Kenyon could have hired its own interim administrator for the price of a job description. Nobody seconded.
In May 2024 a council member moved to write a job description and hire a temporary administrator from inside the city. The motion died without a second. The council hired an outside contractor instead, and eight months later hired his replacement.
Kenyon lost its city administrator in the spring of 2024 and spent six weeks deciding how to replace him for the interim. The decision came down to two motions at a special session on May 14, 2024, one to grow the position from inside city hall and one to rent it from outside. Only one got a second. The one that did shaped the city's finance and administration for the next two years.
Day one, again
City Attorney Scott Riggs opened the session by summarizing the history of the interim administrator search since April 1, 2024. The objective, he said, had been to bring an interim in as soon as possible. Then, in the words the minutes record, "the council is now back at day one again. No progress has been made to this point." Riggs had earlier contacted a retired administrator, interviewed the candidate with Mayor Doug Henke and council member Molly Ryan, and drawn up a possible contract. The council had tabled that contract to explore other options. On May 14 the options were on the table.
Council members gave their views, and several staff members said what they felt the city needed from an interim. KMU superintendent Randy Eggert was among those present. Then Mary Bailey made her motion.
Motion by Bailey to create an Interim Administrator job description and post to hire a temporary city employee. No second to the motion.Minutes, special session, Kenyon City Council, May 14, 2024. Meeting page.
Henke then moved, and Kim Helgeson seconded, "to direct the personnel committee to find an outside temporary interim administrator to hire and recommend their findings to the city council." That carried 5-0-0. The item listed next on the agenda, the interim administrator contract proposal, drew "no discussion."
What the outside route cost and produced
The personnel committee found Frank Boyles, who served as interim city administrator as a contractor from June 2024 until January 2025. His agreement took effect May 22, 2024, ran six months, and was extended on December 10, 2024 to January 31, 2025. In the meantime the council had also contracted the permanent search: on June 20, 2024 it hired Mike Humpal and South Central Service Cooperative for executive search services, and the candidate that process produced, Scott Lehner, was approved by Resolution 2024-26 on November 7, 2024.
Boyles's final act of consequence was to write, at Lehner's request, the January 14, 2025 report on Kenyon Municipal Utilities that opened Lehner's tenure with a public fight. The report describes its own authorship in the first paragraph: "The remainder of this report was prepared by Frank Boyles." An in-house temporary employee hired under Bailey's motion would have been a city employee under the personnel policy, answerable to the council, and would have left when the permanent hire arrived. A contractor, by design, leaves nothing behind but the invoices and, in this case, one report.
The council is now back at day one again. No progress has been made to this point.Minutes of May 14, 2024, recording City Attorney Scott Riggs's summary, source
The road not taken, taken later
The council never drafted an interim administrator job description. It did use the in-house path a year and a half later for a smaller job. In November 2025 Lehner worked with Abdo, the city's outside accounting firm, on a job description for a part-time administrative assistant, the personnel committee reviewed it, and on November 12, 2025 the council voted 4-1 to continue that hiring process, with Lee Sjolander opposed. The mechanism Bailey proposed in May 2024, a description written by the city and a posting filled by a city employee, was available all along. The council used it for the assistant. It did not use it for the administrator.
The record does not say why no one seconded. It says only that five members heard a motion to build the capacity inside the building and let it die on the floor, then voted unanimously to rent it. Two years later the same council would be asked whether to rent its finance department too, and would be told the two options were "a wash." The pattern started here.
Before and after
- Apr. 1, 2024The interim administrator search begins, the date City Attorney Scott Riggs later uses as its starting point.
- May 14, 2024Special session: Riggs says the council is "back at day one again"; Bailey's in-house motion gets no second; Henke and Helgeson's outside-hire motion carries 5-0-0.
- May 22, 2024Frank Boyles's interim agreement takes effect, for six months.
- June 20, 2024Helgeson moves, Bailey seconds, to approve Mike Humpal and South Central Services Cooperative for the executive search; 4-0-0.
- Nov. 7, 2024Resolution 2024-26 hires Scott Lehner; Ryan moves, Bailey seconds.
- Dec. 10, 2024The council extends Boyles's contract to January 31, 2025.
- Jan. 14, 2025The KMU report goes to the council over Lehner's name; its second paragraph says the rest was prepared by Frank Boyles.
What the statute says
The council may create departments and advisory boards and appoint officers, employees, and agents for the city as deemed necessary for the proper management and operation of city affairs.
The council had the power to create the interim position and fill it with a city employee, which is what Bailey moved.
People in this story
- Mary BaileyCouncil member; made the in-house motion
- Doug HenkeMayor; moved the outside hire
- Kim HelgesonCouncil member; seconded the outside hire
- Scott RiggsCity attorney, Kennedy & Graven
- Frank BoylesInterim city administrator under contract, June 2024 to January 31, 2025
- Scott LehnerCity administrator, on the payroll since December 14, 2024
Sources
- Minutes, special session, May 14, 2024, General Discussion of Interim City Administrator, in the June 11, 2024 packet.
- Minutes, June 20, 2024, executive search awarded to South Central Service Cooperative.
- Minutes, November 7, 2024, Resolution 2024-26 hiring Scott Lehner.
- Minutes, December 10, 2024, Resolution 2024-31 extending the interim contract to January 31, 2025.
- Packet, January 14, 2025, Request for Council Action, p. 130.
- Minutes, November 12, 2025, part-time administrative assistant, 4-1-0.
More from the record
The council told CEDA to report every quarter. CEDA has skipped eleven quarters and kept the contract.
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