To the Concerned Citizens of KenyonYour Questions, Answered From the Record

Since the Kenyon Leader reported on October 21 that the city may owe millions for power to the industrial park, members of the Concerned Citizens of Kenyon group have asked a long list of reasonable questions in the comments. Some of the answers circulating are right, some are half right, and some are wrong in ways that move the blame to the wrong years and the wrong people. This page takes each question in turn and answers it from the City of Kenyon's own records. Every claim links to the page it comes from. Where the record is silent, we say that too.

"The park was planned in 2020. Shouldn't the power have been planned then?"

It was planned then, and it was built. The Kenyon Business Park/Utility Extension Project was designed by the city's engineers, Bolton & Menk, and built by A-1 Excavating. Storm sewer and grading were finished on December 23, 2020 (January 12, 2021 packet, p. 13). Engel Drive and its turn lane were paved in July 2021 (July 13, 2021 packet, p. 9; August 10, 2021 packet, p. 11). By October 2022 the city was marketing the lots as "Served by all utilities; 3 phase electric, Natural gas, Sewer, Water" (October 26, 2022 packet, p. 14). In December 2025 the city put it in writing to the buyer: "primary electric distribution infrastructure is installed and is available to the Development Property" (December 9, 2025 packet, p. 55).

What no one could do in 2020 was size a transformer, let alone a substation, for a building that did not exist. An industrial park is built with streets, pipes, and distribution lines. The transformer is sized to the customer, because the customer's load decides it. Kenyon Municipal Utilities' own rules say so: a new customer files an Application for Installation of New Service with its projected load, and "it is the intent that the customer fill this out at the same time that they apply for a building permit" (KMU rules, Appendix 1B). The customer here, a roughly 750 kVA cannabis grow, was approved on December 9, 2025. Its building permit was issued by Goodhue County on August 19, 2026. Those are the dates when the power for this building had to be arranged, not 2020.

"The engineers, the city engineer, and the people in charge back then should have caught it."

The 2020 engineers built what a park with no tenants needs, and the record shows no defect in that work. The question of whether this particular building would get enough power came up in October and November 2025, when the developer told the EDA coordinator it would draw "Around 1000-1500 amps @ 480 volts, 3 phase." On November 10, 2025 the coordinator told the developers that "Kenyon utilities should have not issues providing the needed power for the facility," and on November 13 the EDA's hearing minutes recorded that the utility had "confirmed that the anticipated utility demand will remain within the city's current capabilities." The load figure reached the utility superintendent and the city administrator in the same email on December 17, 2025, eight days after the council approved the sale (The City's Own Files). That is the gap. It happened in late 2025, not in 2020.

"Lehner didn't come to Kenyon until after the park was built."

That is true, and it is the reason the 2020 argument does not hold. The park was finished in 2021. Lehner was hired on November 7, 2024 and attended his first meeting on January 14, 2025. Every decision about this building came after that. The utility's staff have reported to him since May 13, 2025, under an Administrative Staff Supervision Agreement he presented and the council approved. He attended the EDA meetings of July 22 and August 26, 2025, when the cultivator first pitched the park. He was present on December 9, 2025 when the council approved the sale with its written promise of installed power. He was present on January 20, 2026 when the KMU minutes recorded that "KMU will purchase and install the transformer for Firebird LLC." These are not inferences. Each one is in the minutes (Lehner Lies!).

He also received emails about this, and the City's own production shows them addressed to him at slehner@cityofkenyon.gov:

• December 17, 2025, 9:55 AM. The EDA coordinator forwarded the developer's load figure, "Around 1000-1500 amps @ 480 volts, 3 phase," to "Randy Eggert" and "Scott Lehner," with the instruction to "use 1,500 amps when developing your numbers" (EM Re Firebird-Falcon.pdf).
• October 8, 2026, 2:02 PM. CMPAS's chief executive sent him a meeting invitation titled "substation and new customer," with the agenda "New substation related issues" and "New customer and related issues," for 11:00 AM on October 13 (Teams Meeting Substation and New Customer 2026-10-8.pdf).
• October 8, 2026, 2:19 PM. Seventeen minutes later, CMPAS forwarded him the Kenyon Long Range Plan scope of work, whose options include "Addition of new substations," together with Randy Eggert's August 14 reply: "Jay I give my authorization to go ahead to proceed" (EMf Jay Anderson 2026-10-08.pdf).
• October 12, 2026. He forwarded the CMPAS services agreement to the interim superintendent himself: "Was sent to Randy in July" (Emf Jay Anderson 2026-6-3 Master Distribution Services Agreement.pdf).
• October 13, 2026, 10:57 AM. The "substation and new customer" invitation was sent to him again, three minutes before the meeting began (Teams Meeting Substation and New Customer 2026-10-8.pdf).

