Lakeville mayor and council torpedo Navy vet's hopes for open council seat

By Charles Smith-Dewey

When Lakeville voters went to the polls last November, there were two openings for city council … but voters reasonably knew there would be a third. Council member Luke Hellier was running unopposed for mayor and would be required to vacate his council seat once elected.

In a five-candidate field, voters returned the two incumbents to office. But candidate Richard Henderson nearly pulled an upset, with his 12,277 votes falling a mere 1.65 percent behind incumbent Joshua Lee – and many thousands of votes ahead of the fourth and fifth-place candidates.

In a perfect world, the City Council might have rewarded Henderson’s strong finish by appointing him to the newly-opened seat. Instead the Council decided to open applications for the seat and chose three of the ten applicants to interview. Henderson was not one of them.

According to the city administrator, Justin Miller, the council had the option to hold a special election or make an appointment. All members of the council maintain that the election process and the appointment process are separate things, and election performance did not influence their decision on who to interview.

A navy vet runs for city council

Henderson is an affable, outgoing guy, often seen going door-to-door on a scooter his daughters bought him to get around easier while he was campaigning. He wears a military-issue Boonie Hat that creates a distinctive topper framing his broad smile. He and his wife Stacey have lived in Lakeville for more than 16 years and sent their five daughters through Lakeville Public Schools. Henderson retired from the U.S. Navy as a Captain, following a 30-year career where he held “TOP SECRET/SCI Security Clearance”. He has been honored by the Minnesota National Guard for his support of homeland defense and was awarded the Legion of Merit three separate times, which is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. He completed seven commanding officer tours, including command of the largest Navy unit based in Minnesota with 200 personnel providing augmentation to U.S. Navy Forces Japan. He’s active in Lakeville’s Rotary, All Saints Catholic Church, and the VFW. He co-chaired the Rotary’s popular Taste of Lakeville fundraiser three times. He’s a member in good standing of the Lakeville Chamber of Commerce.

Of the ten applicants for the vacancy, only two have faced the voters. Robert Vandenbos ran for city council in 2020. Like Henderson, he is also a military veteran and was also not chosen by the council for an interview. He is currently a veteran’s resource coordinator for the State of Minnesota and has served on a city commission.

City council and school board races in Lakeville are nonpartisan, but the local Republican Party interviews and selects “recommended” candidates. Receiving the recommendation can include having your campaign signs in the phalanx of sign gardens with which its volunteers blanket the city. It includes those “recommended” candidates’ names and photos on brochures and sample ballots which are mailed and hand-delivered to voters. Being recommended can mean inclusion in emails and texts from the party. Henderson estimated that the recommendation can be worth thousands of dollars in low-profile races that attract few donors.

While preparing for his first campaign in 2020, Henderson went through the local Republican party’s interview process. He said that he told them that he didn’t want their endorsement because he was running a nonpartisan campaign, but that he wanted to learn what issues they thought were important. Henderson said that soon after, some of his Republican friends (of which he has many) told him that local party leaders were upset that his campaign signs were in some of the “wrong” yards.

Henderson said his aversion to partisanship comes from his military background. “Partisanship is very corrosive to military good order and discipline,” he said. “The military, in effect, trains its leaders to not be partisan.  Or that you ‘check your partisanship’ at the door.” He conceded that his outlook may appear quaint to some. The comments on his campaign Facebook page reveal that his supporters are an eclectic blend from across the political spectrum.

During the city’s annual ten-day Pan-O-Prog celebration in the summer of 2022, Henderson was a constant presence. He won skeptics over by staying consistent with his message of nonpartisan city government. His eventual vote total in the fall election would dwarf the vote totals for three of the four sitting council members when they were first elected.

Council member John Bermel was also a first-time candidate in 2020. As a Republican party-backed candidate, he won a seat that year with 9,470 votes (17 percent). That made Bermel one of the four people deciding this year whether Henderson’s 12,277 votes merited interviewing him for the vacancy.

Bermel said the council was guided by a precedent established in a similar situation in 2013 after then-council member Matt Little won election as mayor. However, in that case, the third-place finisher was not one of those seeking an appointment.

The 2013 council started its process in early January, setting out a detailed criteria of what it was looking for. It documented every step of its process in agendas, minutes and other supporting documents. It made public the names and qualifications of applicants. It interviewed seven of the thirteen applicants in well-publicized open work sessions and appointed Bart Davis in March.

Lakeville mayor Hellier said that the council was bound by the precedent of appointing, but did not feel bound to examine the process which was used in establishing that precedent. He said he had not referred to past council agendas and minutes, saying that “ten years was a long time ago”.

The application process

This year’s council posted an application on the city’s Facebook page without guidelines on its selection criteria. The local newspaper also included coverage of the appointment process in an article. The seat could not be filled until Hellier resigned it in January 2023, but the council decided to move at a quick pace, holding two special meetings the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s.

The first special meeting was held December 22, 2022. This meeting is missing from council’s website listing of meetings for the past three months, but minutes from it can be found by browsing the council’s electronic archives. There is no agenda nor video found, but Henderson said he had seen prior notice of the meeting on the website. He was the only member of the public in attendance.

