A Forest Lake man died Aug. 11 after sustaining injuries in a head-on collision between a passenger car and a semi-truck near the border of Scandia and May Township.

According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, personnel from the sheriff’s office, the Forest Lake Police Department, North Ambulance and the fire departments of Scandia and Marine were called to the scene of the crash around 8 a.m., at the intersection of Manning Trail North and 180th Street North. Brandon Pranghofer, who was in the car, sustained serious injuries in the crash, and first responders initially prepared to transport him to the hospital. However, he was ultimately declared dead at the scene (an earlier press release from the sheriff’s office reported that he had been hospitalized).

Pranghofer, who was the only person in his car, had reportedly been driving south on Manning Trail when his car crossed the center line near the intersection and collided with the semi-truck.  The semi-truck driver was not injured. Manning Street North near the scene of the crash was temporarily closed, and the Minnesota State Patrol is assisting in the crash investigation. At this time, law enforcement is still investigating the factors involved in the crash.

Submitted photo
Forest Lake police officer Ashley LaValle chats with two Forest Lake residents during the Aug. 2 Night to Unite festivities in the Bayview Estates Park neighborhood.

A Spring Lake Park man was charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct after allegedly groping a 12-year-old girl at the Forest Lake Target.

According to court records, Caleb David Wolfgram, 27, was also charged with criminal sexual predatory conduct related to the incident, which reportedly happened July 15. Wolfgram’s criminal complaint states that a Target employee called 911 after employees witnessed a woman following Wolfgram out of the store, claiming that he had groped her daughter.

Forest Lake police interviewed the girl, who said that she and her two sisters had gotten permission from their mother to visit the water sports aisle. While she was there, she felt someone reach between her legs and grope her genital area. When she turned around, she said, she saw Wolfgram, who apologized sarcastically. The girls found their mom and told her what happened, and she confronted Wolfgram.

Wolfgram allegedly claimed to have been with his girlfriend the entire time he was in Target, but this did not match up with his girlfriend’s story. Security video allegedly shows Wolfgram following the girls down two aisles before touching the 12-year-old.

Wolfgram has previous convictions on three counts of interference with privacy, two of them specifying that the interference was against a minor. The convictions are related to Wolfgram photographing minor females shopping in clothing departments, changing in the dressing room, and one instance in which he photographed up a woman’s skirt.

Threats

Luke Allen Daniels, 33, of St. Paul, was charged with making terroristic threats after allegedly threatening to kill a woman on the Fourth of July.

The evening of July 4, Forest Lake police responded to a reported domestic assault on Fourth Street Southeast. According to court records, a woman, who shares a child with Daniels, told police that Daniels had brandished a knife at her while he was visiting for the holiday. Daniels had allegedly been drunk and belligerent, and when the woman told him to go outside, he pulled a knife out of a drawer and told the woman he would kill her and that he was “ready to die.” He allegedly stabbed a wall and refrigerator door and told the woman that he would kill police if she called them, at which time the woman left the home, taking kids who were in the home with her.

The following are other recent Washington County court cases related to the Forest Lake area:

• Terrie Lynn Tornio, 45, of Forest Lake, was charged June 23 with theft.
• Cali Kristina Anderson, 29, of Forest Lake, was charged July 15 with a fifth-degree drug crime.
• Justin James Tuma, 18, of Wyoming, was charged July 20 with third-degree aiding and abetting burglary.

The Lakes Area Youth Service Bureau is offering a new unique risk assessment meeting that parents and guardians of teens can take advantage of without any referral from an official agency. They can simply call and make an appointment.

During a trained risk assessment, a trained diversion staff will lead youth through two confidential risk assessment tools. MAYSI-2 is a brief chemical, behavioral, and mental health screening tool. The first part is a self-report survey for youth to fill out. It is scored by the staff immediately. The second part is a one-on-one follow-up interview to see if any of the elevated scores translate into an immediate crisis that would call for a referral for services.

YLS/CMI 2.0 is the Youth Level of Service Inventory to assess the risk level for possible future illegal decisions. The first part of the tool is an eight question one-on-one interview with the youth. The second part is a continued follow-up interview to determine what areas of the youth’s life may be putting them at risk for future unhealthy decisions.

After the youth and staff have finished going through the different interviews, a brief family conversation takes place where the staff will relay to the parents or guardians any general concerns in different area of the youth’s life along with recommendations for possible courses of action to address those areas. All specific information shared by the youth does stay private and confidential unless there is a concern for the youth’s safety or the youth agrees to release that information.

Parents or guardians of teens interested in taking advantage of this new risk assessment for teens can contact Lakes Area Youth Service Bureau at 651-464-3685 for an appointment. Callers should let the person they speak with know they would like to make a “parent referral” for a risk assessment meeting with Heidi Christensen.

Contact Matt Howard with questions by e-mail at matt.howard@ysblakesarea.org.

The Minnesota State Fire Marshal is investigating a suspicious fire that occurred at 14751 Hornsby St. in Columbus Aug. 18. The call of the fire at the abandoned home came in around 3 a.m. The fire was fought by the Forest Lake Fire Department as well as firefighters from Wyoming and Scandia, but the home eventually burned down. The fire is being investigated as suspicious because the home has been abandoned for several years and has no electrical or gas hookups. It was frequented by area youth. Anyone with information about the fire is asked to call the Minnesota Arson Hotline at 800-723-2020.

A 23-year-old Forest Lake man was charged with criminal sexual conduct after allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old girl in mid-August.

Travis Alex Rehbein was also charged with depriving another of parental rights and child neglect.

