TOWER— At a special meeting here on Monday, the Tower City Council took steps to address the limited fallout from their recent decision to terminate Steve Altenburg from his employment with the city. Altenburg had served as fire chief and ambulance director as well as an EMT and firefighter.
The impact of the decision on the city’s ambulance service appears to be limited so far. Clerk-treasurer Victoria Ranua reported that one emergency medical responder, Robert Dicasmirro, had resigned in apparent protest along with the department’s medical director, Dr. Michael Pettinelli. But the city had an interim medical director in place almost immediately. And the council took new steps on Monday to replace Altenburg as ambulance director on an interim basis, accepting a plan developed by city staff to share the position between the two former assistant directors, Dena Suikhonen and Josh Villebrun. The two will handle different aspects of the job and split the combined compensation that the city had previously paid to the director and the first assistant director position while the city develops new job descriptions. Mayor Orlyn Kringstad said he appreciated the willingness of both Suikhonen and Villebrun to step up to keep the ambulance service moving forward.
Among the changes that the co-directors have implemented already is to suspend taking non-emergency inter-hospital transfers, at least for the time being, while the service ensures that it has sufficient staff on hand to cover emergency calls. In the meantime, the ambulance service and city staff will be reviewing whether to continue accepting transfers. While transfers do pay a higher reimbursement rate than emergency calls, they typically involve much longer travel and staff time for the service, which has raised questions about whether transfers are actually profitable. Some other small area ambulance services have also sharply limited transfers out of similar economic factors.
That review may become part of a new business plan that Ranua has committed to developing as part of addressing concerns raised by area townships, which help finance ambulance replacement.
While transfers will be under review, the ambulance service’s paid on-call staffing will remain in place. The council gave its approval to explore alternative housing options, possibly temporary, for the paid on-call service. Ranua noted that the ambulance staff will need to be out of its existing quarters by April 12, leaving a relatively narrow window to find an alternative. She said there may be a significant budget impact given that the current housing was provided at a very low rental rate.
Ranua said the new co-directors have recommended keeping the paid on-call staff in place for now, to help cover calls, while a new business plan is being developed.
While the fallout to the ambulance service appears relatively modest, Ranua reported receiving six resignations from the city’s fire department, including former mayor Josh Carlson, former council members Lance Dougherty and Brad Matich, Bobby Anderson, Stephanie Carlson, and Jesse Gornick. Dougherty’s resignation leaves the city without an interim fire chief, at least for the time being. Dougherty had served as assistant fire chief under Altenburg and the council had acted at their March 9 meeting to make him interim chief.
The council discussed various options for the position, and ultimately authorized Ranua and Kringstad to make a decision on the position once a candidate comes forward.
Getting an interim fire chief in place will help the department move forward in rebuilding its staffing levels. Ranua did report that the city has already received five new applications for the fire department which could significantly reduce the impact of the recent resignations.
That news appeared to irritate Tower News commentator Tony Sikora, who demanded to see copies of the new fire department applications. The city, however, is not able to release the applications at this point under the state’s public records law. Minn. Stat. 13.43, Subd. 3 makes most information on a public employee application, including the name of the applicant, private data until such time as the applicant is determined to be qualified or is selected as a finalist for the position. That has not yet occurred with the applications in question.
Ranua did raise concerns about the city’s fire department application itself. She noted that the application, which she said dated back to 2013, asked some inappropriate questions that she speculated could be considered illegal. Even so, she said she was unaware of any other application and had provided them to the individuals who had indicated interest in joining.
The fire department resignations appeared timed to create a sense of crisis within the city’s emergency services. Writing on Facebook last Friday, Gornick predicted the Tower Fire Department “will probably go away,” and he blamed his and other resignations on Mayor Kringstad. Gornick also suggested a conspiracy to get rid of the fire department and merge with Breitung Township’s fire department, yet Gornick’s claim failed to mention that both the Tower and Breitung departments had already agreed to merge operations a few years ago. That merger eventually broke up over disagreements about the size and cost of a new joint emergency services building.
The resignations from the fire department are unlikely to have any noticeable impact in the event of a fire in Tower. Kringstad noted that he had spoken to the fire chiefs of neighboring departments to alert them of the temporary manpower reduction on the department and said he’d been assured that the city would be covered through existing mutual aid and automatic alarm systems.
Monday’s special meeting came against the backdrop of the worsening impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. The council held its meeting at the city’s civic center, and spaced chairs at least six feet apart per the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control. Kringstad said he expects to hold future meetings at the civic center, for the time being, in order to accommodate the audience without creating the kind of crowding that can further spread the virus.
In other action, the council:
• Approved a resolution authorizing application to the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority for a loan for improvements to the city’s drinking water treatment facility and the resplacement of the main water line from the joint Tower-Breitung water tower to the city.
• Approved seeking additional bids for the replacement of the locking and security system at the fire hall and ambulance garage.