Lehner evicted the taco truck for "perception." The owners found out from the newspaper.

Taco Express is a food truck that for years parked beside the Kenyon Municipal Liquor Store, on city ground, under a limited use agreement. It ran a line to the building for water and power, paid the utility bills, and paid the city an annual fee for the site. On March 11, 2025 the council decided not to renew the agreement. Nobody had told the owners it was on the agenda.

The recommendation

City Administrator Scott Lehner, three months into the job, brought the item. The minutes record his reasoning: "He expressed concerns about the perception of the city renting space to a food vendor for a minimal fee when there are several other food businesses in town that own their lots and pay taxes." Acting Mayor Mary Bailey presided that night with the mayor absent, and the council voted not to renew the land lease agreement with Luis Tellez and Taco Express. The vote was among the routine items of a meeting that also authorized the liquor store to expand into the former NAPA building and to sell THC drinks and gummies.

The Kenyon Leader covered the meeting the following week. Its first version had to be corrected. The published note reads: "This story was updated to note to take out quotes that were misattributed and to note that Taco Express was paying for water and electricity while utilizing a site on city of Kenyon grounds." The corrected story quotes Lehner saying the truck had been paying for its own water and electricity but that its location on city ground "could be seen as unfair to other businesses in the city," and describes the council's aim as avoiding "potentially showing favoritism."

How the owners found out

On April 8, 2025 the family came to the council. Two women spoke for the business; the minutes name them as Bonnie Rapp and Brenda Tellez, the owners' daughter. The Leader, which printed the daughter's name as Brenda Rapp, reported what the past practice had been and what had changed.

In past years, we always got together and I always got a phone call from the administrator with a heads up on what was going to be talked through at the city hall, of any plans that were going to change. This time, I found out through the newspaper.The owners' daughter, as reported by the Kenyon Leader, April 2025.

Lehner apologized in the meeting. The minutes record that "Administrator Lehner apologized for not informing them of the decision before it came out in the newspaper." To the Leader he said he had been unaware that previous administrators had reached out to the owners before such decisions, and explained his reasoning: "My thought process at the time was, 'I don't wanna put the cart before the horse,' and then have the conversation, not sure which way the council was going to want to go." He acknowledged, in the paper's words, that ending the agreement on short notice "brought hardship to the owners." Council member Bailey added that "the other restaurants in town have maybe said some things about it not being fair." No restaurant is named in the record.

So that is totally on me.Scott Lehner to the Taco Express family, Apr. 8, 2025, 57:29, from the city's caption track, source

The reversal

Lehner then proposed the opposite of his March recommendation: let the truck stay on the site through 2025 so the owners could find a new location for 2026. The council authorized him to negotiate a limited 2025 agreement with Taco Express. The March decision, the April apology and the April reversal all appear in the minutes of the two meetings, three weeks apart.

The sequence is worth setting out plainly. A new administrator judged that an arrangement predating him looked bad, recommended ending it without speaking to the people it affected, and the council agreed. The people it affected learned from the newspaper, came to the next meeting, and got an apology and a one-year reprieve. Everything the administrator learned in April, that the owners paid their way, that prior administrators called ahead, that a March non-renewal fell on a business whose season was about to start, was available in March by asking. The council's stated concern, that other restaurants pay property tax and the truck does not, was never quantified, and the fee the truck paid was never compared to anything.

Perception was the reason given for ending the agreement. The perception the episode produced was of a city hall that decides first and hears from people afterward. The council corrected it in three weeks, which is to its credit. The correction was available in March for the price of a phone call, which is the point.

There's no excuse. I'm not trying to divert. I apologize to you sincerely.Scott Lehner, Apr. 8, 2025, 58:33, source

Sources

1. Minutes, March 11, 2025, Taco Express land lease agreement; recording.
2. Minutes, April 8, 2025, Taco Express request; recording.
3. Kenyon Leader, "Changes coming to Kenyon's municipal liquor store," March 2025, with correction note.
4. Kenyon Leader, "Taco Express agreement continues through 2025," April 2025.
5. Kenyon Leader, "Kenyon council delays street project over bid hangup," April 2025.

More from the record

City Hall · Jan. 14, 2025

Staff asked the council to fill two audit seats. The council deleted the committee instead.

City Hall · Mar. 11, 2025

Month four, first purchase of note: $2,500 of spray foam so no one can hear the administrator's office.

City Hall · Jan. 14, 2025

Kirchmann, Bailey and Brunner abolished the audit committee on one man's say-so. That man was the one being audited.

All 27, in order · The open letter · Every packet and recording