According to court records, a woman reported the sexual encounter between her 13-year-old daughter and Rehbein on Aug. 14. The girl said she met Rehbein, who was using the alias “Travis Boss” on Facebook. Rehbein allegedly messaged her on Facebook and asked her if she wanted hang out. The two met at Target and went to Rehbein’s apartment in the 900 block of 12th Street Southwest.

While the girl was at Rehbein’s apartment, she allegedly heard a bang and found an unattended toddler in a bathroom. The toddler had allegedly been left home alone while Rehbein was at Target.
Rehbein allegedly offered the teen beer and vodka before having sex with her. When the girl came home, her mother smelled alcohol on her breath and eventually learned that the girl had sex with an adult. When police went to Rehbein’s apartment, they were reportedly met by his girlfriend, who told them he had just told her he’d had sex with a 13-year-old.

Upon further investigation, police made contact with the toddler’s mother, who lives in California, where Rehbein also lived until recently. The mother told police that Rehbein took her daughter and that she has been trying to get her daughter back but she hasn’t been able to afford to travel to Minnesota.

Assault

A Fridley man was charged with second-degree assault and domestic assault after he allegedly traveled to Forest Lake and attacked his ex-girlfriend with a two-by-four.

Joshua Shaine Defoe, 32, has been convicted of two prior domestic assault counts in 2009 and 2014. On Aug. 23 around 2:40 a.m., Forest Lake police responded to a home in the 600 block of Fourth Street Southwest after receiving an assault report. After a search of the home, officers found Defoe as well as his ex-girlfriend, who appeared to be hiding a fresh head wound under a hoodie.

After interviewing witnesses, police learned that Defoe had been texting his ex all day and threatening to come over, though she did not want him to come. Eventually, he came to the home and allegedly chased the woman before getting into a fight with a man at the residence. The woman tried to separate the two, at which point Defoe allegedly grabbed a two-by-four piece of wood and hit her in the head. He tried to hit her multiple times more.

Meth sale

A Forest Lake man who was allegedly found with methamphetamine sale paraphernalia on his person at a traffic stop has been charged with first-degree drug sale.

According to court records, Derrick Antionio Spangler, 26, was a passenger in a vehicle in Landfall that was pulled over for speeding. When an officer approached the vehicle, he saw Spangler allegedly attempting to hide something, and the officer searched the vehicle and found almost 69 grams of meth, as well as a several empty bags believed to be for meth sales. The officer also allegedly found a small digital scale in Spangler’s bag and more than $600 in cash on his person.

Threats

A Forest Lake man was charged with making terroristic threats after allegedly threatening to kill a Woodbury man and his children Aug. 10. According to court records, Woodbury police learned that Dennis Michael Deloye, 37, had left a threatening voicemail for a man who lived in Woodbury. Deloye allegedly said in the voicemail that he knew where the man lived and if the man so much as looked in the direction of a certain other person, Deloye would track down the man, slit his children’s throats and then kill the man. Police tracked down the phone number that made the call and reportedly confirmed that it belonged to Deloye.

The following are other recent Washington County court cases related to the Forest Lake area:
• Samantha Rose Deason, 22, of Forest Lake, was sentenced June 15 for child neglect.
• Brock David Miller, 24, of Stacy, was sentenced July 18 for a fifth-degree drug crime.
• Keith Joseph Walton, 26, of Stacy, was sentenced July 21 for financial transaction card fraud.
• Kyle Jon Gonier, 31, of East Bethel, was sentenced July 25 for a fifth-degree drug crime related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Nicholas John Berchem, 25, of Scandia, was sentenced July 25 for a fifth-degree drug crime.
• Tyler John Plummer, 21, of an unknown address, was charged July 29 with a fifth-degree drug crime related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Robert Willard Hammond, 29, of Forest Lake, was charged Aug. 8 with reckless discharge of a firearm within a municipality.
• Joseph Daniel Meyer, 36, of New Richmond, was charged Aug. 9 with two fifth-degree drug crimes related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Walter Scott Rudd, 55, of Scandia, was charged Aug. 10 with failing to report as a predatory offender.
• Patricia Lenore Howe, 46, of Forest Lake, was charged Aug. 10 with second-degree aiding and abetting a drug sale.
• Tyler James Anderson, 23, of Milaca, was charged Aug. 11 with second-degree aiding and abetting a drug sale related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Anthony Patrick Quast, 27, of Little Canada, was charged Aug. 12 with a fifth-degree drug crime related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Erica Rose Wylie, 25, of St. Paul, was charged Aug. 12 with a fifth-degree drug crime related to an investigation in Forest Lake.
• Joann Lindstrom, 46, of Forest Lake, was charged Aug. 16 with a fifth-degree drug crime and trespassing.
• Stephen Thomas Paul, 56, of Forest Lake, was charged Aug. 17 with multiple drug counts and multiple counts of fleeing from a peace officer in a motor vehicle.
• Joshua Richard Sommer, 26, of Forest Lake, was sentenced Aug. 18 for a fifth-degree drug crime.
• Brandon James Schoberg, 28, of North Branch, was sentenced Aug. 25 for a fifth-degree drug crime related to an investigation in Forest Lake.

A motorcycle driver killed himself Monday night after a high speed chase that ended in the Forest Lake rest stop off of Interstate Highway 35.

The man, whose name has not been released, was first involved in a police confrontation in Oak Grove (the details of the confrontation are not yet known, but the man was suicidal at the time). He then fled east on his vehicle to Wyoming, where Wyoming police began pursuing him around 10 p.m. He then drove onto I-35 South and drove into Forest Lake. Forest Lake officers were called into pursuit but were not yet on site when the man drove into the rest stop.

When the man drove into the rest stop, he lost control of his motorcycle in the stop’s south end and crashed. Before Wyoming officers could get out of their squad cars, the man dropped to his knees, drew a handgun and shot himself in the head. He was declared dead at the scene.

