St. Cloud City Council meeting descends into accusations of open-meeting law violations on Monday

St. Cloud, MN (KNSI) – Things got a little heated at the end of St. Cloud’s City Council meeting Monday night as Councilmember Mike Conway requested an investigation alleging other members of the council are guilty of multiple open meeting law violations.

Conway specifically accused councilmembers George Hontos and Dr. Karen Larson of breaking the rule through email and other forms of communication.

His request was to let a third-party view all emails from council members since the beginning of the year to make a determination if anything improper occurred.

Conway planned to discuss the possible open meeting violation at the November 6th meeting but withdrew the item from the agenda due to Dr. Larson’s absence. 

The item was added back to November 20th’s agenda but was removed by a majority vote, and there was no further conversation on the issue. 

Conway brought the issue up again for a third time during the open discussion portion of the city council’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 4.

Following the meeting, Conway said: “We’ll let the authorities look at it, review [it] and see if my belief is correct or not. So that’s kind of where we’re at. And now it is moved from the council having the open discussion to now we are going to have another agency look at [the] possibilities.”

No timetable for the investigation was given.

After the meeting, Councilmember George Hontos said he wasn’t about to be pushed around by Conway. 

Hontos said: “I do believe that his tactics are unfortunate. He acts as a bully, and he tries to intimidate and the last person he’s going to intimidate is myself.”

He also accused Conway of making a mountain out of a molehill. 

Adding: “I think it’s very childish on his part to initiate a censure for something that was an email communication that copied everybody on the council. And it had to do with procedure of the council, an internal thing.”

Hontos stated the emails had nothing to do with taxpayers, a development, a project, or anything on the agenda coming forward.

Renee Courtney, St. Cloud City Attorney, said Minnesota’s open meeting law regarding email communication is complicated and unclear, and every case is different.

An open meeting law violation could result in a civil fine of up to $300. If an elected official is found to have violated the open meeting law three times, they could be removed from office.

Story by Jake Judd / KNSI