Watertown City Council Approves New Policy for City Donations, Gifts and Naming Rights

Northeast Radio SD News – Watertown, SD - The Watertown City Council unanimously approved Resolution No. 26-32 during its August 3, 2026, meeting, adopting a standardized policy to govern gifts, donations, and naming rights across the city.

The new measure, designated as Governance Policy GP-02, grants administrative authority to the City Manager to review, accept, and manage routine gifts and donations valued at $100,000 or less without requiring a formal council vote for every transaction.

City Manager Alan Steger explained that GP-02 is part of an ongoing initiative to rebuild the city’s administrative guidelines in bite-sized, deliberate pieces. A previous city council had passed an all-encompassing governance policy several years ago, only to rescind it en masse after finding it too broad.

“What we found is there’s some things that just with the revocation of the past policy that haven’t been addressed,” Steger told the council. “We intend to bring forward to you in manageable size chunks policies to address areas such as the agenda tonight, one at a time as individual policies versus a blanket omnibus policy just covering all sorts of things that were in the policy in the past.”

Steger noted that while most donations received by the city are well under the $100,000 threshold, delegating this level of approval provides much-needed operational efficiency and standardization.

Clarifying “Gifts to the City”

Mayor Ried Holien briefly interrupted the presentation to clear up any potential public confusion regarding the terminology used in the policy.

“I want to make sure that everyone knows, because you’re saying accept gifts—accept gifts on behalf of the city, not gifts to particular people,” Mayor Holien emphasized. “These are gifts to the city... like donations to the ice arena or a park or a playground.”

Mayor Holien elaborated on why the policy was necessary, pointing to past administrative hurdles that bogged down well-meaning citizens.

“There have been times in the past where... people wanted to donate a bench at certain locations,” Holien said. “The red tape and the time that it took to traverse that donation of $1,000, $3,000, $5,000 was just to the point where you would drive anyone away who wanted to do something nice for a loved one or for the city... This allows us some common-sense procedures to make that easier.”

Council Guardrails and Oversight

While GP-02 empowers city staff to handle day-to-day contributions, strict safeguards remain in place for larger or more complex donations. City Council approval is still explicitly required for:

·         Gifts or donations with a fair market value exceeding $100,000.

·         Any granting of Naming Rights to city-owned assets.

·         Donations burdened with materially restrictive conditions.

·         Significant real estate donations.

·         Gifts that create substantial ongoing municipal maintenance or financial obligations.

·         Any donation referred by the City Manager due to significant public or policy implications.

Councilman Michael Heuer voiced strong support for the measure, acknowledging that while the $100,000 limit might initially draw double-takes from the public, the built-in safeguards protect the city while cutting bureaucracy.

“I just want to say I really appreciate you guys coming forward with some of these things,” Heuer said. “This should help so much... just some efficiencies in how we do things. Giving you guys the ability to actually just act on a day-to-day basis, I think it’s going to be very beneficial to the city.”

Councilman Brent Mohrmann moved to approve Resolution No. 26-32, with a second from Councilman Kyle Peters. The resolution passed on a unanimous voice vote.

Resolution No. 26-32 names.pdf

Download PDF • 286KB

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