The Forest Lake Times will release more information about the driver’s identity and the circumstances that led to the chase as they are released by law enforcement.

Due to an outside threat to a student, both the Forest Lake High School and Century Junior High buildings are currently under containment and will remain as such until the end of the regular school day Sept. 14. According to police, no one at the school is in any serious danger at the moment. Students will follow normal end-of-day procedures.

The buildings are under what is defined as a site containment as opposed to a lock down. A site containment occurs when there is a potential threat outside the building and law enforcement or district administration advises this action. All exterior doors are monitored to prevent someone from entering the building and regular classroom schedules are followed except for outdoor activities.

No additional information is known at this time. The Forest Lake Times will follow up on this story and post more information when it becomes available.

A good turnout at a first responder’s appreciation picnic at the Forest Lake City Center overflowed one of the center’s community rooms. Above, volunteers served attendees, firefighters and police officers during the picnic. Below, after the meal, attendees got a tour of the fire hall from Forest Lake Fire Chief Alan Newman.

The passing of a military hero, no matter the circumstances, results in an aftermath their children and families must endure for a lifetime. The goal of Cruise for Troops is to honor the sacrifices made, help restore a sense of normalcy to the families left behind, and ease a financial burden while providing a solid educational foundation for their child’s future. The goal for 2016 is to raise $50,000.

What started as a small tribute to troops with 35 cars and group of friends has now turned into the largest combined car and motorcycle cruise in the upper midwest and a day of celebration for thousands. The eighth annual Cruise for Troops event will take place Sept. 24 at Running Aces Casino and Racetrack.

The event will kick off at 9 a.m. with on-site registration at a cost of $20 per vehicle. Throughout the day there will be activities to pay tribute to troops, including many displays, a replica tomb of the unknown soldier, the USA-1 monster truck, and much more. The opening ceremonies take place at 11 a.m. with speakers and a reading of the names of fallen Minnesota troops since 9/11. The cruise will take place from noon to 2 p.m. The celebration continues once the cruisers return with a car and motorcycle show, food, live rockabilly music by the Holy Rocka Rollaz, a silent auction, raffle, vendors, and kids activities. All are welcome to take in the sights and sounds of the car and bike show for a suggested $5 donation.

Funds generated at the Cruise for Troops will go to the Fallen Heroes Children’s Education Fund within the Tribute to the Troops organization. Tribute to the Troops is an organization of grateful Americans dedicated to preserving the memory of the men and women of the military who lost their lives while bravely protecting freedom. For more information, visit www.cruisefortroops.org.

Forest Lake police confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the body of a 74-year-old Stacy man was found submerged in the Southwest Junior High School community pool Oct. 4 after an unspecified amount of time. The man, whose name has not yet been released, could not be resuscitated.

“It’s a tragic thing to have happened,” Forest Lake Area Schools Communications Director Ross Bennett said, adding that the school district’s thoughts and prayers were with the man’s family.

The man was noticed and emergency personnel were called around 3 p.m. According to the school district, the man was part of a community education class at the pool earlier in the afternoon and did not leave the pool afterward. It is not known how long he was submerged in the pool, but his body was discovered and removed from the pool by some Forest Lake swim team student athletes and a lifeguard, the latter of whom tried to resuscitate the man as first responders were called. An airlift helicopter responded to the scene, as well as an ambulance and several squad cars from the Forest Lake Police Department and Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Editor’s note: This article is the first in a two-part series examining the relationship and recent history between the Forest Lake City Council and the Forest Lake Police Department. Part one will cover some of the factors that led to this issue becoming controversial in the community as well as the dissolution of the city’s Civil Service Commission. Part two will cover department scheduling discussions and current perspectives on the relationship.

These days, you might read a letter to the editor about it, overhear a conversation at a local watering hole or see a homemade campaign sign mentioning it. As election season has heated up in Forest Lake, the local discussion surrounding the City Council’s relationship with the Forest Lake Police Department has only continued to grow.

In the 10 months since the council voted to lay off a patrol officer, that discussion never really went away. But now, with votes on the line, some local outsider political factions have begun using it as a campaign issue, while others have insisted that the council’s votes on the matter have been good moves for local taxpayers. The Forest Lake Times spoke with council members, police officers and other involved parties to get their perspectives on the situation and on what, if anything, should be done to ease the related tension in the community.

Origins

Forest Lake community members have rallied before when they thought the Police Department could be hurt by a council decision. In the fall 2014, after the City Council requested a $1 million reduction in the 2015 preliminary levy, City Administrator Aaron Parrish brought back a number of budget cuts that included two police officers. Residents turned out in droves to protest the cuts, and the council ultimately agreed and decided not to lay off police staff.

However, the present day discussion of department-council relations has its roots in the council’s December 2015 decision to approve the layoff of patrol officer Max Boukal. The layoff came after the council asked Police Chief Rick Peterson to cut about $90,000 from the department’s 2016 budget, a reduction of slightly more than 2 percent. Residents overflowed from the council chambers to protest the layoff, but it was approved by a 3-1 vote, with Mayor Stev Stegner and Councilmen Ed Eigner and Ben Winnick voting in favor and Councilman Richard Weber voting against (Councilman Michael Freer was not at the meeting but had spoken against the layoff previously). The layoff and the lead-up to it sparked community organizing on social media and calls for boycotts on Winnick’s and Stegner’s businesses, among other efforts.

“I think the laying off of Max Boukal had an impact on the department in the fact that we have a certain amount of officers to fill the mission of this police department, and each one of those officers has a job to do,” Patrol Sgt. Mark Richert told The Times, saying that Boukal’s layoff means that the community is losing around 2,000 hours per year of an officer answering calls, writing police reports and working in and for the community.

