Teamsters Local 320 attorney threatens lawsuit against Tower for employee data privacy breach

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2019 — It appears that during the first 60 days of his new administration Mayor Orlyn Kringstad, along with his friend and close adviser Marshall Helmberger a Ely, Minnesota based new-age environmental propagandist long accused of unwanted meddling in Tower city business, have already violated a city employee’s data privacy protections by publishing specific, protected data in Helmberger’s weekly Timberjay.

The mayor and entire city council were put on notice in a February 21 letter warning the city council of the potential for litigation. Authored by Teamsters Local 320 attorney Kevin M. Beck, on behalf of his firm Kelly & Lemmons, P. A., This letter directly accuses the city of allowing a confidential, data privacy law protected, document to be released and published, almost verbatim in the February 15 issue of the Timberjay.

The city again met in closed session during its February 25 meeting, this time to purportedly discuss employee misconduct allegations regarding City Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith.

The mayor has been trying to address his complaints against Keith since January, but when it appeared that he was unprepared to move forward he asked to table the issue during his first January meeting as mayor. When the city met at the end of January realizing that he did not have the vote totals he expected—new City Council member Steve Abrahamson was absent— he then called for, and accomplished, tabling the matter again.

Finally, after a month of inaction, Kringstad convened a February 11 closed meeting to ostensibly to conduct an “employee review.” He quickly learned that his attempt to cloak his intent by mislabeling his stated reason behind the closed session backfired. It was back to square one—and has now upped the stakes and placed the city in the direct path to collide with a union grievance and expensive litigation.

It is not known what action, if any, were taken during Monday’s closed session.  Mayor Kringstad did report, “We simply are going to summarize by saying, we conducted on the 11th of February a performance appraisal of the city clerk and that performance appraisal is incomplete.” He made no reference to any current actions or activities undertaken by the city council during its immediately proceeding closed session. Clearly the issues the mayor has with the city clerk continue and it can be expected that there will soon be another closed meeting session of the Tower City Council.

The mayor and each city councilor received a letter, dated February 21, mailed and emailed before the city council met in a special session on Monday, February 25, putting the city council on notice that actions by its mayor, and, perhaps, others on the city council, have violated Linda Keith’s private personnel data in the February 15 issue of the Timberjay,

Teamsters representative Erik Skoog read the letter into the record of the city meeting, ominously stating when he finished reading, “You’ve been put on notice.”

“There was a packet that was handed to each and every one of us, including two council members who turned in their packets. That left six out there, Skoog said.” (Two city councilors, Mayor Kringstad, Clerk Keith, the city’s attorney and Skoog, himself still had packets, according to Skoog).

“The article published in the Timberjay was almost verbatim,” Skoog said. “I don’t know why we have a leak in city chambers, you guys need to be careful, Mr. Mayor. I warned you beforehand, be careful, you’re being a bull in a china shop right now.” Teamsters representative Eric said in earnest warning.

While the Teamsters representative was directly accusing Mayor Kringstad of the leak it is not known if in fact he was responsible, or was the only leaker. For unknown reasons, while Skoog was decrying the crime, noting that two city councilors did not turn in their packets, Abrahamson raised his hand. It was not clear if he did so in confession, or for what reason he raised his hand. He said nothing.

New vote negates previous council action to investigate Kringstad

Voting 2-2, and Mayor Kringstad’s abstention, the Tower City Council negated it’s previous (February 11) action to investigate Tower’s new mayor. The decision came following the council learning that the League of Minnesota Cities would not get involved in the investigation. The motion passed last time because both Abrahamson and City Councilor Rachel Beldo previously abstained from voting.

Becoming more adept at voting, the veteran city council member and new comer were able to take the investigation off the table. in spite of Acting Mayor-City Councilor Kevin Fitton providing the rest of the city council a detailing accounting of the concerns behind his original support to investigate, the mayor’s actions. He now revealed that actions undertaken during the city council’s first closed session precipitated a formal grievance complaint from the city clerk. This all adds intrigue to the Teamsters lawsuit threats for data privacy breaches. Kringstad also stands accused of presuming the role of a strong mayor by making demands of city employees and his continued assumption that he is the supervisor of employees, including over at least some of the city council, when in fact he is a weak mayor—one who controls one vote, 20 percent of every question presented before a full council. No more, no less.

Also cited are issues of his conflicts of interests, in-spite of his public claims to the contrary, and in addition to unresolved money issues before he became the elected mayor there are reports that there are also financial questions arising from Kringstad’s short term as mayor. Fitton emphasized he thinks that the best way to proceed is with outside professional services to assess all concerns and to further detail any issues which might impede the city further.

Fitton, (one of the tenured councilors) because of his knowledge of procedure and experience as acting mayor, has shouldered the lion’s share of the responsibility keeping the city council on track in an effort to complete its necessary business of the city while Kringstad works towards becoming acclimated to his new role in city politics. He explained that he, and others have tried to explain to Kringstad the intricacies of his role as mayor of Tower, apparently of no effect.

As head of the Vermilion Country Charter School Fitton clearly understands the finesse required when dealing with employees. He informed the council: “this creates a lot of ethical and procedural concerns that makes it very difficult for the council alone to decide upon without an expert in city governance that is independent of what is currently going on to weigh in with sound advice on what is proper action.”

“It was initially my hope that the city attorney would fill that role, but it’s been made clear that the attorney intends to not get involved because of the current divisive nature on the council,” Fitton said explaining one more time why he thinks the city council needs outside advice.

He explained “The only reason that I’ve become involved in this is because as a member of the employee relations committee, the initial complaint came to me. I looked into it just enough to confirm the complaint,” Fitton said. His best recommendation was to complete an investigation, while acknowledging that he is concerned that Kringstad in his acting unilaterally is exposing the city to litigation liability.

Mayor Kringstad said was confident that he could answer all questions should he be permitted to do so in writing and he preferred to handle any concerns in this manner.

The city council did agree, by vote, to send Ambulance Director and Fire Chief Steve Altenburg’s misconduct allegations against the mayor to mediation.