FAIRMONT– A special city council meeting was held on Wednesday to go over the allegations against Fairmont City Council Member Britney Kawecki, an individual subject to City Council’s authority. The meeting was a continuation of the Dec. 17, 2024 special city council meeting.

Along with the full council, Mayor Lee Baarts, Interim City Administrator Jeff O’Neill and City Attorney representation Christina Petsoulis were present. In addition, about 20 community members were present for Kawecki’s portion of the meeting.

Kawecki’s hearing lasted nearly two hours and she opted to have hers done in an open meeting format.

Because of that, Baarts said that Kawecki would be prohibited from participating except when allowed.

For the hearing, Baarts said the council would need to determine the code of conduct it feels has been violated and then the course of action that needs to be taken.

He read the specified allegation which read, “On and after August 31, 2024 in emails to city staff and Facebook posts published on her re-election campaign page, Councilor Kawecki criticized and personally and professional maligned city staff, conduct perceived as hostile, harassing and/or abusive of her power and influence as a council member.”

The second item dealt with Kawecki’s public disclosure and discussion on her campaign Facebook page about the city’s complaint and investigation underway and if she disclosed details after she was advised to keep the matter confidential it could violate the Minnesota Department of Data Act.

Because the complaint against Kawecki related to private, personal data of a city employee, Baarts made clear that any names, pronouns or job titles of complainants would not be used.

Kawecki had a lawyer present, Cory Genelin, who spoke on her behalf. He said the report against Kawecki was 26 pages long and took two months to compile and warned the council it could take awhile to get through.

“The question before this council is first, whether or not to find if Kawecki violated a standard of conduct under the code and secondly, if so, what if anything to do about it,” Genelin said.

He said that the Fairmont City Council code of conduct prohibits nine specific things, which he listed. He said the council wasn’t deciding whether or not it liked Kawecki, but whether she violated any of the codes.

Genelin said one of the bigger issues is that the investigation against Kawecki was initiated by an employee subordinate to the council who was later identified as the former city administrator.

“Obviously the former city administrator is no longer employed by the city and the reasons for that are known to this council. Councilors are also aware that Kawecki was critical of the former city administrator’s job performance and that former administrator was aware of Councilor Kawecki’s position about his performance,” Genelin said.

He also claimed that the former city administrator was less than honest with Kawecki about the nature of the investigation and told her the investigation was not about her. He read several emails that supported that.

Genelin said that he understood the investigation initiated by the former city administrator costed the city $15,000.

Next, Genelin went through several findings in the report which included allegations of workplace harassment and bullying. He pointed out what he identified as flaws in the report which ranged from hearsay to a lack of specifications.

He read the Facebook post in question and said, “The Facebook post is a Fairmont citizen exercising her first amendment rights and a candidate letting voters know her positions. It is unconscionable to think that the government instituted to protect the rights of citizens would censure anyone for those statements.”

Genelin then read an email from the complainant to Kawecki about the Facebook post, which they had copied the mayor and rest of the council on. Next, he read Kawecki’s response to the email which he said was the heart of the harassment and threats.

“She writes, ‘Oh, I like this one. Blind carbon copying and all. Thanks _. I will reply tomorrow. Also who are you responding to prior to sending this to me? Obviously this went somewhere else. Some people are a team of one, some a team of two or three and some people surround themselves with experts of all types. I’ve always believed that the smartest type of people are surrounded actually by those who are way smarter than themselves. Which type of person do you think I am? Hmm. Britney.'”

He asked the council to consider whether what they heard violated the code of conduct. He also asked whether censuring Kawecki from speaking her mind would encourage or discourage citizens from serving on the council or other city commissions.

“Who will sign up for this job knowing that any city employee can haul them into a hearing like this?” Genelin asked.

After Genelin’s presentation, the rest of the council was able to ask questions and make comments. Council Member Randy Lubenow said, “Do I agree with some of the lengths that Councilor Kawecki goes to? No, I don’t but I also know she’s probably the most prepared council member to walk in these doors… for the last 20 to 30 years… there wasn’t much questioning of how the city was ran and it’s lead to issues.”

In closing, he said while he may not agree with every action Kawecki has taken, he said he did not think she’s broken any laws.

After an hour of discussion, the council held deliberations and had to choose to either do nothing, approve a resolution of censure, issue a directive, limit assignments and duties, request that Kawecki issue a written apology or opt to gather more information.

Council Member Jay Maynard said the council has an obligation to staff to be respectful and not create a hostile work environment.

“If we have city employees leave because they believe that council is being unreasonably harassing, it’s that much harder to hire the next quality staff. We need to as a council to express that no, we do not believe that that is acceptable,” Maynard said.

He added that council members should not be calling out city employees by name in a Facebook post and bullying city employees.

“I believe that we definitely do need to take some course of action,” Maynard said.

Lubenow admitted that he does not feel comfortable at city hall because there are “people watching” what’s being done and that if someone doesn’t like you they can make charges against you.

He reiterated that while he did not agree with every action Kawecki took, he said, “We have to be careful that we don’t turn this into so that no one wants to be on city council or the mayor. I think we have to be very careful with how we approach this.”

Maynard asked Lubenow whether he thought they should just ignore the options. Lubenow said that he thought the council could change some policies and put in some new guidelines.

Council Member James Kotewa said he thought that behaviors exhibited toward city staff needed to be addressed.

“What’s happened and what’s occurred before needs to stop and we need to move forward and find a way to support the staff so that they’re comfortable doing their job and not always looking over their shoulder, but yet we need to hold them accountable and be accountable to our citizens,” Kotewa said.

Maynard said that city staff is very “nervous” about Kawecki’s manner of dealing with staff and that he believed the council needed to take some form of action that says it is not right. He said he believed an action of censure was appropriate.

Lubenow, however, said he was against censure.

Genelin reminded the council that the hearing was on the code of conduct and whether Kawecki had violated it. He said that the council could later talk about how to better get along with each other and city staff but that on Wednesday it had to determine whether the code of conduct was violated by Kawecki.

Kotewa said that he did not feel comfortable making a discussion on Wednesday with the information they had and Lubenow agreed but said he did not want to drag the matter out any more.

Petsoulis said that the council did have the option of continuing the meeting again. Genelin again asked the council to consider whether Kawecki violated the code of conduct and to make a decision based off of that.

“The things you’re talking about are all important things but they’re not the subject of this meeting,” he said.

Lubenow said he did not believe Kawecki had violated the code of conduct. Petsoulis said that even though the council may not find a violation of the code of conduct, it could still decide to go with one of the directives.

Several motions were made and amended but ultimately, Lubenow made a motion that the city council would issue a directive to Kawecki to not engage in direct, written contact with the complainant unless directed by city council to do so, to draft and submit to complainant a written communication apologizing for her conduct toward the complainant and that there were no findings of a code of conduct violation against Kawecki at this time.

The motion passed 4-0 with Kawecki abstaining.