By LAUREL BEAGER
LBeager@cherryroad.com

Petitions to recall four International Falls city councilors are based on growing concern about the council’s policies, increased spending and a lack of transparency in the council’s actions.

It is not personal, and it does not involve the quality of the work done by the Falls police or any other city employee.

Those are the messages that Ed Bates, one of the organizers of the petitions, wants to be sure people understand about the recall petitions.

Councilors

Named on the petitions are At-Large Councilor Mike Holden, West Ward Councilor Walt Buller, Center Ward Councilor Tim Wegner and East Ward Councilor Pete Kalar.

Kalar and Wegner told the Rainy Lake Gazette that the recall petitions are the right of the citizens of International Falls. The other option if voters want change is to wait for an election, Kalar said.

“In the charter is the opportunity for recall petition if you’re not happy with how your councilor or councilors are doing their job,” Kalar said.

“That’s democracy,” said Wegner, admitting he was disappointed in the recall petitions. “At this point it is what it is.”

Holden and Buller declined to comment.

Mayor Drake Dill, who said he’s not involved in the petition, said he agrees with the organizers that there is a real disconnect between the citizens and city government. He said he believes the council has been angered by public input.

“As much as politics is about personalities, at the end of the day we took the oath to afford people a voice,” he said. “I try and remember that, but the city council is not interested in anything I have to say.”

With 90 days as mayor under his belt, he said no one in the city government has asked what his goals are. “It’s been quite the contrary. It’s been a setup; it’s been the other councilors’ agenda, and I don’t think it’s consistent with what our citizens want.”

Petitions

Meanwhile, Bates said there is no deadline on the petitions, but said when he feels all eligible voters who want to sign have signed, he would deliver them to the council during a regular council meeting. He won’t speculate on how many signatures have been obtained.

A group supporting the recall has rented space at 903 Third St., International Falls, where people may sign the petition during hours that are posted on a sign at the building and on social media. He said there is no hurry to submit it to the city.

Bates said the petition must be signed by a number of qualified city voters equal to at least 25 percent of the total vote cast for that office in the last city election in which that official was elected.

Should the recall cause a special election to replace the councilors, Bates said there are people who are considering throwing their hat into the ring, but he would not name them.

And he said he hasn’t ruled out running for a council seat should it be recalled, he said.

Should the petition be certified, an election will decide whether to recall the official is conducted. If the vote to recall is successful, the council may appoint someone to fill out the remainder of the term, or it may call a special election to fill the vacant seat.

How it started

Bates, who has lived in the city for about 11 years, said he first began watching council meetings virtually in 2020 during the pandemic, when actions to close local boat launches seemed ridiculous to him. He had more questions about city government and began to pay attention and spoke to city staff.

“What I found was that the way City Hall looks at it versus the way that the people look ed at it was very different,” he said.

And then he began taking notes of council meetings and sharing them on a local social media forum, and interest by others in city government began to grow.

Bates grew up in a politically aware family, so his interest in local politics is not new.

What was new was his discovery, he said, that getting information from city government is not always easy, and he and others began to seek the information through other legal avenues. “I stopped asking the city for information because what I found is that they would give the information that they wanted me to have, not necessarily the information I wanted.”

He began asking a lot of questions when a 14-percent levy increase was proposed for 2022 and discussions began about a more than $1 million ambulance deficit. Recent plans by the council to spend $2.7 million on city garages and a multimillion plan to rehab the former KOOTASCA building to house the Falls police spurred questions and action by local property taxpayers, he said.

And while he said it’s likely that some of the spending the city has proposed may be needed, it may be set at a higher cost than Falls residents can afford and was proposed and mostly discussed in committee meetings not widely attended by the public.

“People are really engaged now,” he said adding that a few years ago the council talked about how it could get its message out but then seemed to pull back from that when people got involved.

An engaged community is a strong community, he said, but he understands the council may not like the way he’s encouraged involvement.

The Feb. 18 city council meeting, when the council adopted on a 4-1 vote a plan to renovate the former KOOTASCA building to house police – despite pleas from numerous people to slow the plan for more consideration – was when he seriously began thinking about a recall petition.

Kalar has been accused of using vulgar language about one, perhaps two, people who spoke at the meeting. Bates said it was obvious the council was frustrated by the input from citizens. And he said the council’s lack of reaction to those accusations should be unacceptable to all, including the council itself.

Bates said he’s been accused by some people of causing division and hatred in the town with his social media reports and petition drive and disagrees. While he said the process to recall councilors may be difficult for the community, the idea is to encourage a coming together of the community.

Much of the frustration by the public is because they don’t feel respected nor listened to by the council, he said. And they don’t feel the council is providing enough information about the spending decisions they make.

“I am an advocate of complete transparency at our local government level,” he said, adding he’d like to see regular town halls so councilors could talk about projects and needs and hear back from the citizens, to see more information on the city’s website, and for the council to record and post on its website all committee meetings, where much of the discussion about projects and plans takes place.

Bates said he decided to launch petitions to recall all four councilors because it appears they don’t see that Dill was overwhelmingly elected in a write-in campaign on a mandate from voters. And it’s become clear in Dill’s first three months in office that the mandate would not move forward with the council’s current make-up.

And while just city voters are involved, he said the council’s actions affect a larger community, because International Falls serves as the county seat, an economic hub and is involved in services used by non-residents.

Bates said he’s glad that he’s hearing support for the time and effort he’s put into to trying to raise awareness of city government.

“If I can make a difference in my town, and if doing it in my town inspires other towns or someone else to go to a council meeting in their town… I think it’s absolutely amazing – people getting involved in their school boards and their local governments. I think it’s great.”