GREENWOOD TWP- For three solid hours here on Tuesday night, the hostility between the previous majority and the current majority on the Greenwood Town Board showed no indication of winding down.
It began during public comment, when former township clerk and supervisor Sue Drobac had questions about a bill paid by the township, but then went on to question current clerk Debby Spicer. When Spicer didn’t respond (the board generally listens during public comment and doesn’t engage in back-and-forth), she pointedly asked why Spicer was looking at her phone. After more argument with Chair Lois Roskoski about some files that had been misplaced during the transition after last March’s election, Drobac then criticized the style of minutes being prepared by Spicer.
“Whoever is typing the minutes,” Drobac said, “it looks to me like opinions, not what is just happening at the meeting.” Drobac said that the Minnesota Association of Townships prefers to simply say there was a discussion on a topic, and not to describe the entire conversation.
Roskoski noted that the board cannot tell the clerk how to do her job.
“She is being subjective about everything,” said Drobac.
Spicer’s minutes have been descriptive, often including direct quotes, and blow-by-blow coverage of the more combative conversations during the meeting. But supervisors do have the option, and often do, make changes to the minutes before final approval at the following board meeting.
After being gaveled to silence and talking angrily back to the audience, Drobac said, “I am not leaving, thank you.”
When it was time to approve the minutes from the Sept. 12 meeting, supervisor John Bassing tried to clarify why he, supervisor Rick Stoehr, and treasurer Jeff Maus had left the meeting.
“We said it was a special meeting,” Bassing said, “and the chair did not read the entire opinion from attorney Mike Couri.”
Bassing went on to read from an email that he said was sent the day of the Sept. 12 meeting. “I believe the key question,” the attorney wrote, “is whether the township posted a revised meeting schedule with the new regular meeting date of Sept. 12. If the revised meeting schedule…was posted at least four days prior to today’s meeting, then I believe tonight’s meeting will be a regular meeting.” If the meeting was considered a special meeting, the posting would have to include the purpose of the meeting.
“That’s why we left,” Bassing said. “It was not posted.”
Roskoski noted that this information was not presented at the September meeting.
Bassing said he did not get a copy of the email from Couri until 12 days after the meeting.
“There is a lot of duplicity here,” he told Roskoski, “You had the email.”
“You walked out before I could finish reading it,” said Roskoski.
Bassing then claimed to have a photograph of the bulletin board four days prior of the meeting, without the posting.
“I also have a photograph of the bulletin board,” said Roskoski. “Our clerk said it was out there.” The meeting was posted as a regular meeting, and the agenda was also available. Whether or not the monthly meeting calendar had been updated was not confirmed.
“I believe that I did and it was on the bulletin board,” said Spicer.
At that point the audience began to grumble, voicing displeasure with the tone of the discussion.
Roskoski asked why the Bassings had not come to the clerk or the chair if they thought the meeting hadn’t been posted properly. John’s wife JoAnn, the former clerk, is now the township’s deputy treasurer.
“Deputy treasurer Bassing, if you saw something wrong, you should have come to us,” said Roskoski.
Members of the audience were clearly impatient with the nitpicking and “gotcha” attitude on display.
“Are these the important issues?” asked audience member Jet Galonski. “This is BS.”
Roskoski noted that an open meeting law violation has to be a “willful” violation. She said the meeting was posted, as well as noticed in the newspaper.
“We have been accused three or four times of open meeting violations,” said supervisor Paul Skubic. “We keep getting accused of it. Then do something about it. Come on. Spend time doing something good for the township.”
This statement garnered a lot of applause from the audience.
“So, the public is saying that John never did anything good for township?” asked Drobac.
“This is a violation of the open meeting law,” said JoAnn Bassing.
Roskoski again gaveled down the talk from audience member Drobac, and asked her to leave the meeting. Drobac refused to leave, giggling, and saying, “let’s see how this gets written up next time.”
Later in the meeting, there was more discussion of the open meeting law issue.
“Why aren’t we all trying to work together,” asked Roskoski. “We all ran to do what is best for Greenwood.”
Roskoski noted that JoAnn Bassing received an attorney or Minnesota Association of Townships email meant for current clerk Spicer regarding the August meeting that had been rescheduled.
“Why didn’t JoAnn just talk to Debby?” Roskoski asked. “This has happened twice. You have seen it and not talked to us.”
JoAnn Bassing said that when she and Drobac had met with Roskoski and Spicer after the election, “we got the feeling that neither wanted to know what we knew. You turned me off at the very beginning.”
Roskoski noted there is “a group continuously trying to find problems.”
JoAnn Bassing and Jeff Maus said they were hurt when there were questions about financial reports and inconsistent financial totals. Maus also said that the Spicer would not allow deputy treasurer JoAnn Bassing access to the treasurer’s office, when Maus had asked JoAnn to pick up some papers for him.”
“Maybe we need to bring in a therapist,” said Roskoski, who had largely kept her cool through the combative exchanges. “I just want everybody to be respectful. We have a lot of work to be done.”