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Problems with cleanliness of the Municipal Center kitchen was the subject of a city council study session held before the July 2 meeting.
Issues discussed included:
• Changing the locks for the kitchen. Council member Paul Hoheisel advocated for a key code system.
“And then that eliminates any key issues. And when the ghost reappears we just change the combination. And that puts an end to that because this key stuff is a fiasco and it’s just a waste of time,” said council member Joe White.
• The kitchen can be used by the senior citizens by signing it out through the clerk’s office.
No one’s denied kitchen access. We’re just saying they got to sign it out through the office so there can be accountability of making sure,” said White. “So if the Senior Center wants to use it two or three times a week for a coffee or whatever, then they got to sign it out.”
“Because it’s not a Senior Citizen’s kitchen. It’s not a lion’s kitchen. It’s the city’s kitchen,” said council member Glen Anderson. “And when we can’t use our own kitchen or rent it out to somebody because they won’t go in there and cook, there’s something wrong. And that’s what we’re seeing. This is an ongoing thing and it’s got to stop.”
• Reviewed policies for the kitchen including no personal belongings and furniture should be removed.
• During a tour of the area a food item was found with a used by date of October of 2009. Mouse droppings were also spotted.
• Not allowing cooking in the kitchen by the Senior Center unless it is signed out through the clerk’s office.
“I think on a trial basis, the consensus was to have the office staff open the kitchen so you can get water on a daily basis. And then they would check it. But there can be no cooking without it being checked out,” said Mayor Duane Lossing.
“And after so many months or whatever, if (city clerk) Robecca Jaeger comes back and says, hey, they’ve been doing a phenomenal job on the kitchen, then we’ll probably give you the code of the kitchen so they can quit supervising the kitchen,” said White.
Since it was a study session, the council couldn’t take action.
“We’re not going to have any more study sessions. Everybody will know the rules once she fills it all out, and if it gets shitty, we’ll go ahead and start stripping away some stuff. If it stays clean, you’ll start getting some more access to it back so we don’t have to worry about it,” said White.
At the start of the council meeting Tuesday night there were several people who spoke under public input. However, the city attorney was not present at that time.
First up was Rebekah Littler who started by saying her comments in relation to the ambulance were not directed at Glen Anderson.
She said she had questions she wanted answered including why Hoheisel had said at a previous meeting that Matt Littler was supposed to go in front of the personnel committee and didn’t.
“I will be asking for you to explain that comment to me the way it is written implies he quit to avoid a hard conversation or some kind of remediation. Was that your intent, and I am going to request that you elaborate on that comment,” said Becca Littler.
She also said there was a “hostile work environment” in regard to the ambulance department.
“Matt has been told for the past two years how he doesn’t take this role seriously by the safety committee, except you, Glenn, gold star you, because I love you, and that he isn’t qualified for this job.
“Actually, what has been said is that there’s only one person in town qualified to run the ambulance, and it’s not Matt. Duane, you name dropped the person who’s qualified.
“I’m not going to do it in this meeting. Oh, don’t put that look on your face. I’ve heard it from many, many people, and I’m sure most of them will stand up,” said Becca Littler.
She then went on to cite ambulance “successes over the past two years” including being approved for part-time ALS license, and improved education program, a 400% increase in transports, call volume increasing 15 percent each year.
“Over 200 people in our community and surrounding communities got the opportunity to have hands-only CPR training as well as at least five AEDs placed with Matt’s assistance,” said Becca Littler “And I want to clarify for all of you who aren’t familiar, he makes $500 a month for his role. He has never charged an extra dime for any of these extra things, not once,” she said.
Rebekah Littler went on to cite accomplishments by Matt Littler as ambulance director.
“As a recap, during the past two years, Matt has endured being told he doesn’t take his job seriously, he isn’t qualified, doesn’t deserve ADA accommodations, and is a liberal snowflake from the safety committee, actual quote.
“If this does not constitute an abusive or hostile workplace, I have no idea what does. The most frustrating part of all of this is Matt isn’t the only victim of this aggressive city council. Matt’s just the one who can walk away and will walk away.
“Your councilcommittees need to self-reflect and decide if you really want people who are assets to walk away. We are a small town. We deserve better,” said Rebekah Littler.
Beginning to reiterate her questions, she was informed by Anderson that public input does not allow the council to answer questions. “That’s the law, I’m sorry,” said Anderson.
Next on public input was Kaleb Littler who said he lives in Duluth but “because of Babbitt’s predisposition towards small town dramatic politics, I don’t intend to ever move back.
“Babbitt has informed everything I feel like I need to avoid as a young queer person. See liberal snowflake, finding my way in the world. Though I’m not here purely to speak ill of Babbitt.