Besides the community effect, Richert said, Boukal’s layoff was felt internally by officers, although he was quick to add that the police force has made it a priority to keep residents feeling unaffected by the staffing loss or officers’ personal feelings.

“There was a negative result to the morale of the police department,” he said.

As the only council member who voted for the layoff who is running for a city office this year, Councilman Winnick has felt the brunt of the backlash to the decision this fall. The mayoral candidate said that though he didn’t want to lay off an officer, Boukal’s position was the only significant cut offered to the council.

“This, from the beginning, was a budget issue,” he said, noting that the Fire Department and other city departments had produced budget reductions for 2016. “In my opinion, (2 percent) was not an unreasonable request.”

While Forest Lake’s population has risen by more than 2,000 people since 2010 – up to an estimated 19,654 in 2015 – the department’s calls for service have fluctuated. After a sharp increase of about 1,200 additional calls in 2012, the calls for service have gone up and down in smaller increments since then, with last year’s 15,213 calls actually a decrease from 2014’s 15,609. In 2015, Chief Peterson conducted a comparison study of police departments in Minnesota cities with similar populations and calls for service and found that Forest Lake is comparable to most of the studied cities, neither spending or staffing the most or the least (the outlier is the much lower-spending Hugo, where the city contracts with the county for police service but also handles about one third of the calls for service that Forest Lake does).

Winnick’s statement on the budget echoes similar ones made at the time of the layoff, when Stegner and Eigner expressed skepticism that an officer position was the only $90,000 cut Peterson could find in his budget. Peterson, however, maintained that there was no fat left in the budget – in essence, that if the council wanted to reduce $90,000, an officer was the only line item that could go.

Though he was against the layoff, Freer agreed with Winnick that the council was asking for a budget reduction, not a cut in police staff.

“(Peterson) made that decision,” he said. “The City Council voted on that decision.”

Many residents didn’t see it that way, leading some to promise retribution at the ballot box in 2016. Freer said during the Jan. 11 council meeting that a minority of police officers had “targeted” council members before and after the vote, though he declined to get into specific incidents (Eigner and Winnick didn’t go in-depth on the topic at the time but voiced support for his remarks).
“This group of officers that I work with now is among the utmost (levels) of integrity … that I’ve worked with,” Sgt. Richert said. “There’s no way I think any of my brothers and sisters at this department would target anybody in this community in a negative way.”

Civil Service Commission

Also at the Jan. 11 meeting, Mayor Stegner announced that he was not going to reappoint anyone to the city’s Civil Service Commission. The council then voted unanimously to dissolve the commission.

“It’s no longer needed,” Stegner said of the commission at the time. “The Personnel Committee does that same function.”

The Civil Service Commission was the liaison committee between the City Council and the Police Department. Usually only meeting a few times a year at most and appearing before the council even less, the commission originated as a pre-union organization that could help represent department needs and requests to the council. After police unionization took over salary and benefit negotiation, the commission served as a citizen board that could address personnel issues and hear staffing requests and represent those issues to the council.

“I would keep them advised of any hiring needs,” Chief Peterson explained, noting that a couple of important topics he’d brought to the commission included adding a captain position and instituting community policing procedures, which allow officers to build connections with residents.

City records suggest that Forest Lake has had a civil service commission since the late 1960s; such commissions are not in place in every city with a police department, but they are not uncommon today.

Peterson and then-commissioner Ken Urquhart said they were not notified that the commission was going to be disbanded before the council decision. Another commissioner, Chris Hoyt, could not be reached before press time. Both Peterson and Urquhart said they did not know why the commission was disbanded.

“I guess I would have expected them to call us in, ask us any questions,” said Urquhart, a retired Minnesota State Patrol major and a member of the commission for more than a decade. “I just thought it was handled pretty poorly.”

Urquhart said the commission’s real strength was bringing an outside residential perspective to police activities and requests. One of his busiest times as a commissioner came in early 2012, when a police officer, acting on a request from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, shot and killed two fawns that, unbeknownst to police and the DNR, were frequent and beloved visitors to a local family’s yard. Amid a barrage of media coverage and residential reaction, commissioners were able to relay citizen concerns about the deer dispatching and were kept abreast of the investigation into the officer’s actions.

“There was a connection with the community,” Urquhart said. “The chief would keep us up to speed on any kinds of internal investigations, if any existed.”

Stegner said he chose not to reappoint anyone to the commission because its former functions have essentially been absorbed by unions and the Personnel Committee. Staff recommendations can be made at the committee, and personnel issues are forwarded to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office for investigation, so Stegner felt it was redundant to pay people to meet a few times a year to discuss topics that were being handled elsewhere.
“They met so infrequently, I really didn’t think it was relevant anymore,” he said. “I’m actually surprised people were concerned we’d disbanded it.”

The Forest Lake Police Department coordinated a mock crash that took place at the Forest Lake Area High School Sept. 28. The event focused on texting while driving and simulated a crash that killed one student and seriously injured two others. A film of the incident featuring scenes from the hospital, funeral home and more can be found at goo.gl/Cs5ZHh.

Firefighter Chad Payment cuts through a windshield in an effort to safely retrieve victims from the inside of a crashed vehicle.

Members of the Forest Lake Fire Department and the North Memorial Ambulance crew tend to injured crash victim Paige Parucci.

Fred Amaya waits to be examined by medical personnel.

Crash witnesses Liam Coleman and Brynn Gestson relay what they saw to a member of on-site emergency personnel.

The Forest Lake Police Department responded to a couple of automobile-related crimes last week.

