Lehner called the KMU superintendent a records-hoarder to his face. Four minutes later he was apologizing.
At 1:03:18 on the January 14, 2025 recording, the city administrator told the council he had heard the utility superintendent say he alone held the key to KMU's files. The superintendent said it was a lie. By 1:05:06 the administrator had apologized. In between, the finance director said she had asked for that key and been refused.
Scott Lehner had been Kenyon's city administrator for four weeks on January 14, 2025. The agenda item that night was a report, submitted under his name, asking the council to bring the municipal utility's operations and records under the administrator. Randy Eggert, the utility's operations superintendent, was in the room with the utility's commissioners and supporters. What happened over the next two minutes is the most direct personal confrontation in any Kenyon council recording on file.
The accusation
Lehner was near the end of his remarks. He had explained that the city's personnel policy and data practices policy applied to the utility, that he had met with every department head, and that some utility staff had told him "we don't report to the city administrator." Then he turned to something he said he had overheard.
When I hear an individual say in the office that I keep all these documents, I'm the only one that has a key, and you'll get my key from me to get the documents when I leave. That's what you said. I heard you say it.Scott Lehner, January 14, 2025. 1:03:18
Eggert answered from the floor: "I've never said that." Lehner: "Okay, I was standing right there when it was said." Eggert: "So now you're calling me a liar." Lehner: "Then yes I am." Eggert: "Saying that about me, that's a lie." 1:03:34
The witness
Lehner tried to move on: "I'm not gonna get into, we can take it offline if you want to, but I know what I heard because I documented it when I went back to my office. I don't know why I would make that up." Eggert repeated that he had never said it. Then Finance Director Whitney Kyllo spoke, and the exchange changed shape. "Who has the key to the file cabinet inside the IT room, the one that says KMU on it?" Eggert: "Yeah, I do." "Who else has a key?" "Nobody." She went on: she had asked him why she could not have a key, and he had told her "Riggs told me" that the only way "you guys can get the key" was when he retired 1:04:24.
Someone at the table asked everyone to "please stay focused on the subject." Eggert said he took "a little offense to someone calling me a liar when I heard it with my own ear, it is a lie." Lehner: "I take the offense too when you say it is a lie."
Who has the key to the file cabinet inside the IT room, the one that says KMU on it?Finance Director Whitney Kyllo, Jan. 14, 2025, 1:04:01, from the city's caption track, source
The apology
Then Lehner stopped. "Okay, well then let me apologize to you, Randy, and if that's not what I heard, but I heard it, others heard it, and I went back to my office and documented it. But if I got it wrong, let me be the one to say I didn't say, okay, so let me apologize" 1:05:06. He turned to Kyllo to present the finance side. She described two payrolls, two bank accounts, two sets of signers, and a bond payment the city had covered for the utility that the auditors caught a year later 1:05:41.
When Eggert read his own statement later in the meeting, he did not deny the key. He said the evaluations of utility employees "are in a lock file with keys kept by operation superintendent, which is me," that the finance director had asked him about it "about five months ago," and that City Attorney Scott Riggs had told him "I should be the one who keeps the files locked up and the holder of the keys unless some policy has been changed that I have not been given a copy of" 1:18:41.
Who was right
On the fact, the administrator. The cabinet existed, one person held the key, and the finance director had been told she would get one at his retirement. Eggert's own statement confirmed the first two and did not contest the third. On the delivery, the room decided. An administrator four weeks into the job accused a department head, in open session, of hoarding public records, and was called a liar to his face by the man who runs the utility's operations. The apology was the right move and it was the only move left. The accuracy of the underlying claim did not survive the way it was made, and the report that night, which asked for sweeping authority over the utility, passed instead as a direction for the two sides to sit down and talk.
Lehner had a witness and a documented note. He had the finance director, whose account carried the point on its own. The record shows he did not need to say "I heard you say it." He said it anyway, and the sentence the town remembers from that night is the one that came back across the table.
Before and after
- 35:53The administrator opens the KMU item.
- 1:03:18"I'm the only one that has a key ... That's what you said. I heard you say it."
- 1:03:41"So now you're calling me a liar." "Then yes I am."
- 1:04:01Finance Director Whitney Kyllo asks who has the key to the KMU cabinet in the IT room. "Yeah, I do." "Who else has a key?" "Nobody."
- 1:05:06"Let me apologize to you, Randy."
- 1:05:41Kyllo begins the finance case: two payrolls, two bank accounts, two sets of signers.
- 1:18:41Randy Eggert reads a prepared statement: the evaluations are in a locked file, he keeps the keys, and he says the city attorney told him he should.
What the statute says
"Responsible authority" in any political subdivision means the individual designated by the governing body of that political subdivision as the individual responsible for the collection, use, and dissemination of any set of data on individuals, government data, or summary data, unless otherwise provided by state law.
The report says city policy designates the administrator. A responsible authority who cannot open the cabinet has a real problem, which is why the point did not need an accusation to carry it.
People in this story
- Scott LehnerCity administrator, on the payroll since December 14, 2024
- Randy EggertOperations superintendent, Kenyon Municipal Utilities
- Whitney KylloFinance director; her questions established who held the key
- Scott RiggsCity attorney; named by the superintendent as the source of his instruction to hold the keys
- Don KirchmannMayor since January 2025; KMU commissioner
Sources
- City of Kenyon recording, January 14, 2025, at 1:03:18 to 1:05:06, 1:05:41, and 1:18:41; quotations from the city's caption track.
- Packet, January 14, 2025, Request for Council Action, pp. 130 to 133.
- Kenyon Leader, January 21, 2025.
More from the record
The KMU "violations" report was ghostwritten by the outgoing interim. It names no law, because there isn't one.
Kirchmann, Bailey and Brunner abolished the audit committee on one man's say-so. That man was the one being audited.
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