The council told CEDA to report every quarter. CEDA has skipped eleven quarters and kept the contract.
On January 9, 2024, the council renewed its economic development contract and asked, on the record, for quarterly reports. The contract has been renewed twice since and grown by a day a week. No report has appeared in any packet.
Kenyon's economic development work is done under contract. Community and Economic Development Associates, CEDA, assigns an employee, Todd Kieffer, to staff the city's Economic Development Authority for a set number of days a week, and the city pays an annual fee. Every January the council renews the arrangement. On January 9, 2024, it did so with a condition attached, and the condition is the part of the record that has gone missing.
What the council asked for
The minutes of that meeting are short on the point and clear. City Administrator Mark Vahlsing told the council the contract with CEDA needed to be renewed. Then, in the words the deputy clerk recorded, "the council members stated that they would like to receive quarterly reports on CEDA's projects and services." Council member Molly Ryan moved approval, Mary Bailey seconded, and the 2024 contracted services passed 5-0-0.
The council members stated that they would like to receive quarterly reports on CEDA's projects and services.Minutes, Kenyon City Council, January 9, 2024. Meeting page.
The contract itself, attached to the same packet, runs the other direction. Its only quarterly obligation is CEDA's right to invoice: the organization "shall be responsible to invoice the Authority for staff time and materials provided under this Agreement on a periodic basis, no less frequently than quarterly." The reporting expectation the council stated aloud was never written into the agreement it approved that night.
What arrived instead
Every council packet from February 2024 through September 2026 is on file, and a quarterly CEDA report to the council appears in none of them. The only quarterly documents that carry CEDA's name are the EDA's own financial statements, which are a different thing: they report the authority's fund, not the contractor's projects and services. The council asked for the second and has received only the first.
What did arrive was a bigger contract. On November 12, 2024, Interim Administrator Frank Boyles told the council the CEDA agreement was up for renewal and that the EDA "recommended increasing the CEDA contract from one day a week to two days a week for a total annual fee of $53,580." The minutes record the reason as "to accomplish all the work the EDA desires to have done." Lee Sjolander moved, Kim Helgeson seconded, and it carried 4-0-0. On December 9, 2025, with Scott Lehner as administrator, the council renewed again at $55,053 for two days a week through the end of 2026. Neither renewal references the quarterly reporting the council had asked for ten and twenty-three months earlier.
The increase was requested to accomplish all the work the EDA desires to have done.Minutes, Nov. 12, 2024, on the move from one day a week to two, source
Eleven quarters
From the first quarter of 2024 through the third quarter of 2026 is eleven reporting periods. Over that span the annual fee went from the one-day-a-week rate of early 2024 to $53,580 and then $55,053, and the packet record shows a council that approved each step without asking where its reports were. That silence became audible on July 14, 2026, when council member Deanna Gard, appointed that April, asked for a breakdown of contracted-services spending across departments and named Kieffer's contract as an example of a cost worth examining 1:17:56. On August 6 she asked again whether the position needed discussion before the budget was set 54:46. Lehner answered that any discussion of a specific person's performance would be a closed meeting 55:09.
A quarterly report, delivered as the council asked in January 2024, would have made both questions unnecessary. It would have put projects, hours and outcomes in a packet where any council member or resident could read them, and it would have let the council judge the two-day-a-week fee against something other than the EDA's own wish list. The record does not show anyone refusing to produce one. It shows no one following up, three administrators in a row, and a council that kept voting yes.
The fix is the one the council already stated. The next renewal can carry the reporting clause inside the contract rather than beside it, and the first quarterly report can go in the packet the quarter after. Until one does, the January 2024 minutes remain a request the city made of its contractor and never collected on.
The last time we met we talked about Todd's position on the EDA. We just talked about that and we didn't really discuss it. We brought it up but we didn't really discuss it.Deanna Gard, Aug. 6, 2026, 54:46, source
Before and after
- Jan. 9, 2024Administrator Mark Vahlsing says the CEDA contract needs renewing; council members say they would like quarterly reports on CEDA's projects and services; Ryan moves, Bailey seconds, 5-0-0.
- Jan. 9, 2024The agreement in the same packet carries one quarterly duty, CEDA's: to invoice the authority "no less frequently than quarterly."
- Nov. 12, 2024Interim Administrator Frank Boyles reports the EDA recommends going from one day a week to two for a total annual fee of $53,580; Sjolander moves, Helgeson seconds, 4-0-0.
- Dec. 9, 2025Administrator Scott Lehner reports the contract is up for renewal at $55,053 for two days per week; Bailey moves, Brunner seconds, 4-0-0.
- July 14, 2026Council member Deanna Gard asks for a breakdown of contracted and outside services at 1:17:56 of the recording.
- Aug. 6, 2026Gard asks at 54:46 to discuss the EDA position before the budget is set; at 55:09 the administrator answers that it would be a performance discussion for a closed meeting.
What the statute says
A public body may close a meeting to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority.
The statute says a body may close a meeting to evaluate someone subject to its authority. Todd Kieffer is CEDA's employee, and what a contract costs is public business.
People in this story
- Todd KiefferCEDA employee assigned to staff Kenyon's Economic Development Authority
- Mark VahlsingCity administrator until spring 2024
- Molly RyanCouncil member; moved the 2024 renewal
- Mary BaileyCouncil member; seconded the 2024 renewal and moved the 2026 one
- Frank BoylesInterim city administrator under contract, June 2024 to January 31, 2025
- Scott LehnerCity administrator, on the payroll since December 14, 2024
- Deanna GardCouncil member, appointed April 14, 2026
Sources
- Minutes and packet, January 9, 2024, CEDA Contract Services; 2024 agreement, section IV.D.
- Minutes, November 12, 2024 (printed in the December 10, 2024 packet), CEDA 2025 Contract, $53,580 for two days a week.
- Minutes and packet, December 9, 2025, 2026 CEDA contract, $55,053.
- City of Kenyon recordings, July 14, 2026, 1:17:56 and August 6, 2026, 54:46.
- Council packets February 2024 through September 2026, kenyonminnesota.com/government/meetings, searched for a CEDA quarterly report to the council.
More from the record
Kenyon could have hired its own interim administrator for the price of a job description. Nobody seconded.
Three days on the payroll, Lehner walked into a closed KMU meeting. They walked him out.
Week four: Lehner asks the council to hand him a utility that only a referendum can hand over.
All 27, in order · The open letter · Every packet and recording