Controversy causes rift at city hall - II

Controversy festering at city hall came to a head Oct. 5 when Ward 2 city council member Terry Reetz was asked to leave the building before a regularly scheduled meeting was to be held.

When Reetz walked into the council chambers that Monday evening, he said city attorney Chris Beesley asked to speak to him privately in the hallway.

“I was told that an executive session would be held that night and I couldn’t be there,” Reetz said. Most such closed door sessions are held at the end of the meeting.

He went into the council chambers and sat down in his assigned seat. “I was asked to go in the hallway again by the city attorney and told that I didn’t understand. ‘You can’t be here. Go home,’ Beesley said to me,’” Reetz said. “I left the building.”

An executive session, where the public is excluded, was held at the beginning of the meeting. There is no public record of what happened at the private session and no action was taken when the council came out of executive session and resumed its regular agenda.

In the past, Reetz has been openly critical of what happens in these special sessions and has stated he will not comply to confidentiality requirements of such meetings.

“They (the council) want to get rid of me. They wanted to expel me  from the council earlier,” Reetz said.

“There is an obscure law that says a council member may be expelled for violating an established code of ethics, but we have no such code on the council,” he said.

Earlier efforts to establish such a code failed by a 4-2 vote by the council.

The only other way a council member may be removed from office in South Dakota is through a special recall election.

“In essence, I was supposed to go along with the council and not question anything,” Reetz said.

“I’ve been accused of dividing the community. I am. There has to be some order established. Decisions haven’t been wise because we haven’t been given full information,” he said. “When that doesn’t happen we don’t make good decisions and then there’s controversy.”

“I’m not trying to paint a picture that I’m the good guy and they’re the bad guys,” he said.

Reetz believes he has ruffled some feathers at city hall by asking some tough questions about liquor store revenues and other matters, like the slash pile burning/chipping above Pageant Hill and deer control programs, and more recently, the Gordon Street extension project and the Boot Hill lot purchase by the city.

In the case of the municipal liquor store, Reetz claims city finance officer Christine Redden provided different figures at different times on the profitability of the city-owned venture.

“We heard figures of $32,000, $36,000 and $41,000 at council and public meetings,” Reetz said. At one such public meeting on the sale or retention of the city liquor store, retired dentist Ed Himrich also disputed liquor store profitability numbers.

“Let’s get the numbers straight. We don’t know what the numbers are,” Reetz said.

“Christine was made manager of the liquor store, but none of her wages were taken out of the figures,” Reetz said. She is paid $54,000 annually and 25 percent of her salary is for managing the store.

At a recent city council meeting, Reetz suggested an independent audit be done of the financials of the municipal liquor store. Redden was heard to respond under her breath, “Tough s--t,” Reetz said.

She has also “editorialized” in her official report of city council minutes which by law has to be published in the newspaper. At the Sept. 21 council meeting discussion of the 2010 appropriations budget, she wrote, “Councilperson Reetz blustered about his concerns for approval of the ordinance and believes we should not have a liquor fund.” Bluster means to talk or act with noisy swaggering threats, according to Webster’s dictionary.

Redden has tendered her resignation to  the mayor and city council, effective Oct. 16, citing harassment, among other things. The council did not act on her letter at its Oct. 5 regular meeting.

Reetz also said $27,000 was spent by the city for design work done by Fennel Design of Custer on a new liquor store that was never approved by the council for construction. He said another local firm offered drawings for the building at no cost.

Reetz brought up different liquor store profit figures again at budget time last August. “Depreciation figures and her (Redden’s) partial salary showed the store is not making any money,” he said.

“If the land, store and liquor license were sold and 10 percent collected on liquor sales, it would be very beneficial for the city not to have the business. Sales tax would also be added,” he said.

“I do not know why the mayor is fighting to keep the liquor store,” Reetz said.

