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City Council chairs clash

Staff photo by Clay Schuldt Outgoing City Manager Brian Gramentz (left) and City Council President Charlie Schmitz await the start of the city council meeting Tuesday.

NEW ULM — There was a clash of council presidents Tuesday night at the New Ulm City Council meeting, with former City Council president Dan Beranek accusing current City Council President Charlie Schmitz of scheming to remove City Manager Brian Gramentz.

“This whole thing stinks a lot, Mr. Schmitz!,” Beranek said. “You know you are behind getting rid of Mr. Gramentz. You’ve been trying to get rid of him for about 10 years.”

The exchange happened over council discussion of a severance of employment agreement with Gramentz. During an Aug. 21 city council meeting, Gramentz announced his decision to sever his employment with the city of New Ulm before the end of the year.

The announcement came as a surprise to many. An annual closed-session evaluation of Gramentz’s performance over the last year was planned for the Aug. 21 meeting, but it was cancelled and the council was instead presented with a severance agreement.

No letter of resignation was submitted by Gramentz at the time, as he was not technically resigning, but negotiating with the city to end his employment. Gramentz has given no reason for his sudden decision to leave the city manager position after 17 years.

Multiple sources connected to council have cited tension between Gramentz and the council in relation to the PUC. In addition to Beranek, one other source directly identified Schmitz as the source of tension.

The city has been in closed negotiations with Gramentz and his attorney Hugh Nierengarten for the last month over the terms of this agreement. A final agreement was reached between attorneys and was signed by Gramentz. The council needed to grant final approval.

Beranek charged that if Gramentz had not submitted the severance agreement during the Aug. 21 meeting, Schmitz and other council members would have used the evaluation to fire Gramentz. Beranek said this was a disservice to the city and a disservice to Gramentz. He asked why the city was paying Gramentz to retire if he was doing this voluntarily?

Schmitz said the decision was Gramentz’ based on the best interest of himself and the city.

Beranek further accused Schmitz of micro-managing the New Ulm Public Utilities by attempting to hire and fire people. He reminded the council it is the PUC that hires and fires people associated with Public Utilities, not former PU employees.

“You stick your nose and business where it shouldn’t be,” Beranek said.

Beranek said he was not making this story up, but had heard this from reliable and valuable sources. Beranek had served on the City Council for 30 years and with the PUC Commission for six years.

Beranek further questioned why the PUC was not consulted as the Public Utilities Commission pays half of Gramentz’ salary.

Beranek wanted to know what the process is to replace Gramentz, who will be departing in less than a month. Beranek had concerns how the city was going to carry on without a city manager. Assistant City Manager Chris Dalton was hired less than a year ago.

“Who is going to watch so this doesn’t go belly up?” Beranek asked. “Who is going to watch so our bond rating doesn’t drop? Who is going to watch morale of other city employees and city employees? And how long will this take?”

Schmitz said Dalton will fill in once Gramentz leaves and department heads will fill in as well.

“I don’t see it really going to be a big problem,” Schmitz said.

“I don’t think you guys have thought this through,” Beranek said. He did not believe the story that Gramentz was leaving by choice because when an employee voluntarily leaves, they don’t get sixth months of salary.

“There is more to the story and you know it!,” said Beranek.

Beranek also suggested there may have been a violation of opening meeting laws, with Schmitz, Councilor Lisa Fischer and Councilor Les Schultz negotiating outside of public meetings to remove Gramentz.

Both Schmitz and Fischer denied this during the meeting. Schmitz said Beranek was 100 percent wrong about this accusation. Fischer took offense at the suggestion she violated open meeting laws.

“I really try to stick to having no violations of open meeting law, and I came in wanting to know what other councilors thought that night,” Fischer said. “I had not talked to Les, Dave or Larry. We are on the personnel committee and we do have conversations, but there is no violation.”

Schultz has also previously denied having been involved with a plan to fire Gramentz.

Beranek’s last comment was to tell the council the situation was a mess created by Schmitz.

The council ultimately voted to unanimously accept the separation agreement.

After the meeting Schmitz reiterated that he never attempted to fire Gramentz and he did not know what would have come out of the Aug. 21 closed evaluation. Asked if he would miss having Gramentz as city manager, Schmitz said Gramentz was “d**n good.”

The Journal also asked Gramentz for a response. He provided a written statement that said: “The separation agreement speaks for itself. I have no further comments on this issue.”

All other comments regarding his separation from the city were directed to his attorney.

The terms in the severance agreement approved by the council grant Gramentz six months of his regular salary, which would total $65,343.

Under city policies he is entitled to transfer 25 percent of his sick pay (up to 960 hours) and 100 percent of his vacation pay to his health care savings account. His hourly rate is $62.83. This would total an additional $15,079 for sick pay and $9,271 for vacation pay.

Gramentz is also eligible for up to 12 months of continued insurance coverage. If insurance is available through a new employer, the obligation would end. If the coverage runs for the entire 12-month period, the current employee premium is $1,780.77 per month and in 2019 will be $1,697.97 per month, for a total of $20,459 over the full 12 months.

The agreement includes a clause preventing either the city or Gramentz from engaging in disparaging remarks that would “impair the reputation, good will or commercial interests of the other party.”

The maximum cost of the severance agreement would be $110,152.

Gramentz termination date is Nov. 15.

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