One strange call came in shortly after 10 p.m. Oct. 1, when a passerby informed police that a vehicle was on fire in the parking lot of Bacon’s Motors on 11th Avenue Southeast. Officers and firefighters arrived to find a 2003 Mitsubishi Outlander on fire; a passerby had stopped and had unsuccessfully tried to put the fire out using a fire extinguisher. Upon further investigation, emergency personnel determined that what looked like a flare had been lit and placed in the SUV through the rear driver’s side window, which had been smashed in. The vehicle was completely engulfed in flames. The case is under investigation.

The other crime occurred around 5:15 a.m. on Sept. 29, when a person stole a vehicle out of a garage in the 22300 block of Elston Avenue North. The homeowner had accidentally left the garage door open overnight. That morning, the homeowner heard a car speeding away and opened the home’s door to the garage to discover no vehicle and the interior sensor lights on, indicating that someone had just been in the garage and had stolen the vehicle, which still had the keys inside. The vehicle is a marooon Ford conversion van with the Minnesota license plate 981 RHY. The case is under investigation.

After a fact-finding and investigatory process that lasted more than a year, the Minnesota State Fire Marshal’s Office has determined that the cause of the 2015 Bergen’s Greenhouse fire in Columbus was an electrical malfunction in a power tool battery pack and/or a battery charger in the greenhouse’s maintenance area.

The fire, which started in the early morning of April 15, 2015, is believed to be the largest fire contained to a single location ever fought by the Forest Lake Fire Department. It consumed an 11-acre greenhouse, damaged a Waldoch Craft building and destroyed equipment at both of the businesses, as well as equipment owned by RZ Enterprises, which was leasing space nearby. Following a lengthy investigation, a summary of the Fire Marshal report was released to The Forest Lake Times on Oct. 10, approximately a year and a half after the fire occurred.

“It is my opinion, based on training, experience and specialized knowledge, along with the physical examination of the site on numerous dates, along with the forensic examinations again on numerous dates over a period of months (that) there was a malfunction of the rechargeable battery and/or charger that it was plugged into charging on the work bench,” read a portion the summary, which was written by Deputy State Fire Marshal Ronald C. Rahman.

The property loss in the fire is currently estimated at more than $20 million among all the businesses affected. No one was seriously injured in the fire.

The battery pack and charger believed to be the genesis of the fire were issued by Ryobi Tools. Ryobi issued recall notices for both the pack and the charger in 2013, more than a year (and, in the case of the battery pack, more than two years) before the fire occurred.

The Forest Lake Times will update this story as it develops.

Editor’s note: After this article was published, The Times was contacted by City Administrator Aaron Parrish with a clarification regarding the city’s official campaign sign policy. The clarification has been added to the story below.

After Forest Lake Councilman Ben Winnick and an associate of his were accused of involvement with the removal of campaign-related signs around town in the last week, their cases were forwarded to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office for further investigation.

Normally, since the alleged incidents occurred in city limits, the investigations would fall under the jurisdiction of the Forest Lake Police Department, but the department forwarded the cases to the sheriff’s office to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. Winnick, who is running for mayor of Forest Lake, told The Times that he could not comment on his case at the present time. The Times has not released the other person’s name at this time because she has not spoken with The Times and, like Winnick, has not been charged with a crime.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that no charges have currently been filed but said that two reports related to sign theft in Forest Lake are under active investigation.

The accusation against Winnick has been circulating in local social media circles for the last few days after Forest Lake resident Michael LaFave posted a cellphone video he took of Winnick appearing to approach a campaign sign placed by LaFave in the U.S. Highway 61 west easement, stopping and reversing direction when LaFave walks toward him. In the video, which can be viewed at tinyurl.com/zgrw9un, Winnick’s truck has been parked on the side of an entry road in between the highway easement and the parking lot of the Allina Health clinic, and Winnick can be seen walking toward one of LaFave’s signs.

“Taking my signs?” LaFave asks in the video.

“Oh, I didn’t know they were your signs,” Winnick responds.

LaFave asks again if Winnick is taking his campaign signs, to which Winnick responds “no” before asking LaFave his name. LaFave does not give his name but tells Winnick he knows who Winnick is. Winnick then says “OK,” walks back to his truck and gets inside.

Then, on Oct. 10, according to a Forest Lake police report, a patrol officer allegedly saw a vehicle pulled over in front of 1543 Lake St. S., near where another of LaFave’s signs was posted. The officer reportedly recognized the vehicle’s driver, a Forest Lake resident, and noticed that as she drove the vehicle away from where it had been parked, LaFave’s sign was missing. The officer then followed the vehicle to the Forest Lake City Center and allegedly saw the missing sign in the back of her vehicle.

LaFave told The Times he was quick to film the Oct. 8 incident with Winnick because several of the signs he posted earlier that day were taken within hours, or even minutes, of their placement. LaFave had placed multiple homemade signs that read, “Winnick voted to lay off police” around town in September, but he said those were quickly take down. He decided to order 50 professionally printed signs with the same message, and he began putting them up over the weekend. By Monday, he told The Times, he estimated that another party or parties had removed almost a third of them. He added that he wasn’t placing the signs to try to catch someone stealing them, but to remind people of Winnick’s vote to lay off former Forest Lake patrol officer Max Boukal – an idea he got after seeing people with Winnick campaign signs in their yards next to signs in support of Forest Lake law enforcement.

“I don’t want people to think I’m trying to set anybody up, because I’m not,” he said. “To me, it’s about a freedom of speech issue at this point.”

LaFave told The Times that when he decided to place the campaign signs, he checked with the Forest Lake Police Department to make sure it was all right to put the signs in public easements. Though The Times does not have a complete list of the places where LaFave put his signs, many of the places he described are in public easements for either the city, Washington County or the Minnesota Department of Transportation (the Highway 61 easement is the latter). LaFave also said that he often tried to put his signs on public property where other signs were located, only to drive by the location later on Oct. 8 and find that his signs were gone while others remained.

