The 2017 agreement laid out a plan for an applicant to withdraw his application and submit a new one; Peters’ agreement allowed her to complete her initial application . . .
Read the article at the AP website. [end update]
Kassidy isn't the only Noem daughter in the spotlight these days. At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allen Heidelberger reported Sunday about Kennedy's work in Noem Puts Daughter’s Personal Contact Info on Fundraiser Invitation. Just go read it.
Photo: Governor Kristi Noem riding a horse.
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