On October 29, thirty-four minutes into a special meeting, Council Member Kim Helgeson asked for the floor. "What I have to say has been approved by our city attorney," she said, and read a prepared case against Randy Eggert, who has run Kenyon's utility for decades and whose 48 years with the City end December 9 under a settlement approved in September. When she finished, Eggert asked to respond. He was told, "We're not doing any comments at this meeting."
First off, what I have to say has been approved by our city attorney, along with Randy previously stating that he had nothing to hide.
Eric, can I respond on that? We're not doing any comments at this meeting. So, we're now opening up to special comments. Okay, you can let her talk, but you won't let me. Fine. Thank you. 100%. When else am I supposed to do it? Where is she? You can ask her. Okay. I'm just going to say this. We're going to stay on topic of the meeting. It's a special meeting that we set aside for five
That moment was the end of a sequence, and four people run through all of it. Don Kirchmann is the mayor and ran the meeting. Scott Lehner is the city administrator. Scott Riggs is the city attorney. Helgeson sits on the Personnel Committee with Lehner and Kirchmann. The sequence began sixteen days earlier with an account the record does not support.
Lehner's account is wrong
On October 13, Lehner told the council that the power problem at the industrial park had surfaced only the week before. He said a first meeting with Compass, the city's power agency, "was the first that they were hearing that any of that information was going on." He said he was hearing it for the first time too. He said "this one transformer" would run "upwards of a million dollars," and that a contract sent out on July 2 had drawn "no response and no signatures." Eggert had been on leave since September 10, the council had approved his separation three weeks earlier, and the town could draw its own conclusion. The Kenyon Leader carried the account.
The record reads differently. Notes from a May 13 meeting between Compass and Xcel list a "New substation near Kenyon's Industrial Park." That email did not go to Lehner, and Compass forwarded it to him on October 20. Compass's own slide says it met Kenyon staff in early June about, among other things, "Business park access for new customers and connection issues." It called the current work a continuation of "work that KMU staff had already started." The July 21 KMU minutes list Lehner as present and record that a new substation "may be needed." The customer's load figure was emailed to him on December 17, 2025, ten months before he spoke.
The July 2 contract appears to be a form sent to every Compass member. On September 9, Compass's CEO wrote that only three had come back, and asked the rest to return theirs in "30 days or so." The million dollars has since carried three meanings. On October 13 it was one transformer. On October 20 Lehner told KMU it was the estimated cost of serving the customer. On October 29 Anderson said items had been grouped together. The customer's own transformer, ordered by Eggert, cost about $31,000 and has been delivered.
Gard spoke up and was reprimanded
On October 20, Eggert went to the KMU meeting as a private citizen and disputed the account, with Helgeson in the room. The next day's Leader article quoted Council Member Deanna Gard questioning Lehner's ability to do his job. What happened next comes from Gard herself, in a post to the Concerned Citizens of Kenyon group.
"Scott Lehner called me on October 22nd and invited me in for a meeting on October 23rd. He said it was a teams meeting, which I assume meant members of the council."
When she arrived, she writes, she was told the city attorney would be coming and that Helgeson would join by video. "I was reprimanded for what I said in the Kenyon Leader article," she writes. "I was told that it was unacceptable for a council member to say these things to the paper and that the council needs to be united in what we say." She says she learned afterward that the mayor and the other members had not been told about the meeting. She resigned that day. Her name remains on the November 3 ballot.
The notice for the October 29 meeting, signed by Lehner, is dated the same day, October 23. On October 26 the City's own records began to come out. On October 27 Eggert's wife published a letter in the Leader.
Helgeson's statement is wrong on the law
The notice for October 29 listed salaries, an abatement, fire appointments, the business park and a catch-all general discussion. It said nothing about Eggert, though the City has named employees in earlier notices when it meant to discuss them. Later that night, the speaker who appears to be Riggs explained that "pending matters" meant three development projects. Eggert's separation, approved on September 21 and effective December 9, was not one of them. State advisory opinions have long held that a special meeting is limited to its noticed purpose, so the statement may not have belonged there at all.