Forest Lake Police Chief Rick Peterson told The Times that LaFave did contact the department about putting the signs in the easements and was told that while MnDOT and the county often remove signs in their public easements, Forest Lake only removes signs in city easements when the Public Works Department is doing work in the easement that would be obstructed by the signs. However, he did not want to comment on the police reports because they had been referred to a different agency.

City Administrator Aaron Parrish alerted The Forest Lake Times to the city’s official policy on campaign signs, which was sent out to local candidates about a month ago. Signs are not allowed in the MnDOT and county rights-of-way, and they will be removed by MnDOT or the county if they are placed there. Forest Lake city code also prohibits campaign signs on city rights-of-way and easements, and if signs are placed there, city employees may remove them (the code does not include a provision for private residents removing signs). According to city policy, the only place signs should be placed is on private property with the permission of the property owner.

Parrish noted that the city typically enforces its sign placement rules if it receives a complaint. On Wednesday, Oct. 12, city staff informed local candidates that there had been a complaint about signs in city rights-of-way and that campaign signs would be removed by the city from the rights-of-way starting on Friday, Oct. 14 (signs removed by the city are held at the Forest Lake City Center for pickup). Staff informed candidates ahead of the date signs would be removed and asked candidates to make sure their signs are not currently in rights-of-way.

When he filmed Winnick, LaFave said, he wasn’t waiting around to see if someone would take his sign. Instead, he had just placed the sign and was preparing to leave the Allina parking lot when Winnick’s truck pulled up.

LaFave said more of his signs were stolen after he took the video. He reported the incident, as well as the removal of his other signs, to police, who then referred it to the county.

This is not the first time in recent electoral history that local residents have been concerned about sign theft or sign placement. During the 2015 school bond election, some residents found a Facebook post by one local associated with the pro-bond committee that included a reference to stealing anti-bond signs around town (the woman claimed she was joking), and local group Taxpayers For Accountability claimed that several of its signs had been stolen. This September, Forest Lake resident Eric Langness captured video of a Karin Housley campaign worker placing a Housley sign on his lawn without permission (the Housley campaign claimed that the sign was placed mistakenly as part of effort to put signs in the lawns of consenting past Housley supporters).

Local police get frequent calls every election year about appropriate placement and use of signs. Though Peterson said the legal language surrounding campaign sign placement can be tricky, he had two words of advice for anyone who asks him about campaign signs: Don’t put signs on people’s private property without asking for permission, and if you see a sign that you believe may be placed improperly or illegally, don’t remove it yourself. Instead, contact police, and they will handle the situation if there has been a violation.

Editor’s note: This article is the second in a two-part series examining the relationship and recent history between the Forest Lake City Council and the Forest Lake Police Department (the first can be found here). Part two covers a conversation from earlier this year about police schedules and the state of the relationship during campaign season and into the future.

One catalyst behind the current community discussion of the relationship between the Forest Lake City Council and the Police Department came during the council’s July 11 meeting. During the open forum, former Councilman Jim Dufour said he’d heard that the council had been thinking of micromanaging Police Department schedules.

“Not to my knowledge,” Mayor Stev Stegner told him.

“It’s not the council’s job; that’s what we hired Chief (Rick) Peterson for,” Dufour said.

The comments came shortly before the filing period for local office. Since then, the council-police dynamic has remained on the forefront of community conversation.

Scheduling

Dufour’s comments stem from a discussion at Personnel Committee meeting earlier in the year. Not long after the city’s Civil Service Commission was dissolved – neither Peterson nor Personnel Committee member and Councilman Michael Freer can remember the exact date, but both agreed it was in the late winter or early spring of 2016 – a conversation happened during a committee meeting involving the scheduling of patrol officers in the department. Dufour told The Times he’d heard the “micromanaging” claims from police officers and Washington County Sheriff’s deputies who visited American Legion Post 225, where he sometimes works as security.

However, Dufour was not at the Personnel Committee meeting. Accounts of the discussion at the meeting vary. Peterson believed that the committee was asking him and Capt. Greg Weiss to brainstorm proposals for alternative shift lengths for patrol officers.

“They wanted … Greg and I to come forward with alternative schedules like an eight-hour schedule or a 10-hour schedule just to see if it worked better,” he said.

However, Freer said that the conversation was not driven by him or Ed Eigner, the other councilman on the committee (Eigner couldn’t be reached before press time). Instead, he said, one of the Police Department leaders began talking about the unique and effective model on which the department makes its schedules, and he and Eigner asked for examples of alternative schedules to see how they compared to the current way of doing things – not to make a change, but simply to get more information.

“There was no, ‘Hey, we want the Police Department to show up (to discuss schedules),’ that I recall,” he said of the committee’s involvement.

Currently, patrol officers in Forest Lake are scheduled in staggered 11-hour shifts and work for seven days over every two-week span – five days on followed by five days off, then two days on followed by two days off. Though the specifics of scheduling officers for various peak hours can be complex, the department favors the current system for a variety of reasons, including the ability to schedule the same people working together consistently, the ability to keep schedules consistent, and the allowance for sufficient decompression time for officers.

“It works out well for pretty much everybody,” Chief Peterson said.

Under a system with longer shifts, Capt. Weiss explained, officers could become fatigued, which is not ideal for a profession that requires quick judgments with serious consequences. He added that if the department moved to shorter shifts, more officers would need to work on a given day to cover the entire day, and the department would need to use a less uniform way of scheduling enough officers for peak hours. The result, he said, would be an inconsistent schedule for officers and potential staffing shortages when several officers are needed to patrol at a busy time.

Weiss and Peterson believe that the current scheduling system works best for the department because it adequately schedules as many officers as needed at a given time to effectively serve residents and provides a stable work routine for the officers and their families.