That evening he told the council CMPAS was "hearing about that for the first time" 38:09. Five days earlier, his inbox held a scope of work for new substations that the utility had authorized in August. That morning, he was invited to a meeting with CMPAS about the substation and the new customer. All of these files are posted at kenyonminnesota.com/records. None of them came from his own mailbox; the City has not yet produced it.

"Where were the mayor and council? This should never have fallen on one person."

It did not fall on one person. Four public bodies approved this project, and each relied on the same assurance. The EDA approved the purchase and development agreement after its November 13, 2025 hearing, where the minutes recorded that the utility had "confirmed that the anticipated utility demand will remain within the city's current capabilities." The only document the City has produced behind that confirmation is the EDA coordinator's November 10 email, sent before the utility had the load figure.

On December 9, 2025 the City Council approved the agreement, including its promise that "primary electric distribution infrastructure is installed and is available." Attorney Scott Riggs presented it. The motion was made by Council Member Lee Sjolander and seconded by Council Member Mary Bailey, who chaired as acting mayor, and it carried 4-0. Council Members Sjolander, Bailey, Elana Brunner, and Kim Helgeson voted. Mayor Donald Kirchmann was absent. City Administrator Scott Lehner was present. The minutes record no discussion of power before the vote (minutes of December 9, 2025, in the January 13, 2026 packet, which the City filed as "1-13-25"). The KMU commission then decided on January 20, 2026 to buy the transformer, with Lehner present.

The council had also, on May 13, 2025, approved the agreement placing the utility's staff under the administrator's supervision. The checks existed on paper. What the record does not show is any of these bodies asking for a load study or a cost estimate before the sale was approved.

"CMPAS told him they didn't know about it."

On October 13 Lehner told the council that CMPAS, the power agency KMU belongs to, was "hearing about that for the first time" 38:09. The City's own production says otherwise. A CMPAS meeting summary records a May 13, 2026 meeting with Xcel Energy that covered a "New substation near Kenyon's Industrial Park." On August 14, 2026 the KMU superintendent authorized CMPAS's engineer to begin a long-range plan that includes new substations. On October 5, 2026 CMPAS's chief executive wrote that "A new roughly 750 kva load (grow facility) is coming to Kenyon," as a known fact, not a discovery. Whatever was said in a first meeting between the administrator and CMPAS, the agency's own email shows it had been working on Kenyon's substation since May (The City's Own Files).

"First there was no transformer, now it magically appeared."

Both halves have a document. There was never a missing transformer in the sense the October 13 account suggested. The KMU commission decided on January 20, 2026 that KMU would buy and install it. The supplier's drawing for a 750 kVA dual-voltage unit, headed "Kenyon Municipal Utilities," is dated September 23, 2026. On October 19 the utility asked the supplier for the purchase order and a delivery date, and on October 21 the supplier answered: "We will deliver this this morning." The transformer did arrive, and it was ordered by the utility. What the City has not produced is the purchase order itself, which would show who signed it and when. That record was requested and is due today.

"The transformer costs a million dollars."

It does not. The City's own estimate to the developer on January 2, 2026 put the transformer at $25,000 within a total of $38,250 to prepare the lot. At the KMU meeting on October 20, 2026 the departing superintendent put the ordered unit at about $31,000. When a commissioner asked where the million came from, the minutes record Lehner's answer: "the $1 million is the estimated costs of providing electrical service to the Falcon project." At the same meeting the substation estimate rose from the "$3 to $5 million" given the council a week earlier to "approximately $5–6 million." The City has produced no quote, estimate, or engineering study behind either the million or the substation figures (City production, October 26, 2026).

"The builder should pay for the hookup, not the city."