According to Bermel, this meeting was the only time the council met to discuss the applicants. The minutes show the meeting lasted 23 minutes, leaving at most about two minutes each to review and discuss the detailed applications of the ten applicants, although Henderson estimates the whole discussion took about half the length of the meeting. Bermel said the council quickly coalesced on three applicants because they were the only ones with both a background in finance and had served on a city commission.

Bermel, who had no Lakeville commission experience when he took his seat in January of 2021, said those without commission experience would not be able to get up to speed quickly enough to serve the two years remaining on Hellier’s term. Commission experience is not listed as a requirement on the application for appointment to the city council.

In 2013, Doug Anderson was a council member participating in the appointment process. In minutes at the time, he praised the “terrific group of candidates, many of whom are already involved in the city in an advisory capacity and others who wish to be involved.” Any applicant chosen by more than one Council member was interviewed. Three of the interviewees had no commission experience.

Anderson has been Lakeville’s mayor for the past six years, and Hellier served under him. Hellier said he did not ask Anderson about his experience with the appointment process in 2013.

Henderson said that during the special meeting three days before Christmas, one of the council members publicly denigrated his election performance. Henderson said that he hadn’t expected to be handed the seat based solely on his election performance and had “wholeheartedly participated” in the appointment process.  But, he added, if the council was only considering people who it had already appointed to commissions, it had wasted his time and that of the other applicants.

In an interview with Hellier after the January 9 meeting, he disagreed with Bermel’s characterization that only applicants with commission experience were considered, saying that the three applicants were simply the ones that floated to the top.

Council member Michelle Volk agreed that commission experience was not a requirement. She added that an applicant she suggested who did not have that experience did not get supported by the other members,

When asked in an interview for this story, why more applicants weren’t interviewed, Hellier said it was because of the time it would take. The 2013 council spent eight hours in interviews of and deliberations on seven applicants. This year’s council spent an estimated two hours on three applicants.

Interviews of the three finalists were held January 3. Bermel said that three members of the public were in attendance. He said he recognized them but couldn’t identify them. In researching for this story, it was learned one community member was Howard Schneider, a Lakeville resident, who says he has spoken before the city council many times. A source at city hall identified the other two attendees as Lakeville finance committee chair Barry Fick and vice chair Laird Hanson. When Bermel’s memory was refreshed he confirmed that he works with the two members of the finance committee.

Schneider has written the council a letter asking them to “(e)xplain the lack of transparency regarding the central criteria for interview selection – serving on a Lakeville commission, advisory committee, or task force. This was not included in the announcement… (it) should have been.” Schneider said that it was not a good criteria and cast it as “inward-looking without considering great contributions that ‘outsiders’ could play on the Council.”

The special meetings to decide on applicants and to interview the finalists are not listed on the City of Lakeville’s official calendar. It also appears that a required email notification for the January 3 special meeting did not go out, according to three people who are on the distribution list. Hellier said that these omissions and the others detailed above were likely clerical errors, and he would check into them.

The names of the ten applicants have not been disclosed in council documents published on its website, but according to the Lakeville Sun ThisWeek, the applicants were: Richard Henderson, Tonia Johnson, Lance Juffer, Pat Kaluza, Justin Klein, Jenna Majorowicz, John Swaney, Robert Vandenbos, Daniel Volkosh, and Daniel Wolter.

Selection of the appointee

On Monday, January 9, the council held a special meeting to choose an appointee.  There was not an agenda for this meeting, but it was listed as a bullet point on the agenda for a different meeting – a joint session of the city council and the planning and economic development commissions. It was held in a different room and with different participants. Neither of the two meetings was included in the the announcements of upcoming sessions at the council’s January 3^rd meeting.

Every regular meeting and most work sessions of the city council has an audio or video recording of it posted on its official website, but none of the ones in this appointment process have been recorded.

When asked in an interview why the city council did not offer public comment or record the special meetings, Hellier said it is not required to.

Volk said public comment is up to the mayor. She said that the precedent has been that Mayor Anderson always took public comment. “I’m trying to think that maybe there was a meeting he didn’t but I can’t think of one that he didn’t in my four years.”

In a recent interview Anderson said he originally ran for a city council seat after a news story said the council was dysfunctional, and he wanted to change that. According to the interview, “he regularly opened meetings to public comment as items were discussed even when the action didn’t require a public hearing.”

The January meeting was recorded by the author of this article. About a dozen members of the public were in attendance, mostly supporters of Henderson. Tad Johnson, managing editor of the Lakeville Sun ThisWeek, was also there.

The meeting started with Lee explaining the council’s rationale in treating the appointment process separate from an election. He said he considered the election results, but it was not the sole determinant. He noted that people could disagree with his perspective, and that the council had received a petition with nearly 500 signatures questioning the appointment process.

When a member of the audience stood up to ask if there would be public comment, Hellier said no because this meeting was “not a public hearing.”

Members of the Lakeville community continued to take turns expressing their concern, and the mayor allowed the discussion to go on. Kirsten Hancock expressed frustration that “the people have spoken” and that while she understood that this meeting was not a public  hearing she asked “where is the election integrity.” She said she understood the council not wanting to pay for a special election, but she said “this was not 500 votes, or 1,200 votes, this was 12,000 votes.”

