TOWER— The Timberjay has confirmed that City Clerk-Treasurer Linda Keith approved a three-year contract extension for the city’s website service and did so without apparent authorization and without seeking multiple quotes.

That would appear be a violation of the city of Tower’s charter and spending policies, which limit the city clerk’s authority for approving city contracts and expenditures to $500 or less. The three-year contract signed only by Keith and a representative of the website service, known as Tech Bytes, totals $1,386.

Keith’s action also appears to conflict with statements made by the clerk-treasurer to the city council during the city’s Jan. 28, 2019, reorganizational meeting.

While the selection of a website maintenance service has not typically been part of the city’s annual reorganization, both Mayor Orlyn Kringstad and Councilor Brooke Anderson raised the issue during the Jan. 28 meeting, indicating they would like to see a more engaging city website. The city switched its website to the current host company in 2013.

“I think that is a service that should be bid out periodically to see what is new and what ideas people have for making the Tower city website more effective,” said Kringstad.

“I’d like to see the website look a little snazzier,” said Anderson. “My husband designs websites and we’re always looking at the things we could do with it.”

Anderson, who has been on the council since 2017, asked when the contract was up.

“I just signed for another three years,” said Keith in response.

“Did that come before the council?” Kringstad asked.

“Um, I’m pretty sure we talked about it,” said Keith. “I’d have to go back and see what meeting it was.”

Kringstad asked Keith to come back to the council with a response to his question about council authorization. More than five weeks later, however, Keith has yet to provide the response requested by the mayor.

A Timberjay review of city minutes and agendas from 2018 found no mention or discussion of the city website service in 2018.

A copy of the latest Tech Bytes contract, signed by both Keith and Tech Bytes operator Dustin Miller, and dated Dec. 5, 2018, runs for 36 months but automatically renews after that until termination. The service costs $38.50 per month, which includes a half-hour per month of maintenance work by the company.

The Timberjay obtained the contract as part of a data practices request to the city. Keith had failed to respond to the request for nearly two weeks, which prompted the Timberjay to issue a Feb. 28 deadline for compliance. In an emailed response just ahead of that deadline, Keith claimed that the contract “is tied up with the auditors along with the rest of the paperwork from 2018.”

But a call from the Timberjay to the city’s auditing firm, Walker, Giroux & Hahne, confirmed that the auditors were not, in fact, holding up Keith’s response to the Timberjay’s information request. An official from Walker, Giroux, said he would look into the issue. The Timberjay received the contract about 45 minutes later.

The city of Tower’s charter specifies in Section 7.06 that: “No officer or employee of the CITY shall place any order or make any purchase except for the purpose authorized by resolution. Any obligation incurred by any person in the employment of the CITY for any purpose not authorized in a resolution or for any amount in excess of the amount authorized by the CITY COUNCIL shall be a personal obligation upon the person incurring the obligation.”

Critics of the newly-elected Kringstad have sought to investigate his spending of city funds for elected official training by the League of Minnesota Cities, as well as for conversations with the city attorney regarding issues surrounding the performance of Keith.

While Kringstad, as a new mayor, might be able to claim some confusion over his spending authority, Keith should have no such confusion after more than five years as the city’s clerk-treasurer.

The city’s purchasing policy does allow the clerk, with approval from the mayor and at least one other council member, to approve a contract or spending between $1,000 and $10,000. The Timberjay did contact Councilor Kevin Fitton and former Mayor Josh Carlson to see whether they might have approved the contract in coordination with the clerk-treasurer. Fitton indicated in writing that he did not recall signing a purchase order for the website service. Carlson did not respond.

The Timberjay provided Keith the opportunity to respond to the newspaper’s findings, and also submitted a data practices request for any other city-solicited bids that she might have sought. She did not provide any additional quotes and did not offer any explanation for her actions as of press time.