Under KMU's rules, mostly yes. The utility's standard policy "allows for up to two times the annual expected revenue to be expended on providing a new service. Any cost in excess of this is defined as 'excess facilities' which the customer will be expected to pay as a prerequisite of service" (KMU rules, Section 2). On December 16, 2025 the KMU commission voted to have the superintendent "get an estimate for electrical based on the load provided by Firebird LLC and charge them upfront." The complication is the city's own promise. The sale agreement told the buyer that power was "installed and is available," and the lot was advertised with three-phase service. How that written promise squares with the utility's rule is a question for the city attorney and the council. The record does not yet answer it.

"Will residents pay for this in property taxes?"

The record does not show that yet, and no one should claim it does. Electric service is paid out of the electric fund, which is funded by electric rates, not the property tax levy. Two facts bear on that fund. It has run losses in some recent years: +$907,000 in 2023, −$124,000 in 2024, +$160,000 in 2025, and about −$200,000 so far in 2026. And on October 13, 2026 the council approved Joint Resolution 2026-37, a $350,000 loan from the electric fund to the EDA fund for land purchases, at 2 percent over ten years (October 13, 2026 packet, p. 135). Whether a substation is needed for this one customer, or would have been needed anyway, is not settled by any document the City has produced. That answer decides who pays.

On the broader complaint that taxes keep rising, the levy record is plain. Kenyon's adopted property tax levy was about $0.95 million in 2019 and $1.53 million certified for 2026, an increase of roughly 61 percent over seven years. On September 8, 2026 the council set a preliminary 2027 levy of $1.67 million, up 9.26 percent; the final levy, adopted in December, can be lower but not higher. One line in that levy touches this story. The EDA levy is $82,249 for 2026 and $95,327 in the 2027 draft, up 15.9 percent, and the EDA fund is the fund that must repay the $350,000 electric-fund loan. That loan is for buying land, not for power to the industrial park, but it is repaid by a fund the property tax supports. The full levy by fund is on the budget page.

"This site is AI-generated and pulls from the council videos. Take it with a grain of salt."

Do not take our word for anything. Take the City's. Every claim on this site links to a council packet page, a set of minutes, a time stamp in the city's own video, or a file the City itself released. Open page 55 of the December 9, 2025 packet and read the sentence about installed power. Read the 131 files the City produced on October 26. The videos are a small part of it. Most of what is new came from emails the City released under the Data Practices Act, and none of it is in any video.

"Randy is being made the scapegoat." "Randy didn't do his job."

The record speaks to the second claim directly. Nothing in the City's production shows Randy Eggert failing to do anything he was asked or required to do. On December 16, 2025 he raised who would pay for the new service. On January 20, 2026 he reported KMU would buy the transformer. Through the EDA coordinator he asked the developer for the transformer size in April 2026 and the amperage in July; the answers were "It will be some time before we get an exact number" and "Not yet." He authorized the long-range plan in August. The developer's stamped electrical drawings are dated September 18, 2026, eight days after he was placed on leave (The City's Own Files).

On the first claim, the scapegoating happened on the record, in the administrator's own words, and every statement he used to do it is contradicted by the City's own files.

He equivocated first. Asked on October 13 who had "dropped the ball," Lehner said: "I'm not going to point fingers," then, "I'm thinking you guys would be able to figure out maybe where the ball was dropped" 44:35. A council member answered that if he meant the one person just let go, it should not fall on one person. He did not correct that. Twenty-four seconds after refusing to point fingers, he pointed: "I can say it was with one person. It should have been shared, but it wasn't" 44:59.

Then he made four statements that the record shows are not true:

• "It should have been shared, but it wasn't." It was shared, and it was shared with him. The load figure was forwarded to "Randy Eggert" and "Scott Lehner" in the same email on December 17, 2025 (EM Re Firebird-Falcon.pdf). If the information sat with one person, he was one of the two people who had it.
• CMPAS was "hearing about that for the first time" 38:09. CMPAS had met with Xcel about a substation near the industrial park on May 13, 2026. On October 8 it sent him the substation scope of work the utility had authorized in August, and invited him to a meeting on "substation and new customer" held the morning of the council meeting.
• A contract "sent out on July 2nd" drew "no response and no signatures" 39:26. The night before, he had identified the document himself in writing: the CMPAS services agreement, a template sent to every member utility, "Was sent to Randy in July." By September most members, not only Kenyon, had not returned it. It was not a contract for the industrial park. This is the one point where the City's files show the fact in his own hand the day before he gave the council a different account.
• A transformer "we probably should have ordered a couple years ago" would run "on the upwards of a million dollars" 39:01. The decision to buy the transformer was made on January 20, 2026, with him in the room. It was ordered and delivered on October 21. The City had estimated it at $25,000, and a week after his remarks he told the KMU commission the ordered unit cost about $31,000 and that the million was "the estimated costs of providing electrical service" overall.

