At the October 14 meeting, the Rushford City Council unanimously approved the separation and release agreement with City Administrator Tony Chladek. A special meeting to discuss a personnel issue had been scheduled for October 8, but was later canceled. City Attorney Chris Hoodecheck attended the meeting virtually.
The contract between the departing Chladek and the city comes with severance pay and cafeteria benefits. Per the agreement, in consideration for Chladek’s waivers and releases, the city will pay Chladek a lump sum payment of $47,299, which is approximately equivalent to four months of salary. Any earned vacation and sick time is separate.
Evaluation of performance of the administrator was scheduled as a new business/personnel item on the meeting agenda, but following the approval of the release, there remained no need to conduct the evaluation. Over the last several years of evaluations, there have been concerns about Chladek’s performance by some on the council.
Mayor Terri Benson and Councilor Leigh Volkman will facilitate the city administrator transition. There are resources available to find an interim city administrator, should the city choose to. Mayor Terri Benson noted there has been discussion about whether or not the position should be filled in-house or externally and if filled externally, whether or not it should be short-term or not.
“There are some other things I’d like to address: a clear definition of a city administrator job as well as how that can interact with our current city staff,” said Benson.
Some cities combine the clerk and administrator job into one role, however, the city clerk position is a union job, while the administrator position is not. There is a possibility the city will take no action until the job availability is posted. Hoodecheck will be working with the city on putting the process in place.
Benson expressed concern that things begun with the Economic Development Authority (EDA) continue without interruption or issue, including deadlines for services to be utilized. “Those are the things I don’t want to mess up with what has already started,” she said.
“I think we need to decide, is there a need, until if we were to pursue another one,” stated Councilor and EDA member Leigh Volkman. “Do we need somebody temporarily?” He added that the EDA should have a good idea of what needs to come before the council and what can be paused until some kind of leadership is in place.
In other news, the council unanimously approved moving forward with the proper recordation of two parcels, currently owned by Dennie and Shirley Darr and Jondal Enterprise, LLC. Jondal intends to sell the property, land, and business and both parties want ownership of the parcels correctly recorded prior to the sale. The two small parcels are currently in the city’s name, but are of no use to the city. With approval from the city, Parcel A will be transferred to Darrs and they intend to purchase Parcel B from Jondal.
The council also discussed the EDA work to determine the future of the former Farmers Win Cooperative site. The EDA will be meeting with Kristin Prososki, Community Development Specialist at SEH, Inc. who has been consulting with the city on the redevelopment. As of July, the EDA was considering four scenarios including both public and private uses, considering the cost and economic impact of all.
“What I’d like to see is us try to get to another community meeting with the alternative idea we have and then we pause the project until it can get handled. It’s going to be disorganized and complicated for everyone to try to keep going.” said Volkman.
“There’s a lot of moving parts right now,” noted Benson. “I think you guys need to have a better idea of how to move forward.”
“It probably isn’t going to come before the council for approval; on this council, because we have an election. We should probably try to get to ‘X’ spot before the end of this council, so it’s over with,” pointed out Volkman.
The project also includes work from the University of Minnesota, particularly with research. They will need direction with a clear, focused idea of what the EDA, city, and community want.
“We do need to present this idea to the public. There’s no decision on it until we discuss it with the public. We should be trying to get one more community meeting with this new idea,” added Volkman. “We should be making sure the EDA knows we should be trying to get to that community meeting with this other idea so that, if we’re going to take a pause, people have time to think about it for a while before it goes to the next step, because the next step would be coming to the council to advance that particular part of it.”
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