Helgeson said the transformer "was not ordered to statute" and required "at least three estimates." The statute only asks for two quotations when possible, and so does a City purchasing policy whose adoption is unconfirmed. She said the council "just found out" about the order at the last KMU meeting. She is listed at that October 20 meeting, and not at the January 20 meeting where Eggert reported that KMU would buy the transformer, so that may be true of her. The plan to buy it was not news to Lehner or the mayor, who are both listed in January.
The issue of the delay in getting service out to the industrial cart is not the reason why Randy's no longer a City of Kenyon employee. The transformer, which we just found out at the last KMU that he had ordered, first off was not ordered to statute for something of this size. There should be at least three estimates received and then presented to the KMU commission and then the council for final approval before placing an order, not just ordering on his own, along with no notification that had hit have been done.
She said the governing agreements were "approved many years ago." No one has produced a signed copy of them.
The rest of the statement covered time entries, overtime, a bucket truck and insubordination, and one figure, "thousands of dollars." No time record or improvement plan has been shown to the public. The one meeting noticed as closed on January 28 concerned a different employee. A records request on October 26 asked for the September 21 packet and the allegations by November 5. Three days later Helgeson read a list of allegations aloud, at a meeting where no one could answer.
Lehner said he understood. Now he says he didn't.
Lehner handed out the packet on Eggert's performance on September 21, and he sits on the Personnel Committee that dealt with him. The council approved the separation that night. Three weeks later, explaining why he would step in on the utility side, Lehner told the council he had worked for utilities for 30 years. "I understand the language," he said. "I understand what needs to be done. I understand how things need to operate and move forward."
Sixteen days after that, Compass spent 27 minutes laying out a timeline that did not match his, with Lehner in the room. Near the end of the meeting he addressed it. "Apologies if I came to the council possibly with information that maybe I didn't fully understand 100%," he said. On October 13 he understood what needed to be done. On October 29 he may not have understood what he told the council. Possibly, maybe, and 100%: each word takes something back. He named no statement and corrected nothing. He said he was being attacked, and the meeting moved to adjournment. Tim Zyla, regional managing editor of the Kenyon Leader's newspaper group, wrote that Lehner had tried to read a statement, was shouted down, and refused to give the paper the full text afterward.
We'll get it figured out. You have a city administrator, fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, that before he was in the public sector of things, worked for utilities for 30 years. And I understand the language. I understand what needs to be done. I understand how things need to operate and move forward and all that type of stuff. But it wasn't something I was out looking for. I wasn't looking for to take on that responsibility. But I don't see anybody else that's going to be able to do that. No disrespect to Josh.
So all I wanted to do with this conversation that came in front of the council at the Industrial Park was to bring the council up to speed on what I was recently informed of. I was provided with a lot of information in a short amount of time. I was being brought up to speed very quickly with people from Compass and other things that I wasn't up to speed on. I recently now have been added to that, so I get the updates and all that type of stuff. Apologies if I came to the council possibly with information that maybe I didn't fully understand 100%.
This did not start in October. In January 2025, asked whether he wanted to be Eggert's boss, Lehner told the council "the buck stops with me." In May 2025, presenting the resolution to merge KMU's bank accounts, he said "KMUs will stay separate." In June 2026 he told the council "the KMU bank account now is closed." The man who said the buck stopped with him is the same man who told the town the problem surfaced only the week before.
So you just want to be your boss. That's a different way of putting it. For the simple fact that it doesn't feed my ego, if that's what you're thinking. I don't have to be the boss. But at the end of the day, the buck's got to stop with somebody. And the council has tasked me that the buck stops with me. And that doesn't just mean KMU. That means everything that goes on in the city. So if they want me to manage the city the way I've been asked to do that, that means I have to have the ability and the authority to be able to manage that. I don't necessarily agree that I have to be the boss. It's not what I came here to do. I came here to do a job that I was asked to do. And if that means that KMU has to come in line with the rest of the entities, yeah, I guess so. I guess the answer is yes. But that's
Moving on to Resolution 2025-13, authorizing the merging of Kenyon Municipal Utility Bank Accounts and appointing authorized existing bank accounts. We just need a motion for that. We'll need a motion for that. I don't have anything to add. You did a good job of explaining that. That's just authorizing Whitney and myself to move forward, talking about what we were talking about all through this whole process is merging things together, even though KMUs will stay separate. The efficiencies that we talked about, so Whitney doesn't have to do things two and three times and all that, if you remember those conversations a few months back, that's what this is authorizing. It keeps them in control of their money. Okay.
