At the previous County Board meeting a vote resulted in the position of the county recorder remaining an elected position. However, talk about the recorder’s position continued at the most recent board meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21 beginning with the public comment portion of the meeting when Milton Steele addressed the commissioners.

“I’ve been doing some research on appointing people. Darrin Esser was elected and left office for no public reason. Then, Jessica (Blair) was appointed and was in for a very short time and she left. I had a chance to ask her – it was about the time you thought they were being underpaid – and I asked her is it money why you’re leaving or is it the environment? Her only answer was, ‘It’s not the money,’ Steele said. “Then you appointed Amy Sathoff and then all of the sudden, poof, she’s gone. I believe there was another appointment after her that didn’t show up for the first day of work. I believe to the best of my recollection that’s what happened. Then you appointed Kari Jacobson and after awhile she was gone. Now Chuck is here and I guess we will just have to wait and see.”

Steele then went on to comment about commissioner Bruce Anderson’s statement from a previous meeting that there were 50 Minnesota counties who filled the county auditor’s position by appointment.

“I got ahold of Julie Ring from AMC (Association of Minnesota Counties) and she said that it was around 50 but she had no idea if there was ever anybody that never showed up for work, or came very sporadically, after being elected,” Steele commented. “So when you mentioned a bigger number at the last meeting and mentioned Wabasha County, I called and talked to the county auditor from that county and she had no knowledge of someone not showing up for work after being elected.”

Steele then shared his thoughts on the appointment process.

“We are counting on three or four people to make the decision on who should be appointed without the rest of the board having any inkling on what the other applicant’s resumes were,” Steele remarked. “I don’t think the track history has been all that great. I would rather the position remain elected. The whole county can’t be wrong.”

Discussion on the county recorder position resumed when the board considered a motion to appoint Kelly Hendrickson as the interim county recorder.

“The county received 11 applications,” Human Resources director Amanda Shoff told the board. “Of these the top four candidates were interviewed and Hendrickson was identified as the top candidate.”

Through discussion it was also learned that two of the final four candidates were currently employed in the recorder’s office.

Commissioner Tom Loveall mentioned that in the past many appointments had been made in-house, such as when Darrin Esser, who worked in the auditor/treasurer’s office, was appointed to replace retiring auditor John Thompson.

“Were either of the two candidates from the recorder’s office the person who filed a complaint or grievance, which was found to be unsubstantiated, against the county coordinator Hov or HR director Shoff?” Loveall asked.

Chairman Greg Young, who sits on the personnel committee with commissioner Anderson, along with Hov and Shoff, stated that the ultimate decision to bring forward the name to the board after the interviews comes from he and Anderson.

Loveall expressed his concern that based on what he had been told four or five months ago by the county’s labor attorney, Susan Hanson, that you have to be careful about taking action that could be seen as retribution.

“Could we be opening a case of litigation against the county?” Loveall asked. “That’s my concern.”

“When we went through all the applications and interviewed all the applicants, Kelly Hendrickson was the most qualified for the job,” Anderson stated. “She was a recorder from another county. She was a county auditor/treasurer and recorder from another county. She had more experience, she worked with an attorney’s office and looking over everything, she was the most qualified person for the job at this time.”

“We work with county attorney Cameron Davis on all these things,” Young added while addressing Loveall’s concern. “And we are also in contact with Susan Hanson’s law firm. They are super cautious so we do not get in the situation that you are concerned about.”

Commissioner Getrude Paschke, who served as the county assessor for many years, offered her thoughts.

“I do have concerns because in most cases there has been an in-house application process where you open it to the people within the county first. And we have somebody that has more than 20 years of experience right there,” Paschke stated. “I was across the way and went right in there (recorder’s office) on many occasions. This position is very detailed. These are our legal records, they are historic. We have someone right there with more than 20 years of experience. I need to understand why it wasn’t opened – the succession plan for that department was poorly done.”

Paschke then listed how the succession plan had been carried out for the auditor/treasurer office with Esser taking over for Thompson and how Scott Adams was appointed when sheriff Mike Gormley retired and how when she retired, Brady Rauenhorst moved into the position.

“We need a succession plan to be able to carry on,” Paschke continued. “I believe with all my heart that we had somebody in house and I feel that was a total disservice. I have nothing against this person, nothing at all against this gal you guys have felt to be the top candidate. I don’t understand why there wasn’t a proper succession plan. It was like that department was held hostage.”

“Who held that department hostage?” Young asked. “Those plans are all put in place by the head of the department. Maybe in this case that person wanted to leave it open to get the best person.”

Young then closed discussion and the motion to appoint Hendrickson passed on a 3-2 vote with Anderson, Bill Groskreutz and Young voting in favor of the appointment and Loveall and Paschke voting against.

Anderson then addressed the public comment from the beginning of the meeting.

“I did misquote. I had said 57 out of the 87 counties had appointed a recorder. As of January it is actually 60 out of 87,” Anderson said. “Regarding the recorder position in Wabasha County, the person that’s in there now is doing an excellent job and was appointed. The problem that they had, from what I was told from another recorder, another auditor/treasurer and a retired auditor/treasure, that it was the elected officer that had the problems and he resigned on Dec. 31 of 2023. There were a lot of things that were really old school that they had problems with and it’s taking them a lot of time to get it all corrected because they have to go back through all of the years he was working.”