By Sara QuamLuverne Mayor Andy Steensma broke a tie vote resulting in the termination of City Administrator Greg La Fond Monday.Esther Frakes made the motion to terminate La Fond without cause effective May 27. Maynard Lafrenz seconded the motion. Councilmen Bob Kaczrowski and Pat Baustian voted against the motion to terminate.La Fond, who has a salary of $83,345, will receive six months severance pay and benefits. He will also collect unemployment until he gets another job. (He was recently a finalist for city administrator in Zimmerman.)The 4:30 p.m. meeting was posted closed for an executive session to "evaluate the performance" of La Fond.La Fond requested the meeting be open, but the Council wanted to privately discuss the issues, so it went into recess.During the recess, City Attorney Ben Vander Kooi said council members could legally meet, provided it wasn’t in a quorum. So Vander Kooi and groups of one and two went into a room behind Council Chambers to talk. First, Vander Kooi, Kaczrowski, Steensma and La Fond met for about 25 minutes, when La Fond returned to chambers.It was 5:10 p.m. when all had finished meeting privately. Mayor Steensma said, "We’ve had some discussion and talked about some of our options."The vote to terminate was taken at that time.There was no performance evaluation in the usual sense to come out of the special meeting.Frakes said after the vote, "I just wanted to acknowledge the city employees because I know Greg worked extremely well with staff, but the city needs to go in a new direction."David Hauge, a Luverne resident and former council member, requested that the council allow him to make a statement after the vote, but his request was denied.The good, the badSteensma said the private discussions outside of Chambers included an effort to keep La Fond, but to modify his job description in ways La Fond wouldn’t sign off on.Many city employees and department heads have said they appreciated La Fond’s presence — from his more than 30 years of government knowledge to his leadership style to the homemade meals and treats he shared at City Hall.Steensma said, "I never ran into an employee of the city who had a bad thing to say about Greg. … He deserves credit for some things he did, but there were other things that the Council didn’t agree with."Some projects that La Fond took charge of were seen as poor uses of time that caused conflict between the city and other government units or individuals.For instance, $1.93 billing discrepancy was a recent controversy between La Fond and Rock County. Rock County overcharged the city $1.93 for data requests. La Fond wrote letters informing the State Department of Administration and the county of the overcharge.The county issued a check to the city to make up for the $1.93, but the city wouldn’t cash it until the state issued an opinion on the matter. This particular problem originated with a data request by the city administrator to the county for per diem claims for county commissioners. The county viewed the request as an audit by the city administrator and just one more small pot to stir. The County Attorney’s Office had to respond to the matter and said in a letter, "We have tried to provide a response while at the same time recognizing that in a small county with limited resources, we cannot spend hours upon hours of public time and money responding to a $1.93 issue."Moving onIn order to avoid the severance pay, the City Council would have had to prove that there was a willful neglect of duty, gross inefficiency, inability to perform the job, or wrongful or illegal acts on the job.Councilman Kaczrowski said he would have liked to continue working with La Fond. He said, "I still believe he’s got a lot of talents for Luverne. His style or personality was different, but he has a lot of skills that we’ll miss."Kaczrowski said he wished there could have been more compromise between some members of the council and La Fond.The council doesn’t have immediate plans of action for how or when to start the hiring process for another administrator.Steensma said, "Greg said he’d help get things together between now and May 27 and help everything go smoothly, so that was good."La Fond had kind words for his employees and council members. "I want to take this opportunity to thank the current and former Council members for their concern and dedication for the citizens of the city," La Fond said. "Most of all, I want to thank city department heads and employees for their wonderful support and cooperation during my tenure as city administrator. Together, and I stress that word together, we worked to resolve the issues facing the city and move forward."Matt Hylen was the most recent city administrator, who left in March of 2003. Between Hylen and La Fond, local attorney Jeff Haubrich served as interim administrator.