“If you can find a schedule that has a priority put in place for the residents, or the taxpayers, and also have a schedule that is pro-morale, you win,” Weiss said.

One issue with the current schedule brought up by council members is the fact that patrol officers only work 77 hours every two weeks, not the 80 hours that would bring them to a full-time work schedule. As a result, as regularly scheduled, patrol officers work about 78 hours less than a typical full-time employee would over the course of a year. However, those officers work off their remaining hours by attending trainings or filling in for shifts throughout the year, rather than going out on regularly scheduled patrols. City Administrator Parrish, who also sits on the Personnel Committee, said the schedule allows the department to mitigate overtime situations when officers fill in for each other, but Mayor Stegner suggested that a different schedule might recover those hours more efficiently.

“It doesn’t really give us the full utilization of those employees,” he said of a 77-hour pay period.

Patrol Sgt. Mark Richert said the current schedule allows officers to work with the same trusted core of people year-round and provides a steady calendar around which officers can build their lives.

“To turn that upside down at this point would really have a negative impact,” he said.

Stegner noted that it was important for Peterson to have the final say, while still addressing council or committee concerns.

“I think it has to work both ways,” he said. “I think it needs to be a working relationship.”

Councilman Ben Winnick said he also believed that deferring to the chief was key.

“I’ve been there four years, and I guarantee you in four years none of us have micromanaged … departments,” he said.

Capt. Weiss said that the committee’s inquiry prompted the department to re-examine its scheduling system in a study and determine that its current system was serving the city well. However, Freer said he has yet to see any results of such a study.

“We’re looking forward to getting that information when they decide to finally get it to us,” he said.

Weiss said that the department submitted the study’s results to Administrator Parrish. Parrish said he’d spoken with both the Police Department and the Personnel Committee and had asked the committee to delay the discussion until the Police Department was undergoing less stress (currently, multiple police employees are out with long-term injuries or illness).

Campaign issue

As Election Day has approached, criticism and support of the council’s police decisions have intensified. The Forest Lake Times has received numerous letters remarking on officer Max Boukal’s layoff, as well as a few referencing the dissolution of the Civil Service Commission. Residents have pointed out that as the 2016 budget process neared its conclusion and the next year’s cost estimates became clearer, Chief Peterson offered other budget cuts like not replacing a squad car and saving money on fuel, office supplies, and other costs instead of eliminating Boukal’s position (the council did not approve these cuts because members were unsure if they were sustainable in the long term). A local Facebook group once dedicated to saving Boukal’s job has reformed as a page campaigning against Winnick and accusing him of not supporting police.

Winnick and Freer believe the issue is being dredged back up and overemphasized in an attempt to keep Winnick and others who agree with the council’s current direction from being elected.

“Forest Lake is better than that,” Winnick said. “We don’t deserve that kind of thing happening.”

Freer believes that police officers are involved in spreading misinformation about the council’s actions in an attempt to affect change on the council’s roster.

“There are police officers right now who are actively campaigning for certain candidates for City Council, and they are purposely lying, and I mean lying, about what’s happened with the City Council,” he said, though he did not go into detail on what he believes is being said.

He added that reducing council members’ positions on public safety to a single decision is reductive and fails to consider the circumstances surrounding the decision and the members’ overall history.

“There’s not one member of this City Council that’s not pro-police or pro-public safety, including the Fire Department. Not one,” he said. “I think it’s offensive to say that because of one vote, people are against something.”

Winnick agreed, adding that sometimes the council’s discussions can be misinterpreted when members are really just trying to come to agreement on the best course of action for the public. He used a discussion about the Police Department’s school resource officer contract as an example; after staff answered some council questions this summer, the council voted to renew the contract.

“Sometimes I think people interpret when someone on the council asks these questions that we’re coming after them,” he said.

Richert didn’t comment directly on the idea of campaigning police officers, but he said the entire police force is full of honorable people who have the community’s best interest in mind.

“This is a community that I’m raising my children in, and I want nothing but the best for this city,” he said.

What now?

So, what is the relationship between the City Council and the Police Department? It depends on who you ask. Freer said that though he believes the relationship is an adequate one, he wasn’t sure how to alter anyone’s perceptions if they believe the council is anti-police because of one vote.

“I think it could be better, but I think any relationship could be better,” he said.

Winnick said that he thinks the council has good relationships with all of its departments, though he acknowledged that some in the Police Department may be unhappy about certain council decisions.

“We’re there as their bosses, so it’s a work, employee-employer type relationship,” he said. “I don’t really see a bad work environment. … I think there are people out there who are trying to make a big deal out of something that’s not really there.”

For Sgt. Richert and some of his fellow officers, however, the council’s decisions are a big deal. He’s worked for the city for 11 years, but sometimes now he worries about his job security or seeing other changes harm the department’s makeup. With the layoff of Boukal and an office staff retirement that the council decided not to replace, he said, everyone’s plate is just a bit fuller and everyone needs to work a bit harder to make sure the department is operating at its best. He no longer sees the supportive, cooperative relationship he once felt between the council and the department.

Richert thanked residents for their displays of support. While he said events like this summer’s Broadway bridge vigil in support of law enforcement (which multiple councilmen attended) are important and much appreciated, the most special interaction he has with residents is a constant stream of people approaching him and his fellow officers and thanking them for their service.
“The community right now has shown us tremendous support (during) the current atmosphere with law enforcement throughout the nation,” he said. “I would really like to see that same level of support … being shown through the city leaders.”

The state fire marshal is investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed one car, damaged another and destroyed a fish house camper at Koppy Motors on 19th Street Southwest.

