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The Babbitt city council went into closed session for an hour Tuesday night to discuss the performance of city clerk Robecca Jaeger.
Upon return the council voted 3-2 to take Jaeger off probation with Glenn Anderson, Joe White and Jim Lassi voting yes. Paul Hoheisel and Duane Lossing voted no.
City attorney Mitch Brunfelt said under the Open Meeting Law there is a requirement for a summary of what was discussed in the closed session that must be provided by the next meeting.
The meeting started with former city clerk Cathy Hoheisel speaking to the council about records retention. She said along with Elaine Postudenski and Wendy Schleuter they are all former city employees who wanted to address the council on records retention.
She explained some records must be kept permanently and others can be destroyed after a certain amount of time.
Hoheisel said a records retention schedule spells out procedures for record disposal policies.
“It is a crime to destroy government records except by the authority provided in state statute,” said Hoheisel.
She said a records retention resolution was approved by the council this year on April 16 but “there was no reason to adopt this resolution as the city has followed the state records retention schedule for years, maybe as many as 50 years.”
Hoheisel said when the issue was discussed at the May 2 council meeting statements were made that records were improperly disposed of while city offices were closed for a week.
“Councilor Anderson had no problem with city hall being closed for a week in order to dispose of records and insulted former city employees in the process.
“Number one, disposing of records is not a priority. Files are usually cleaned after the auditors have left and brought to the storage room across from City Hall.
“The administrative assistant is usually the staff member who organizes these files. It does not take three staff members or city hall closing for a week to dispose of records and can be done during the work week as time allows.
“Number two, records have been disposed of annually in prior years. Former administrative assistant Wendy Schleuter took pride in organizing files and disposing of records. Because of the turnover at City Hall, it has been a couple of years since records have been disposed of.
“Number three, the north wing storage area is not heated. This means that the administrative assistant cannot work in that room from October to April of each year due to the cold temperatures.
“Number four, a lot of files that were being kept were for historical value. The city does not have a lack of storage area, so having older files in the north wing should not create any havoc.
“A records retention schedule lists the records in the minimum length of time each record should be kept. It does not list the maximum length of time each record should be kept.
“And we believe a public apology to former city employees from Councilor Anderson is in order. Also, Councilor Anderson stated that he goes to each department and asks what they need and how he and the council can help.
“As far as we can recall, he’s never gone to the library with these questions. Elaine and I are both on the library board and we would invite all of you to visit the library, talk to the staff, see what they’re doing, see what you can do for them.”
There was no response from the council which typically does not take action from public input.
Mayor Duane Lossing read an email from Sen. Grant Hauschild detailing the monies coming to Babbitt under legislation he was able to get passed in the recently completed session (see separate story).
“So, good news. Good to hear. And thank you, Grant Hauschild, for all the work,” said mayor Duane Lossing. “I would have to say that all our representatives are really working together for northeastern Minnesota from what I can see on both sides of the aisle. So, there’s been a lot of good stuff going on. And it’s fun to see when they get together at some of the functions that I went to, how passionate they are about the area they come from.”
Council member Paul Hoheisel brought up overtime pay for city clerk Robecca Jaeger.
He said the issue had been discussed previously and the extra hours were to be flexed, not paid out as overtime.
“When my contract was negotiated, I was told that the reason I wasn’t salary exempt was that I was able to collect overtime for meetings and elections,” said Jaeger.
“If it’s in there, I have no problem with it then,” said Hoheisel.
City attorney Mitch Brunfelt said federal wage and hours laws may require the city to pay overtime wages for any hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a work week.
“It is unusual, and my experience has been in most cities when you have a city administrator or a clerk treasurer, under the wage and hour regulations, they normally would be considered white-collar, salaried, exempt positions.
“That means you pay a straightup salary, and they are exempt from the overtime pay requirements, and they work the necessary number of hours to get the work done within the weekly salary that they’re paid.
“So the arrangement you have here, I’m assuming it’s probably been the arrangement going back many, many years as far as how you pay a clerk treasurer. But it is very unusual because a clerk treasurer or a city administrator, as the case may be, those are normally salaried, exempt positions.
“And the type of position that a clerk treasurer is clearly would fall within what are called white-collar exemptions, where they would normally be exempt from overtime.”
Brunfelt said it is common to build in a flex-time arrangement for clerks and department heads.
“But it’s different than what you’re currently doing. So I just wanted to mention that it’s not anything you would do tonight, but just for future events,” said Brunfelt.
He said the change would take an amendment to the agreement with Jaeger and agreed to by both parties.
“I think that’s something we can look at for the future,” said Lossing.
The council spent time on language on a policy for city credit card use and an employee meal reimbursement.
No agreement was reached and the issue will come back to the council at the next meeting.
Municipal building lighting was discussed with the council looking at a $7,980 quote from Retrofit Lighting Design to improve exterior lighting with upgrades to 100,000 hour LEDs.
“We have 16 lights out right now out of 30 so it’s getting dark in some spaces,” said Jaeger. “It’s starting to become more of a safety issue.”
There seemed to be confusion over the total cost of the project since the labor wasn’t included.
Anderson said his concern was kicking the can down the road and that some fixtures were totally broken.
“The lights have to be fixed,” said White who brought up concerns over the city possibly being cited by OSHA.
“Let’s get the labor cost so we have real numbers on this,” said Lossing.
The council will ask for quotes for the labor costs as well.
Next the council approved a quote from North Country Painting for $13,750 to prep and paint outdoor beams at the arena along with six doors and one garage door.
The city is scheduled to received $1.2 million for arena repairs in recently passed legislation but decided to get this work done now.
In other business the council:
• Approved setting new gymnasium rental fees.
• Approved purchasing a new 2025 Chevrolet Tahoe for $68,409 for the police department to replace the department’s Dodge Durango. Delivery time may be up to a year, however.
• Approved hiring Bennett Sauve as a part-time patrolman.
• Approved hiring Emily Jaeger, Nicholas Arntz, Travis Erickson, and Christine Jarvis as fire department employees.
• Approved a table/chair rental policy of $50 for 10 tables per day or five tables for $25 a day and 60 chairs for $25 a day or 30 chairs for $15 a day.
• Discussed problems with parking at the boat launch on Birch Lake but tabled the issue.
• Approved hiring Logan Meskill, Sheila Moravitz Danny Daniels, and Matthew Bock as summer help for the Recreation Department.
• Approved hiring Camden Warren and Danica Sundblad as street department summer help.
• Approved allowing the street department to dispose of extra equipment through an auction service.
• Set the next meeting for Tuesday, June 4 at 5 p.m.