I told you all that I would let you know once the KMU bank accounts were closed and kind of moved over. That happened this past week. Randy was kind enough to go down to the bank because he's a signer on there to be able to sign, put a signature on a few things to be able to close that out. So I can officially tell you that that bank account, the KMU bank account now is closed. And
Gard, who had resigned six days earlier, sat in the audience. "Not a word was said by the council about my resignation," she writes.
Attorney Riggs can't produce the agreements he wrote
Those agreements decide who runs Kenyon's electric utility, and the lawyer who wrote them could not produce them signed. Riggs told the council so in January 2025. He said he put the agreements together, that he was at the meetings where they were adopted, and that they were signed, "but nobody can find them here." Then he explained why: "all our files got sent off site, and frankly, my secretary can't find the old hard copies. Everything's been digitized, and these don't exist." Of the originals he did have, he said, "not everything's signed."
So I put these agreements together at the behest of both entities. And my understanding, and I was at the meetings where they were adopted, they were all adopted signed, but nobody can find them here. And I'll be honest, all our files got sent off-site, and frankly, my secretary can't find the old hard copies. Everything's been digitized, and these don't exist. I have the original ones here, but not everything's signed. But the reality is they're in place, and you've been observing them for many years, and that's how the operations have been. It seems
Kenyon's own lawyer could not locate a signed version of the documents at the center of its largest dispute, and his explanation pointed to a file move and his secretary. That should concern every resident. The City paid his firm $112,461.31 in under two years. The firm says it has represented more than 300 local governments, and Riggs has served Kenyon for what appears to be more than two decades. Minnesota law requires cities to preserve the records of their official activities and protect them from "loss," and a city attorney is the person a council turns to on that duty. The City could not find signed copies either, so the failure is shared. For a lawyer at this level, whether Kenyon's governing agreements exist should never be in question. It is embarrassing and it is unacceptable.
The agreements were never set aside. KMU signed new versions on April 23, 2025, and Eggert was held to them. Riggs told the council that "you've been observing them for many years," and Helgeson told the public they had been "approved many years ago." Residents should be alarmed by how easily that happened, and they are entitled to ask what else has gone missing.
The lawyer in the room is wrong
Riggs's part is quieter, and it runs longer than this month. In April 2025 the KMU minutes record him telling the commission that "by law the checkbooks needed to be combined." No statute we reviewed says so, and the resolution his firm stamped cites none. It says KMU "wishes" to do it, three weeks after a commissioner said it "really did not matter what the commission decided." He told the council on October 29 that the pay ordinance had to pass "before next Tuesday," a deadline the statute may not impose, since an ordinance adopted after the election would appear to qualify too. Nothing in the record shows the commission ever had its own lawyer, or that anyone but Riggs advised the two bodies whose powers were being rearranged.
All of this happened on Mayor Kirchmann's watch
Don Kirchmann leads this city, and none of it happened without him. He sits on the Personnel Committee with Lehner and Helgeson. He also sits on the KMU commission. He moved the council's resolution separating Eggert, then seconded and voted for KMU's, which passed 2-1. KMU's November 18, 2025 minutes record him saying the committee had met with Eggert on "performance issues." He is listed at the January 20, 2026 meeting where Eggert reported that KMU would buy the transformer.
On October 29 he ran the meeting. City Code § 200.17 says "proper decorum must be maintained by the mayor." He opened General Discussion, Helgeson read her statement without interruption, and only then was the room told to stay on topic. He said the pay ordinance needed a complete rewrite, though a finished two-page ordinance was in the packet. The Leader's Zyla wrote that he has deferred all questions to Lehner.
To his credit, he asked in public on October 20 where the million dollars came from, and he told Eggert he was welcome to speak at the next meeting. Gard says he was not told about the October 23 meeting. He is on the November 3 ballot.
