Dispute erupts over Lessard-Sams Council candidates

[h2ofwlr]

Article by: DENNIS ANDERSON , Star Tribune
Updated: August 8, 2014 - 7:15 AM

Some members of the Lessard-Sams Council balk at limited options for next director.


When a handful of people describe something as normal that is, in fact, preposterous, it doesn’t mean the subject in question is normal. Rather, it’s still preposterous — unless no one rises to argue otherwise.

Such was the case Tuesday when Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council chair David Hartwell and a handful of like thinkers on the council delivered two finalists — two — out of 35 applicants for the job of the group’s executive director.

The full council was informed on Monday that they were expected to name a new executive director from the two candidates, both hand-picked by Hartwell and a council subcommittee he selected.

Maybe that’s normal. Maybe it’s preposterous.

The job pays about $107,000 and is, or should be, one of the most important in state conservation: The council helps dole out $100 million annually in Legacy Act money to benefit game, fish and wildlife.

To that end, the executive director helps set the council’s agenda, keeps the council informed about on-track conservation projects and those that fail to launch, and — especially — helps guide the council in its effort to conserve and protect as many natural resources as possible in the next 20 years that Legacy funding will be forthcoming.

Current executive director, Bill Becker, is retiring.

There’s no telling how the vote for his replacement would have proceeded had the council been forced to select one of the two candidates. But a vote was never held because some council members balked at the process.

It has since been learned that two of the five finalists were well-known, experienced state conservationists.

One was Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association. The other was Mark Holsten, a former legislator who served with distinction in that capacity, and as Department of Natural Resources commissioner under Gov. Pawlenty.

Somehow we are expected to believe their résumés were deficient to those of the two chosen finalists: Heather Koop, assistant director and project analyst manager for the Lessard-Sams Council, and Kevin Bigalke, district administrator for the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District.

In charge of paring down the original field of applicants was the Legislative Coordinating Commission (LCC), a state bureaucracy whose responsibilities are vast and diffuse. It claims to be apolitical. But Bob Anderson, mayor of International Falls and a veteran of governmental commissions, including those charged with hiring key personnel, thinks otherwise.

Anderson is on the Lessard-Sams Council and was one of the five members Hartwell named to choose the final candidates.

“I told the LCC flat-out that they were political in their choosing of candidates,” Anderson said.

Hartwell said Tuesday that formation of the council subcommittee was necessary because the full council is subject to the state’s open meeting law, meaning its review of finalists would have to be done in public. The five-member panel, by contrast, could meet behind closed doors, thus preserving the candidates’ privacy.

But council vice-chair Jim Cox, along with members Scott Rall, Ron Schara and Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, disagreed.

“We could have easily reviewed five finalists’ résumés by redacting their names and calling them Candidates 1 through 5,” Cox said. “Furthermore, anyone applying for a job like this would know that at some point a public interview was possible.”

Cox, along with Anderson, Rall and Ingebrigtsen, said Tuesday that unless at least five final candidates are brought in for interviews before the entire council, they won’t participate in the process.

“Either bring in five,” Anderson said, “or start the process over.”

If you’re given to paranoia, there’s plenty here to ponder. Before passage of the law establishing the Lessard-Sams Council, Hartwell opposed the idea. Now he runs it. And Rep. Rick Hansen, DFL-South St. Paul and also a council member who on Tuesday resisted the idea of expanding the applicant pool, twice has introduced bills to disband the Lessard-Sams Council and give sole control over its $100 million to the Legislature.

Here’s what should happen: Hartwell should ensure that at the council’s next meeting in early September, at least five finalists are brought before the entire body or start anew.

The council should also keep in mind that the position they’re trying to fill isn’t so much a job as a calling.

Said Schara: “We need someone with a passion for conservation to fill it.”

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Dispute erupts over next Lessard-Sams director

By Dave Orrick, St Paul Pioneer Press
Posted: 08/07/2014 12:01:00 AM CDT
Updated: 08/08/2014 08:45:58 AM CDT


A dispute has erupted over the hiring for a key position in Minnesota's $100 million annual Legacy Amendment spending for the outdoors, with at least four members of the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council threatening to boycott the process.

Three members of the council, including one lawmaker, walked out of the council's meeting Tuesday in protest over the process of hiring a new executive director, and a fourth member said he won't participate any further.

In addition to exposing rifts within the council, the result of the dispute is that the top staffer of the state's largest deer hunting organization will get a second chance at becoming the council's executive director. But a former lawmaker and commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources won't be reconsidered for the job.

At issue is the replacement of the council's executive director, Bill Becker, who is retiring. Filling the position is a complex process that involves both the Outdoor Heritage Council and the Legislative Coordinating Commission, an arm of the Legislature that administers personnel and business matters for legislative commissions.

"The whole process is a farce," said Outdoor Heritage Council member Jim Cox, one of those who walked out of Tuesday's meeting and said Thursday that he doesn't want to participate any more. Cox and fellow members Scott Rall and state Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, walked out of the meeting after they were foiled in an attempt to interview more candidates than the two finalists presented to the council. They, as well as council member Bob Anderson, said they'll refuse to participate any further.

The maneuver angered some of the other council members.

"I am so embarrassed by what should be a council of 12 professionals," said board member Sue Olson, who pleaded with those who left in protest to stay. On her Facebook page the next morning, Olson posted: "The four members didn't like the result, so they took their ball and went home. We have a job to do, and if they prefer to walk out instead of doing their job, perhaps they should leave the Council altogether."