Finance officer Redden is not the only person at city hall who has butted heads with Reetz. City planning coordinator Rex Harris has also been questioned by Reetz about a number of matters, the most recent being the acquisition of a lot in the northeast part of Boot Hill by the city and the proposed extension of Gordon Street to the west out to Highway 385.

“We were told by Rex that everyone in Boot Hill was in favor of the city buying a vacant lot for an emergency access to the sewer plant. It turned out that this wasn’t the case at all,” Reetz said. “Residents there were not convinced the city’s motives were in their best interest.”

In the case of the Gordon Street extension project, Reetz said there was a problem with notifying the residents in the area about the project. “We were told by Rex that everyone in the area was informed about what was going to happen. That was never done either,” he said. 

“It isn’t that these residents are upset. It’s just that they were never properly informed,” Reetz said. “There are certain circumstances where homework has not been done.”

The councilman said he has been accused of micromanagment and interfering with the duties of city employees. He maintains he is just trying to verify information given to him by city employees.

For instance, he cites two cases where he checked on information the council was given by Harris and found it to be untrue. One was a slash pile chipping contract above Pageant Hill and another was a deer management question.

“Rex told us the slash could not be burned and that it had to be chipped. A $10,000 grant through the Forest Service brought the original $40,000 project cost down to a $30,000 project,” Reetz said.

“At a public meeting on the project, I asked Bill Bell (Forest Service employee and Custer volunteer fireman) if the slash could be burned and he said, yes,” Reetz said. 

He said the city ended up chipping some of the slash and burning the remainder.

“The council should be given good data by Rex so they can make good decisions,” Reetz said.

“I get accused of micromanagement. We have a guy making $50,000. We should get good data. From this data, we should be able to say yea or nay,” he said.

“Rex has the most powerful job in the city. He really does, in my opinion,” Reetz said.

On the deer management issue, Reetz said the council was told the only way of doing this was to shoot the deer. “Rex said Game, Fish and Parks (GF&P) would only approve this method. I knew an alternate archery plan had been submitted so I called GF&P and they said we could use this method (archery),” Reetz said.

“I asked Rex who the shooters were and where they were shooting and he said he couldn’t tell us. I called GF&P and they wouldn’t tell me either. They notified Rex and he accused me of trying to kill the program. I wasn’t against it. I was just trying to find out more information,” Reetz said.

He also said he was accused by some of feeding the deer in town. Before accusing him of anything, he said his accusers “better have proof.”

Reetz has been accused of stirring up controversy.

“You can make up your mind on that. I believe that a city council person is responsible to the people first and second to the council,” he said.

Reetz has also been accused of having a vendetta against the city council.

“Why would I have a vendetta against the council? I work there. I’m part of it. It’s ridiculous. I feel like the lone ranger and can’t get anything done,” he said.

“We need to get beyond this personal stuff. We have a lot of things to work on like road maintenance, sidewalks and an indoor swimming pool for the community.

“The community is smart, but it can only respond to the information given them,” he said.

“The easy way is just to forget it, but something inside you says you can’t walk away. You are stressed, but you just do it.”

Reetz is no stranger to controversy.

 He was the full-time planning administrator for the city from 1996 to 1998. There was a big controversy at that time over a zoning matter in a trailer court owned by a city council member and Reetz ended up being fired by the council. He was locked out of meetings at that time also. The entire city planning commission resigned over the matter and Reetz ended up settling with the city out of court.

Reetz served out a term on the city council in 1978 and 1979. He retired from the Forest Service in January 1995 after 30 years. He and his wife, Arlie, bought The Purple Pie Place in September 1997. 

Reetz has been representing Ward 2 on the city council since June 2008. He ran for Custer City mayor against incumbent Harold Stickney last April and was soundly defeated. 

“How all this will end, I haven’t a clue, but I know what I am striving for. I think we have a good city council, a good city and good employees. 

“Maybe the community had better wake up to what is happening. It’s not getting a fair shake, dammit,” he said.  “I think the city needs a cleansing.”