“I am here to express concern in a mayor and a city council completely unaware of the impact of the city they’re creating and the drama that they wish to stir,” said Kaleb Littler.
He then went on to defend Matt Littler and questioned the council including over the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“From the outside looking in, it appears as though this is an instance of small town politics emphasizing the comfort and feelings of the five of you sitting in front of me over following laws, open communication, and accountability.
“I wish I could hold in confidence that Babbitt would trend towards being a better, more inclusive town to live in. But because of the actions and beliefs that are apparently being held by the five of you sitting here in front of me, I simply can’t believe that that is the case,” said Kaleb Littler.
Next up under public input was Billie Rouse.
“I’ve watched and witnessed as this particular ambulance service saved the life of my son and my daughter.
“I’ve watched as two young people tookonanambulance,madedemands of their ambulance people, worked really, really hard, studied every minute that they could to figure out how do we address any problem that would come in the town of Babbitt.
“I now have an AED at my motel. The ambulance department, Matt Littler, made sure that I had that, along with many others,” said Rouse.
She said Matt Littler helped her family including her son who has a brain injury.
“Did you know that Matt has worked incredibly hard to make sure that the residents who live in this town, no matter how they can speakorhowtheycannot,arecared for? I’m incredibly disappointed in you,” said Rouse.
Also speaking under public input was city clerk Robecca Jaeger.
“I wasn’t going to speak today. I thought about it, but then I decided not to. But after hearing everything today, I want to say something.
“So Mr. Mayor, I would like to let the council know that I love my job and I love the city of Babbitt.
“I’ve been working really hard to learn my position, working with the departments and trying to make a difference for the good of the city, but I feel like I’m not being given a chance to learn how to do my job. Let us alone succeed at it,” said Jaeger.
“Mr. Mayor, you yourself have not come into my office once and asked me any questions about budgets, departments, projects that are not going on, or anything.
“You were asked in a closed session about why you don’t ask me questions on the budget from your other council members, and you said that it was because you didn’t understand it and didn’t know what to ask. My door is always open for any of you,” said Jaeger.
“The few times you’ve been in my office, Mr. Mayor, was during a police department hiring, where you told me multiple times that if the hiring process was done your way, I would not have been hired.
“When I go to you and ask you if you have any questions, you tell me no, and then you go behind my back to my staff and my two department supervisors asking questions about me.
“I feel like I’m continually being ambushed and then have to put my work aside to defend my actions. Today, I didn’t get to do half of what I needed to do because I had to write this to feel like I had to defend myself to my council,” said Jaeger.
She said she wasn’t given enough time to learn her position.
“The council is here to help guide me in my position, but all I have gotten is accusations of not doing my job correctly. If I’m not doing something to your liking, please talk to me about it.
“Babbitt is a unique city. There are things done differently in this town that are different from other towns. There’s a lot of past practice here. And because I’m new to my position, I do not know all of these nuances of this position or of the city,” said Jaeger.
She also said she was for the West Babbitt development project.
“I’m asking the council to please make this hostile work environment stop. I love my job and I love this city. I’m working very hard and doing this job to the best of my ability.
“I’m also asking the council to give me guidance. I can’t get better at this job if I don’t have your support and your help. As I said before, I’m going to make mistakes. But I should be afforded a period of time without hostility from the council,” said Jaeger.
Street Supervisor Tony Chamberlin spoke under public input as well and defended Jaeger.
“I think all of the department heads, or at least most of us, are 100% in support of Becky and Becky’s work. Everything I have ever asked for has been fulfilled almost immediately. I have every piece of documentation that I should be getting.
“There’s absolutely no shortfalls whatsoever in the work that she does that any of us know about. So any other accusations are either false, misguided, misunderstood. I have no idea where the hostility comes from because we don’t have this problem at all,” said Chamberlin.
Lossing then responded to Jaeger’s comments.
“When we did Becky’s review, all the staff, as Tony said, all the department heads and stuff had a lot of good things to say about Becky.
“The question isn’t in her willingness to try. The stuff that’s been brought up that is in question was clearly a fiscal matter, if I’m saying that right.
“When asked, she was hired in November and she had help from the last clerk treasurer to prepare the next month. The last time that the books were done, at that point, this was about a month ago when this came up, when we found out since November that the books hadn’t been balanced.
“So we asked at a council meeting, the answer that we got was they couldn’t be balanced because the accounting firm said not to balance the books. My comment was we probably should get a new accounting firm.
I want everybody to understand the concern is all about the fiscal part of the job. It’s not about what a good person she is, how she treats people, how fast she gets back to the department heads.