Each of these statements moved responsibility away from the administrator's office and toward the superintendent who had been separated three weeks earlier and was not in the room to answer. None of them matches the documents the City itself released. The production gives no reason for the separation and contains no finding of misconduct. The September 21 minutes record that Eggert said he signed his separation because he "felt pressured." Whether there was harassment or duress is not something any document we hold can settle. The September 21 packet and any allegations against him have been requested and are due November 5.

"He's barely in the office." "He keeps asking for raises." "He took a second job."

None of these is in any record we hold, in either direction. We have not seen an attendance record, and we have not seen a document about a second job. On pay, we asked for the administrator's salary and every change to it since his hire. The City produced an unsigned copy of his employment agreement and no salary records. That item is due today. Until those records exist, these are claims, and we will not repeat them as fact.

"Look up his last job."

We did. His two years as Nowthen's first city administrator, from his hire in July 2022 to his resignation in December 2024, are set out from that city's own packets and minutes in Nowthen, What Do We Have Here? The record there shows a long fight between the council and the administrator over spending, staff, and authority. It also shows a resignation, not a firing, and we found no discipline. Read it and judge for yourself.

"What can residents actually do?" "Petition." "Ask the candidates."

The administrator is appointed, not elected. The council hired him by Resolution 2024-26, and only the council can review, discipline, or remove him under his employment agreement. Kenyon is a statutory city, and Minnesota provides recall elections for city officials only where a home rule charter creates them, so there is no recall in Kenyon. A petition has no legal force, but residents may present one to the council, and the council must decide what to do with it in public.

The election on November 3 matters here. The city's website lists the terms of Mayor Kirchmann and Council Members Helgeson, Gard, and Sjolander as ending in 2026. This site takes no side in the election. Every candidate can be asked the same four questions, and the answers can be checked against the record:

• Will you ask the council to review the October 13 statements against the City's own files?
• Will you require a written load study and cost estimate before the city promises utilities to any buyer?
• Who should pay for service beyond KMU's two-times-revenue rule: the buyer, the electric ratepayers, or the taxpayers?
• Will you direct the City to produce the administrator's own correspondence on this project?

Meetings are open, the packets are posted, and every resident can ask for the same records we did under the Data Practices Act; inspecting public data costs nothing. The City's deadline for the rest of our request is today, October 29. If it passes unanswered, we will ask the Commissioner of Administration for an advisory opinion on October 30, and we will post whatever comes back.

"What about the apartment project, and the school?" "Solar panels?"

The apartment project is covered in Kenyon Crossings: The Risk Is the Developer's, which sets out from the September 8, 2026 packet what the city has and has not committed to. The school is a separate government. The Kenyon-Wanamingo School District has its own elected board, budget, and levy, and the City Council does not run it; the district has been in statutory operating debt since 2022, as the Kenyon Leader has reported. The district's record is on the schools page.

Solar would not solve this. A grow facility draws power around the clock, solar produces only in daylight, and the building would still need its grid connection and transformer. KMU already buys part of its power from wind through CMPAS. The question here is not where the power comes from but who arranged, promised, and will pay for the connection.

What the record settles, and what it does not

The park was planned and built correctly in 2020 and 2021 for a park with no tenants. The power for this tenant had to be arranged between late 2025 and 2026, while the utility reported to the current administrator, who attended the meetings where the lot was pitched, sold, and promised power. CMPAS was working on the substation by May 2026. The transformer was decided on in January, ordered, and delivered on October 21 at a cost the City put at about $25,000 to $31,000. The record does not yet show what full service will cost, whether a substation is needed for this load, who signed the transformer order, or who will pay. Those answers sit in records the City holds and has not released.

Questions, corrections, and documents are welcome at team@kenyonminnesota.com. If anything on this page is wrong, send the record and we will fix it.