Transcripts

MARK STEIL: Small town government works best when people can disagree in the meeting room but remain friends when they leave. It can be at its worst when the opposite happens. In Kasota, a town of about 700 people just across the Minnesota River from St. Peter, some residents say a political clique unresponsive to citizen concerns controls city hall. They say the main problem is Mayor Walt Vetter. Some residents believe he and the council have broken city laws they're sworn to uphold. Mayor Vetter is frustrated by the criticism, he calls it unfair. Here's his reaction at one city council meeting, his words captured by a noisy boombox the city uses to tape record its meetings.

WALT VETTER: The harder one works, the more time one puts in, the bigger the cake is, and the more bitching there is because the person's always doing it wrong, and you're showing partiality regardless of how fair one's doing it.

SPEAKER 1: I'm not understanding the connection here, though.

MARK STEIL: That frustration is matched by Kasota residents who do the council kicking. Sandy Lynch says the council is not representing citizens. Her frustrations boiled over at a meeting two and a half years ago when the mayor told her city ordinances were not law, but only guidelines.

SANDY LYNCH: And I just kind of went, what did you say? He said, those are only guidelines. And so I sat there for a while and pretty soon I just took the papers, the other copies, the extra copies that I have, and I kicked them into the air, and I said, well, then, this is what you might as well do with our ordinances.

So what you're telling me is this ordinance that I have--

[PAPERS RUSTLING]

--is no good?

WALT VETTER: Basically, it's a guideline.

MARK STEIL: Lynch and others in town say long-time mayor, Vetter, has practiced his philosophy that ordinances are guidelines. They say he ignores city laws which get in his way. They point to his snowmobile business located next to his house. Former Mayor June Davis says he expanded the business in violation of city ordinance.

JUNE DAVIS: Walt Vetter applied for building permits for his property down there with the application stating, for personal use. Those buildings are not being used for personal use. They're being used for business use.

MARK STEIL: Davis says she's seen snowmobiles stored there. Neighbors have pictures they say show truckloads of snowmobiles being moved into Vetter's buildings. The mayor admits he used the buildings for business, but in his words, "very little." He says the business use did not break his word to the council that the buildings would be used only for personal use.

WALT VETTER: The only thing I did, I did fully within my rights.

SPEAKER 2: Did it follow city ordinance?

WALT VETTER: I didn't have any problem with it.

MARK STEIL: The dispute over the mayor's business led the council to change city ordinance, making it easier to convert residential land to commercial use. The Kasota experience is not unusual, according to University of Minnesota political science professor Charles Backstrom. He says while the image of small town government is that of grassroots democracy at its best, the truth is often much different.

CHARLES BACKSTROM: A lot of people don't worry about what the law says. They say what they want to do, and then if they have an attorney, they say, find us a way that we can do this.

MARK STEIL: Unlike large government bureaucracies, small town government can move quickly. But some Kasota residents say that's not always a benefit. Last December, with little advanced warning, the council voted to pay $10,000 for a vacant lot owned by the mayor's wife. Although Mayor Vetter did not vote, some residents say it was a clear conflict of interest. At the meeting, Vetter voiced the opinion that the city should own the land. He says, it's needed as a storage area for snow removed from city streets.

JUNE DAVIS: I think that was truly a waste of taxpayers' money.

MARK STEIL: Former mayor June Davis.

JUNE DAVIS: The city has plenty of property to put snow on, for snow removal. They didn't need to pay $10,000 for a lot to pack snow on it.

MARK STEIL: Political science professor, Charles Backstrom says, the reason city councils get by with that sort of action is because few people watch what they do.

CHARLES BACKSTROM: Most people know nothing about local government at all. They don't even know it exists. Most people don't have the stomach for working on local things because it takes a lot of time.

MARK STEIL: Backstrom says the social side of small town life also tends to discourage political dissent. He says it's not easy being a political outsider.

CHARLES BACKSTROM: In many local governments, if you raise any objection, you're considered to be a spoilsport or a troublemaker. And they don't want to hear about any divergent views.

WALT VETTER: You get things going, trying to work real hard in the community, and you get a certain few that are always trying to tear it apart, regardless.

MARK STEIL: Kasota mayor, Walt Vetter. Faye Krohn lives across the street from Vetter and objected strenuously to his business expansion she says she paid a price for speaking out.

FAYE KROHN: Well there's people who don't even speak to us now. A very good friend of mine, I felt that who was a very good friend of mine, wrote a letter to the editor in [? Mankato. ?] [? Mankato ?] called us dissidents. She should know, as many years as she's known me, that far from the truth, that I'm a dissident. I was just trying to do what was right.

MARK STEIL: Krohn says the fallout from her tangle with Mayor Vetter is the main reason she and her husband have sold their Kasota home. They're moving to Northern Minnesota. June Davis says it's also likely she'll leave town within a few years. Another family that wants to remain anonymous also left Kasota, citing politics as a major factor.

So if there is dissatisfaction, how come the mayor is still in office? Walt Vetter rejects attacks on him as personal vendettas. He says most of the town likes his politics. June Davis says that may be true, but predicts if more people pay attention to what the council does, that will change. This is Mark Steil, Main Street Radio.