Ted Sizer stood up wearing his United States Marine Corp jacket and  identified himself as a resident of Lakeville since 1974 and a former member and chair of the planning commission. “I’ve never seen anything like this happen in the City of Lakeville” he said, as Heiller interrupted him saying “Well it happened ten years ago when they appointed Bart Davis so don’t say that this is not the process.”

Sizer retorted saying that the process has been “anything but open and inclusive. Based just on the vote count you’d think the guy (Henderson) would at least get an interview for God’s sakes …. I hate to say it but it seems like the fix is in.”

Sizer left the room saying “Mr. Hellier, I voted for you in the election but I won’t make that mistake again.”

Hancock stated that the council knew it would have a third opening when it found out in August that Hellier was unopposed for mayor. City administrator Justin Miller interrupted saying that “the filing period for city council and mayor was at the same time … we did not know there would be an open seat until the election happened. We didn’t know.”

 “There’s one thing that everyone who’s come here tonight agrees on” said Jim Storms, “they’re not necessarily saying that an appointment process isn’t proper, but based upon the situation that happened … that a person with 12,000 votes …. couldn’t at least have been one of those three candidates (interviewed).” Storms has served on the city parks, recreation and natural resources committee since 2016.

Catherine Silver interjected “…to not even consider (the voters) … the arrogance of that is mindboggling.”

John Silver wanted to know how many of the three candidates had ever expressed an interest in running for a seat on the council. “I don’t think that’s relevant,” Hellier said.

Volk said that Henderson had a “huge advantage” over the other candidates because of his name recognition from running for the council twice “and he still came up short.” She said others would be upset if they chose Henderson because they would ask “what are you doing appointing someone who lost an election?”

In an interview with Volk the next day, she confirmed that she had told Henderson “directly” at the December 22 meeting that she did not think he should be interviewed because he was “rejected by the voters twice.”

Volk said she had favored holding a special election to fill the vacancy but the other council members did not.

When the meeting moved on to discuss the members’ opinions on the three finalists, Lee and Bermel named Jenna Majorowicz as their first choice, while Volk and Hellier chose Dan Wolter. In the case of a tie, the mayor’s vote is the tiebreaker. Bermel said he could move his support to Wolter, but Lee argued that there should be a vote at the next council meeting and that Bermel shouldn’t move so easily from his first choice.

In an interview the next day, Hellier said he was confident that Wolter would get the necessary votes outright at the Tuesday, January 17 council meeting, but if not, he would appoint Wolter using his tie-breaking power.

School board used a transparent process

The process used to fill the council vacancy is very different than ISD 194’s very public process in filling two one-year vacancies on its board in 2021. A special election was called so voters could fill the first opening, but a second vacancy occurred after the candidate filing period closed.

Board chair Judy Keliher said the board thought it important to disclose how the second seat would be filled before the special election took place. Appointing the next highest vote getter was an option they discussed and might have been used, but unlike the council election, the school board race was contentious. The board decided to appoint and allow the winner of the election to have a voice in filling the second vacancy.

The board interviewed eight of its fourteen applicants in from of an audience it was able to be viewed remotely by the public in live time.  The recordings were also available for on-demand streaming.  The second-place finisher in the preceding election, Carly Anderson, was one of those interviewed. Anderson was not appointed but the voters elected her to a full four-year term this past November.

The three finalists

Daniel Wolter moved to Lakeville two years ago. Two months later he was appointed to Lakeville’s finance committee. Four months after that he was appointed by the council to chair its Envision Lakeville: ‘Cultivate a Sense of Community Taskforce, According to public records, he lives across the street from Hellier in a house he purchased December 2020.

An article in the Burnsville Sun ThisWeek  gives an account of his career in politics, lobbying and public affairs. The story was published as he was moving from MN, returning to Iowa to serve as a speechwriter for Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds as she sought re-election.

Jenna Majorowicz is currently Principal Information Project Manager for HealthEquity, a financial services business based in Utah,  managing multi million dollar projects with various  moving pieces and C-suite stakeholders. She has been on Lakeville’s Planning Commission for three years and six months, and was on Burnsville’s Planning Commission for seven months prior to that. She has served on her HOA board and has been involved in many school, sports, community activities and volunteer opportunities.

Pat Kaluza is the third finalist. He started his career in 2007 as a field director for the MN 2nd Congressional District Republicans. He has held similar positions for several statewide candidates, the state Republican party and a political PAC. In addition, he has had several legislative assistant positions in the Minnesota State Legislature. Kaluza has been a member of the Lakeville Planning Commission for nearly eight years and five months. 

When Volk was asked whether the council discussed the optics that two of its three picks, including Wolter, could accurately be described as having deep ties to the party that had recommended her, Bermel and Hellier for election, she didn’t offer a comment. Lee had brought up Majorowicz’s lack of political ties as a reason to support her.

The city council will make its choice at its Tuesday, January 17 meeting that was moved due to observation of Martin Luther King Day from the council’s normal schedule of meeting on the first and third Mondays.