Okeson takes over as Becker Board Chair

By Robert Williams

Editor

After a tumultuous meeting to end 2023, the Becker County Board of Commissioners opened up the New Year with a change of leadership after the unanimous decision to make John Okeson the board chair.

“I would like to throw out a challenge to all of us commissioners for the coming year,” Okeson said. “That we go back and look at our 101 Commissioner training, what we were actually elected for and try to abide by that for the coming year.”

David Meyer was nominated for Vice Chair and elected unanimously.

Changes to Committee Assignments were tabled until the next meeting; commissioners will continue with their current assignments until that time.

After a calm start to the meeting under Okeson’s authoritative tone, the feeling in the room quickly reverted to last month.

Joe Stenger of Detroit Lakes spoke to the board during the open forum on behalf of outgoing county administrator Pat Oman.

Oman recently accepted a position in Florida as the City Manager in Fort Meade.

“The board should understand that you are working for the people and the people vote you in,” said Stenger. “What you’re doing here is not what the people want? The people want to keep him.”

Stenger addressed issues brought up by the board about Oman’s duties, including communication, the wage study and union contracts and then went after a portion of the board, namely commissioners Nelson, Jepson and Meyer.

“I think there is some lying going on here,” said Stenger. “I’ve requested a data privacy request for your guys’ phones and I’m going to see what’s going on here and I’ll report back the next meeting.”

Oman signed a contract last week to become the new city manager of Fort Meade and expects to join the city on Monday, Jan. 22.

Later in the meeting, the county administrator performance review, which was tabled last month, was next on the agenda. 

The review began with Nelson asking Oman directly if reports were true that he had signed a contract with another agency.

Oman quickly shot back, “I’m here to do my performance review; I’m not here to talk to you about my private life. You can defer to your attorney on what you’d like to do with the performance review.”

The question of whether Oman can continue to work in Becker County with a contract signed with another government agency was addressed.

Commissioner Richard Vareberg, who has been a strong advocate for Oman, spoke in his defense.

“He’s just looking out for himself because, unfortunately, people here don’t watch out for him and it’s too bad because he’s one of our best employees,” Vareberg said. 

Okeson noted he had not seen a resignation letter from Oman, thus, he assumes he is still employed.

Nelson made a motion to table the administrator review until the Feb. 6 meeting or call a meeting earlier if a resignation letter is submitted. Nelson cut off Vareberg multiple times while making the motion and Vareberg continued with his defense of Oman.

“None of you have any good reasons for getting rid of this man,” he said. “Erica, you brought up our attorney fees. I checked on them. They have nothing to do with him. Dave, you brought up the wage study. They have nothing to do with him. You talk about communication. He’s one of our best employees. I watch him protect our employees. I watch when we have trouble with an employee. He fixes it. Everything is so much better around here, but Erica, because you guys are with the union and your union Roger Meunier (Teamsters Local 320) doesn’t like him, that’s why you want out. Barry has abused him and ruined his relationship with him and that’s why he wants out. Everybody has broken the rules here, except this guy,” Vareberg said pointing to Oman. “He’s the only thing standing between you people and our employees.”

Vareberg received applause from the audience as he asked the board to figure the issue out today, rather than delay by tabling the evaluation until February.

The vote to table was passed 3-2 with Nelson, Jepson and Meyer voting in favor. Oman does not have the ability to speak in his defense during an evaluation. The route of tabling it to February creates a current stalemate where Oman will either resign eventually and take the Florida position or not.

Controversy in Florida

The Fort Meade City Manager position is not without its own controversy, that has been addressed by Joseph Turner, on his podcast “City Manager Unfiltered.” In his latest episode, Turner discussed the impending arrival of Oman with the campaign manager Greg King of incoming Fort Meade Commissioner Jaret Williams, who did not have any input on Oman’s hiring. 

Turner previously spoke with former Fort Meade City Manager Jan Bagnall, who declined to be interviewed for the second portion of the interview series after receiving multiple threats since their first interview aired on Wednesday, Dec. 13.

According to Turner, Bagnall received threats; his wife was accosted at a local grocery store and people were driving by their home, along with more threats if he continued a second interview with Turner.

Williams will not take his seat as a commissioner until Tuesday, Jan. 9. King is also involved. 

King, a Fort Meade native, claimed the town is worse than it has ever been.

He has also been paying attention to Oman’s evaluation process in Becker County and noted that part of the evaluation had to deal with Oman being discourteous to a commissioner.

“We won’t accept any discourtesy to anyone, whether they are friend or foe in Fort Meade,” said King. “It’s not going to be the best thing. It’s just not.”

King called Oman’s evaluation “a disaster.”

The full episode can be heard at citymanagerunfiltered.com