KEY REPLACEMENT

The Outdoor Heritage Council, a panel of citizens and lawmakers, evaluates proposals and makes recommendations to the Legislature on how to spend the portion of the 2008 Legacy Amendment's sales tax hike that goes toward the outdoors. That's a third of all Legacy Amendment proceeds and has totaled about $100 million annually in recent years.

Becker, who is paid about $107,000 a year, is the only executive director the council has had, and his successor will be tasked with shepherding the council's funding recommendations through the Legislature. Becker, a 65-year-old veteran of state government, and a handful of staffers also administer grants from the Outdoor Heritage Fund, which are doled out to groups ranging from Pheasants Forever to local watershed districts to restore, protect and enhance wildlife habitat throughout the state.

The Legislature has adopted the vast majority of the council's recommendations, which have totaled roughly $500 million since 2008. But the process has been punctuated by Capitol controversies, such as two years ago, when Gov. Mark Dayton used his line-item veto to strike several expenditures hand-picked by lawmakers but not endorsed by the council.

The Outdoor Heritage Council is unique in Minnesota government. Members of the citizen-dominated, 12-member panel are variously appointed by the House, Senate and governor. Under Minnesota law, "Upon coordination with the Legislative Coordinating Commission, the council may appoint nonpartisan staff and contract with consultants as necessary to carry out the functions of the council."

The council's operating procedures say: "The Council selects and recommends the individual who will serve as the Council's Executive Director to the Legislative Coordinating Commission."

Earlier this year, the council decided to let LCC staff review the resumes of applicants for the executive director job and winnow the field of candidates, although several council members, including Cox, Rall and Anderson, now say they believe that was a mistake.

CANDIDATES WINNOWED

Thirty-five people applied for the executive director job. LCC staff culled the list to a handful, and after interviews and some back and forth with a five-member panel of the Outdoor Heritage Council, two finalists were presented to the full council Tuesday: Heather Koop, an assistant director and project manager for the council, and Kevin Bigalke, administrator of the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District in the west metro.

For most members of the council, the two finalists were all they saw. For some, that wasn't enough.

"When I opened up my council packet and I saw two, I was like, 'Really?' " council member Ron Schara said. The critics said their dissatisfaction wasn't a reflection on Koop and Bigalke, but some comments suggested otherwise.

"This is the guy -- Kevin Bigalke?" Cox asked several times during the meeting, discounting Koop as an insider. "This is the most qualified?"

Schara described the options as "a coin toss."

Outdoor Heritage Council chairman David Hartwell said he appointed only five members to the panel that consulted with LCC to avoid a quorum of any committee of the council -- so the names and resumes of the applicants would remain secret under the state's Open Meeting Law and Data Practices Act until finalists were interviewed by the entire council.

LCC staff interviewed six candidates and passed along four names to the council panel. One candidate withdrew. Hartwell's panel interviewed three candidates and recommended Koop and Bigalke.

BIG NAMES

On Tuesday, Schara, Cox, Rall, Ingebrigtsen and Anderson, who was on Hartwell's panel, pushed for the entire council to interview all five viable candidates interviewed by LCC staff. When that effort failed by a 7-5 vote, and an effort to expand the interview pool to three failed 8-4, Cox, Rall and Ingebrigtsen walked out in protest.

"Clearly, we're not where I wanted to be," Hartwell said. Remaining council members then voted 7-2 to reconsider the idea of interviewing three candidates. Those interviews are likely to happen Sept. 9, 10 or 11.

That third candidate who will now be interviewed is Mark Johnson, executive director of the Minnesota Deer Hunters Association, LCC director Greg Hubinger said Thursday. MDHA is the largest deer hunting organization in the state. The group routinely applies for and receives funding from the Outdoor Heritage Fund for habitat projects benefiting deer, moose, grouse and other woodland wildlife.

Last year, Johnson sent the Lessard-Sams Council a letter opposing a plan to use $2.8 million from the Outdoor Heritage Fund to buy 956 acres for the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. That project eventually was approved, but controversy over it exposed tensions over American Indian treaty rights.

Johnson declined to discuss his candidacy, other than to say, "It's an extremely important position for conservation in Minnesota, so I'm honored to be considered for it."

Koop declined to comment for this report. Bigalke could not be reached. When asked how Koop and Bigalke reacted when they learned they would not be interviewed until September, and that a third candidate was back in the mix, Hartwell said that "the two were disappointed" but that each decided to proceed.

Adding another wrinkle is the revelation that Mark Holsten, a former lawmaker and DNR commissioner from Stillwater, was one of the two candidates interviewed by LCC staff but eliminated, according to several people. Holsten, a Republican, was appointed DNR commissioner in 2007 by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. He was succeeded by current commissioner Tom Landwehr, a Dayton appointee.

As a member of the state House of Representatives, Holsten successfully pushed for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to hunt and fish as well as the Legacy Amendment.

"Was I surprised that he was eliminated? Yes, based on his resume, very definitely," said Anderson.

Schara, who said he didn't learn of Holsten's name until after the meeting, said Holsten's partisan past shouldn't disqualify him from being interviewed by the Outdoor Heritage Council.

"My gosh, he's a former DNR commissioner," Schara said. "I don't care what political party he came in on. I thought he did a good job."

Hartwell and several other council members declined to comment on Holsten's candidacy for the job. Holsten couldn't be reached for this report.

The plan is for Becker's successor to work alongside Becker, who'll depart in November, preparing the council's next wave of recommendations this fall.

Becker, Hartwell and Hubinger said that timeline isn't in jeopardy.