When we followed up on a council vote to have Councilor Holheisel contact the accounting firm, and this never did get back. We never did bring this back to the council. We never released the information that Paul found,” said Lossing.
Anderson then said some information was from a closed meeting which Lossing disagreed with.
“We asked, and I’ll start with the head of the library coming forward and saying, I want to know, she stood right here and said, I want to know, I’m concerned why I haven’t got my summary of funds. The last one I had was in November. I haven’t had one since then.
“We turned and asked Robecca, why is that? The answer was, this was at a council meeting, so this is public information. I believe it was documented, it was in the paper, that the accounting firm told us we can’t do anything until the audit is done.
“That brought some concern. My comment was, we need to talk to the accounting firm, maybe we need a different accounting firm, because what accounting firm would tell a small city that they can’t balance their books for five or six months?
“Then I did ask a question to Robecca. I said, so this is after we found out that during the week that they were supposed to be closed down, they came to us in March, it might have been late February, “Robecca came to us and said, we need to shut the city offices down for a week because we will be implementing new software, accounting software.
“We as a council voted to allow that to happen. When that happened, when they were shut down for the week, they did some other tasks. I asked straight out to Rebecca, did you know the week before that the office was closed that you weren’t going to be implementing the software?
“The answer was, we were going to be implementing the software, but the accounting firm didn’t show up to help. That was the answer. Anybody that was at that meeting should remember that, because that was the answer.
“At that point, it was like, I think we really have a problem with our accounting firm and we need to talk to them, why didn’t they show up?
“If they told us they were going to show up, they sure showed up. At that point, a motion was made to have Paul Holheisel, Councillor Holheisel, contact the accounting firm and get answers to these questions.
“Why did you tell them not to balance the books and why did you not show up when you told the office staff that you were going to show up?
“The answers that we got were different than what the accounting firm said. The accounting firm said we never had a plan of showing up. There was no plan for us to ever show up and help the software. As far as the balancing of the books, we never told them that they couldn’t balance the books. What we told them is no new software could be implemented until after the budget was done. That was the information that Paul gathered from the accounting firm.
“After that, then we started asking for information, which we’re still in the process of trying to find out if everything is being done.
“It is our responsibility and my responsibility as the mayor and the council’s responsibility to make sure that the nuts and bolts of the job is the fiscal part of it in doing the books.
“And we continually need to be brought up to speed. We still haven’t seen that five months worth of summary of funds for all the departments.
“When we asked the department heads themselves, Tony said, we said, Tony, have you been getting the stuff? He said, no, but I know where I am on my budget because I’ve kept track of everything myself.
“Troy said the same thing. That’s not the way it’s done. The city’s administrative staff prepares fiscal reports on a monthly basis and I’m not an accountant.
“So when I said I didn’t understand to go in, another reason, the reason I don’t show up in Becky’s office is because I work in Virginia and I don’t get home before they get off work,” said Lossing.
After a bit of a heated exchange over how long Lossing spoke, Matt Littler asked to speak.
“You get four minutes, Matt. Sure. Absolutely,” said Lossing.
“I want to know why the rules put forth for you to be unable to respond to us are only in effect when you don’t have something to say to harass somebody else.
“I want to know why you don’t have to comply with ADA accommodations. I want to know why I don’t deserve this,” said Matt Littler.
“Why is it okay to do that to Becky? When she gave her four minutes, you came around here and you tore her apart and you gave information that was not privy to the public. Why is that acceptable?” Ending the circus
At this point city attorney Mitch Brunfelt had entered the meeting.
“Okay, so here’s the way it works. The council can only legitimately address and talk about issues that are posted on the meeting agenda.
“A public input portion is for members of the public to be able to get up in front of the council. You would have the opportunity to address agenda items, and then obviously the council would consider your input on later agenda items when they take those items up.
“Or you can address the council on non-agenda items if you have an area of concern, something you want to bring to the council’s attention.
“A citizen can do that at public input, but the basic rule is the council on those items that are brought up that are new issues that a citizen is expressing concern about, the council would not act on those at this meeting because it’s not part of the posted meeting agenda,” said Brunfelt.
He went on to say the public forum is for citizens from the audience to get up and address the council and that it is not a platform for the mayor or council to speak.
“That’s not what it’s for. So if I had been here when the meeting started, I would have advised that’s not what the public forum portion of the meeting is for,” said Brunfelt.
“So I will apologize because I was out of town and I’m arriving late. Had I been here, this circus that’s happening right now would not have happened. So this is done. Move on to the agenda,” said Brunfelt.
There was even disagreement over the normally routine consent agenda.
