Heeding the advice of the Emily City Council — that the matter regarding whether council member Jan Mosman is a resident of Emily or not was better suited for a higher court system and not the city council members — Donna and Mark Sutton are taking their case to district court.
“We are following the advice and the request of the Emily City Council and are filing with the district court to determine Jan Mosman’s residency,” the Suttons said in an email.
Emily City Council decided that yes, Mosman was a resident of the city and thus able to serve on the council during Tuesday’s meeting.
An ongoing issue since the March 12 Emily City Council meeting, the Suttons have remained firm in suggesting that council member Mosman is not a resident of Emily but instead claims residency in Eden Prairie. With the claims, a request was made for Mosman’s removal as an Emily City Council member.
Mosman previously said she has important reasons to go to the Twin Cities often but they are personal. Addressing the issue after Sutton raised it at the March 12 meeting, Mosman said she moved to Emily and spends more time there than anywhere else but also has a home on two acres in Eden Prairie. Mosman noted the tough housing market and said one homestead was enough.
Council members sided with the fact that Mosman “has not ceased to be a resident of Emily” and came to the conclusion that they were not comfortable with declaring her spot as a council member vacant during Tuesday night’s meeting.
During discussion, many council members also felt that the situation should be better handled by the state in setting forth guidelines on a person’s residency and ability to run for city government.
“They (the state) have no guidelines on who can run for public office and the only thing that I’ve seen is if the person running for office is a resident of thirty days prior to election,” council member Gary Hanson said. “Well I don’t know if she (Mosman) was here 30 days prior and when it comes down to it the decision comes back to us the council and I think that it’s wrong that they’ve done this and put us in this position.”
The Suttons’ attorney through this entire process, Mark Severson, said in an email: “The Suttons and other citizens of Emily are considering taking this matter to the District Court. The process would begin with the filing of a summons and complaint in Crow Wing County District Court, which would then begin the discovery period where we could request documents, ask interrogatories and depose Jan Mosman, among others.
“While there is a strong contingency in Emily that has already expressed a desire to take that route, we are in the process of deciding what to do and how to do it. I believe the city council simply chose to punt this issue to the district court.”
JESSI PIERCE may be reached at 855-5859 or jessi.pierce@brainerddispatch.com. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jessi_pierce (@jessi_pierce).
Comments (3)
Add commentThreats and Intmidation tactics?
This effort to take specific law, tear it apart, and twist it into something it was never meant to be, has now become even more bizarre and emotion driven.
The law being cited is not for this situation. That law gives an elected body a process to deal with a situation wherein an elected person walks away and does not participate in the office for which they were duly elected.
Ms. Mosman was deemed to have met the conditions for residency and qualified for the election when her name was cleared by the MN election process to be on the ballot. She was the number one vote getter for two open seats.
She has not walked or run away, and she is very much the public servant for the citizens of Emily. That, also, was cited by Council Members per the news reports.
All of that is (now) clearly evident. So, why did this assault and stalking behavior erupt, and is now being fanned further?
I hear that it is no secret that Ms. Mosman reportedly ruffled insiders' feathers by publically asking questions about Crow Wing Power, and their subsidiary Cooperative Minerals Resources. That business configuration is completing an exploratory drilling for manganese within the City of Emily. To this point, it is understood that the project’s initial set-up and operation have been at considerable expense to the city without the city being paid for any materials extracted thus far. And a few - including the Suttons - have been contractors who provided significant services to and were paid by the mining endeavor for this pilot.
The drilling raised more questions for those involved, as well as for many citizens. Those are questions that need to be addressed factually, clearly, and in depth. Ms. Mosman was publically asking such questions - not making derogatory and defaming statements, like those now being made about her.
So, if this is how paid vendors of cooperatives are answering the honest questions, by leading an emotional tirade and attempting to intimidate a duly elected official through a distorted attempt at a re-call process (which is not a MN option in such a situation), then let's call it for what it is, and not be duped by smoke screens.
And, I for one would call on Crow Wing Power and Cooperative Minerals Resources to quickly step up and to support the City and Ms. Mosman by publically expressing their dismay at such a nasty turn of events.
And I call on them to be making it publicly clear to their vendors that such actions reflect very poorly on CWP / CMR vendor selection criteria.
Anything less from CWP / CMR would tend to suggest they might know more about the Sutton's campaign than they do about the iron and manganese ores they are sampling and trying to understand.
Can we count on CWP and CMR? I certainly do hope so.
*Concerned Citizen and CWP Member*
Nothing to do with CWP or CMR
This case has nothing to do with CWP or the CMR project. It is simply about the Emily Board. Lets not make assumptions here.
I think lake should
speak for herself.