I'm just going to say this. We're going to stay on topic of the meeting. It's a special meeting that we set aside for five topics.
comments will be opened up at our next city council meeting so if you want to come and speak at that time randy you're more than welcome because i'd also like to hear comments from the uh residents of the city on the grocery store and what they feel about the tax tax payment as well
Compass records contradict Lehner
Whether anyone lied depends on what each person knew when speaking, and that is not established. What is established is narrower and still serious. The administrator gave the council an account that Compass's own records contradict. When a council member spoke to the paper, she reports being called in and reprimanded, at a meeting the mayor and other members did not know about, and she resigned the same day. A statement approved, by its reader's description, by the city attorney then put a list of accusations on the record against a man who could not reply that night, and the apology that followed retracted nothing.
The record supports some of what these three said. KMU's November 18, 2025 minutes document "performance issues." KMU's June 2025 minutes record a commissioner's concern about the time clock. Eggert acknowledged responsibility for some raised issues on October 20. Compass could find no customer application, and a substation transformer really may cost about $1.2 million. "Approved" is Helgeson's word, and no document shows what Riggs reviewed. Most of his advice is privileged and unseen.
Four documents would settle most of this
All five seats are on the ballot on November 3, and at least three will change hands. The records request for the September 21 packet asks for a response by November 5. Public comment reopens on November 10, and the mayor has said Eggert may speak. The documents that matter are the improvement plan, the time records, the purchase order, and whatever Riggs reviewed before October 29. The evidence behind every statement here is on the evidence page.
Questions every citizen should be asking
- Which of his October 13 statements will Lehner correct, and when?
- Who wrote the October 29 statement, and what exactly did Riggs approve?
- Why was a settled personnel matter read aloud at a meeting whose notice never mentioned it?
- Who decided to hold the October 23 meeting with Gard, and why were the mayor and other members not told?
- Where are the signed agreements, and what other city records cannot be found?
- What law required KMU's checkbook to be combined with the City's?
- Where are the time records and improvement plan behind "thousands of dollars"?
- What will a $5 to $6 million substation do to electric bills, and who compared the options?
- If this is how they treated a 48-year employee and a sitting council member, how will they treat you when you ask a hard question?
- Would you keep anyone working for you who gave this account, then said he may not have understood it?
- Who at City Hall answers to the people of Kenyon, and when was the last time one of them did?
- Are these the people you want leading your city?
An open letter
We are watching even closer now
We find all of this seriously concerning, especially the closing words of a statement read from the dais and described as approved by the city attorney:
"to the anonymous blogger who thinks Kenyon is some kind of 17th century Salem and is afraid to reveal themselves, please stop causing our community to be in an unnecessary uproar."
Scott Lehner
City Administrator
You signed the notice for this meeting, and you sat at the table.
Did you know that sentence was coming?
Scott Riggs
City Attorney
You sat at the table. Your attorney's oath binds you to both constitutions.
Did you approve that sentence?
Kim Helgeson
Council Member
You read those words, and you swore an oath to support the Constitution.
Did you write that sentence?
Do you all understand it?
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."
McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (1995)
An author's decision to remain anonymous "is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment."
"a narrow, succinctly articulable message is not a condition of constitutional protection"
Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995)
The Court named "the unquestionably shielded painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schönberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll." Our work is art and expression, and it stands on the same ground.
"graphic depictions and satirical cartoons have played a prominent role in public and political debate"
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988)
"may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest"
Terminiello v. Chicago (1949)
"vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials"
New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)
Debate on public issues should be "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open."
"all persons may freely speak, write and publish their sentiments on all subjects"
Minnesota Constitution, art. I, § 3
Near v. Minnesota (1931) struck down a state law used against "charges against public officers of corruption, malfeasance in office, or serious neglect of duty."
"privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs"
NAACP v. Alabama (1958)
Are you asking our team to surrender those rights?
The citizens of Kenyon are not dumb or unaware.
This is happening for a reason, and we are watching even closer now.
Sincerely,
Your favorite anonymous bloggers 😘
Photos: Scott Lehner, mnscsc.org; Scott Riggs, Kennedy & Graven.