“I have a problem with C. I do not see the overtime report and at that point in time I cannot approve anything unless I can see how much overtime has actually been used in the last two weeks,” said Hoheisel.
The normally included overtime report and other items listed on the agenda were not included in the agenda packet.
“I’m not finished with payroll yet for the last two weeks, so I could not get you the overtime report for today’s meeting. It will be in the next meeting,” said Jaeger.
Library gets more money
The Library Board had asked for $10,000 in order to purchase books.
Jaeger said the money could just come out of the general fund.
“How much is in there?” asked Hoheisel.
“A lot,” said Jaeger. “Enough to cover $10,000. I think it’s $1.2 million at the moment.”
Anderson, who wasn’t present at the last meeting, questioning the library funding request and said other departments will want additional funds as well.
“All these departments are going to come in and say, wait a minute, if you’re going to give this back to the library when you’ve settled your budget, which we did, and everybody was in agreement, you didn’t like it. We didn’t like it either, but we had to come up with the money,” said Anderson.
Cathy Hoheisel said other departments can spend more than what is in their budget and it is absorbed by the general fund. She said for many years the library had a surplus at the end of the year but that is no longer the case.
After more back and forth over the library funding, the council did pass a motion to restore $8,000 to the library budget for books.
Council member Jim Lassi said he was concerned about the city also having to spend money on heat pumps.
“If it comes to a choice of books or heat pumps, it’s not even close,” said Lassi.
Jaeger said there is about $256,000 in the city facilities fund to pay for heat pump expenses.
The motion to restore the $8,000 to the library budget passed 3-2 with Anderson and Lassi voting no.
On the heat pump issue, Lossing said one of the two main pumps went down but was repaired.
He said the plan is to rebuild the two main pumps.
Jaeger said during the June 18 storm, all of the pumps went out, possibly due to lightning. She said now only a few pumps were not working. However, she did not have a cost of repairs yet.
Lossing said the city was able to get insurance monies for a leak in the roof and damage to the ceiling tiles.
The council accepted the resignation of Rebekah Littler as the ambulance training officer.
Both White and Lassi were complimentary of the work done by Matt and Rebekah Littler.
White, a member of the ambulance department, said, “Well, I wish we could deny both of them from retiring or resigning. I thought Matt did a phenomenal job…I think it’s a big loss to the city. Rebecca does an outstanding job on training, so she will be difficult to replace on there. And Matt also did a phenomenal job as director and moved us in places that I honestly didn’t think we’d be able to go.”
White said he hoped the two would continue to serve on the department.
“There’s nobody that has answered more ambulance calls than the Littlers. It’s quite a service and I hope they do continue because their service is invaluable to us,” said Lassi.
Anderson echoed Lassi and White’s comments.
Problems at the recycle center were also discussed including people leaving garbage outside the bins.
Also, even when the gate is locked people leave stuff piled in front of the gate.
Anderson said if the problem continues the city should remove the recycle center.
The council passed a motion to publish the rules of the recycle center to try to educate people.
Proposed improvements to area ambulance service Aproposedchangeinhowambulance services are managed in Ely, Babbitt and Tower was discussed as well.
Ely-Bloomenson Hospital has offered to take over management of the services which would reported result in better service in each community, higher wages and benefits for ambulance employees all at a lower overall cost.
Anderson said the hospital would like to have a discussion on the issue and suggested a study session.
“Supposedly, if the Ely hospital takes over, we can get more reimbursement from Medicare. Never heard of that before.
“Maybe if we have a meeting with them, let them discuss what they’re talking about from there,” said Anderson.
“I read the same thing,” said Lassi. “Boy, this really looks good on the surface, especially the Medicare reimbursements. I think it would behoove us to sit down and talk to them.”
Anderson said he has concerns over the transports from Ely to other hospitals.
“I guess we need to have a meeting and clarify what they’re really talking about because I have a lot of questions,” said Anderson. “Our ambulance service even wasn’t aware of it.”
White was opposed to the hospital plan and retired ambulance employee Mike Rhein said, “Be very careful with this. We’re holding our head above water just fine. We don’t need to join in with anybody else. We’re probably one of the only departments that are in the black budget-wise.”
In other business the council:
• Authorized Chamberlin to contract with C&C Winger for gravel road repairs. He said a beaver dam is causing damage to the Conservation Club Road.
• Accepted Rebekah Littler’s resignation as ambulance training officer.
• Appointed Christine Jarvis as ambulance director, Joe White as assistant ambulance director, and Emily Jaeger as ambulance training officer.
• Appointed Lisa Poppenhagen to the West Babbitt Development Committee.