According to the Forest Lake Fire Department, a fire in a vehicle parked at the business was reported around 7:15 p.m. Oct. 15. Firefighters arrived and were able to put out the fire without damage being done to the building, but the car was destroyed, along with a fish house camper. A nearby sports car was also damaged. The fire was deemed suspicious in nature.

“Parked cars just don’t spontaneously erupt,” Fire Chief Alan Newman said.

On Oct. 1, another vehicle was destroyed at Bacon’s Motors after an item that appeared to be a flare was thrown in the back seat. Newman said it was unclear at this time whether the two suspicious vehicle fires at different repair shops were related or coincidence.

Captain Brett McIntosh recently returned home from the military. He finished his legacy tour where he was trained as a pilot and artillery officer. Brett returned home Oct. 17, and a bonfire party will be held in his honor Oct. 22 in Columbus. Call Ken McIntosh for more information at 651-261-2715.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office will not be citing Forest Lake City Councilman Ben Winnick with any crime, nor suggesting charges, after an investigation into an allegation that he was involved with taking campaign-related signs earlier this month. However, the sheriff’s office did cite his wife, Rimma Winnick, for misdemeanor theft after a Forest Lake police officer allegedly saw three signs in the back of her vehicle on Oct. 10.

It’s a citation her attorney, Kevin Short, is confident will be dismissed when reviewed by a prosecutor.

“That citation is absurd on its face,” he wrote in a press release to The Forest Lake Times.

The claims surrounding the Winnicks first began circulating online on Oct. 8, after Forest Lake resident Michael LaFave posted a video on social media that depicts Ben Winnick walking toward a sign LaFave had placed in a highway easement on the west side of U.S. Highway 61, near the Allina Health clinic. LaFave had placed several such signs around town; they read “Winnick voted to lay off police” in reference to the December 2015 City Council vote to approve the layoff of police officer Max Boukal (learn more about the video and the events surrounding it at tinyurl.com/hlaggya).

In LaFave’s video, Winnick does not take the sign; when LaFave approaches him, he turns around and speaks briefly to LaFave before getting back into his vehicle, which is parked nearby. Washington County Sgt. Sara Halverson said that no citation or charges would be forthcoming for Winnick due to lack of evidence. Ben Winnick told The Times he was never spoken to by law enforcement during the time the investigation was ostensibly occurring.

After the Oct. 8 incident, LaFave reported what had happened to the Forest Lake Police Department and gave the location of the signs he placed around town to police and told them that several of the signs he’d placed had been stolen. On Oct. 10 around 11:30 a.m., according to a police report and a search warrant obtained by The Times, an officer saw a Cadillac Escalade belonging to the Winnicks stopped near the Holiday gas station on U.S. Highway 61, where the officer knew one of LaFave’s signs had been placed. The report alleged that the police officer saw Rimma Winnick get into the Escalade and drive away. After observing that signs placed near Holiday and Allina Health were missing, the officer reportedly drove back to the Forest Lake City Center, where he saw the Escalade parked. There, the officer allegedly saw some of LaFave’s signs in the back of the vehicle.

Both police reports involving the Winnicks were forwarded by the Police Department to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. According to a search warrant executed on the Escalade by the sheriff’s office, three of LaFave’s “Winnick voted to lay off police” signs were recovered from the back of the vehicle.

Short told The Times that Rimma Winnick was driving the signs to the City Center to drop them off, due to the signs’ illegal placement. Campaign signs are not allowed in public rights of way held by the state, Washington County or Forest Lake. He argued that since the signs were placed in a right of way, they were effectively abandoned and that someone could not be charged with theft for removing them.

“The police could have, and should have, removed the sign,” Short wrote. “My client was performing a public service and should be thanked for it, not charged with theft.”

Short went on to state that Winnick’s actions do not give any indication she was intending to steal signs.

“Here, my client took an item with little or no value that was illegally placed in the public right of way and placed it in the back of her SUV, in plain view to any one who cared to look through her car windows,” he wrote. “If she had the intent to steal, she would have taken them at night and concealed the signs after placing them in her car. Instead, she took them in broad daylight, put them in the back of her car, did not conceal them in any way and drove them straight to the police department. Not only is there no evidence that she intended to steal, there is in fact overwhelming evidence that she had no such intent.”

Short also states that the investigation into Rimma Winnick could find no evidence that she violated any state statutes regarding campaign signs.

Ben Winnick did not wish to comment directly on any legal proceedings, but he said that from his point of view, the signs placed by LaFave were not campaign signs, as they did not advocate a political candidate or position.

“These were malicious signs intended to be derogatory toward me,” he said.

He added that unlike official campaign signs are required to do, the LaFave signs do not include information on who paid for them (Short’s press release also mentions this). He also pointed out that many of the signs were placed in public rights of way for either the city, state or Washington County, none of which are allowed according to governmental policies, and he said he’d heard from multiple private property owners that LaFave had placed signs on their property without permission.

LaFave told The Times that when he placed his signs, he believed he had placed all of his signs in rights of way, where he thought he was allowed to place them.

“I would never knowingly put signs on private property without property owners’ consent,” he said. He also defended his signs as simply containing factual information and pointed out that, like his own signs, several “Winnick for Mayor” signs had been placed in rights of way around town.

The Forest Lake Times contacted the Forest Lake Police Department regarding police reports of LaFave’s signs being placed on private property. According to police, the one related report was a resident who had questions about trespassing and sign issues. The resident, Dick Tschida, told The Times that at the professional building he owns on the northwest corner of the Highway 61 and 11th Avenue intersection, an unknown person or persons had taken signs placed on the property and also placed signs without permission, including a couple of the “Winnick voted to lay off police” signs. Tschida said he spoke with police about the incident but declined to file a formal report with them.

On Oct. 12, after an anonymous complaint about signs in city rights of way, Forest Lake city staff traveled around much of the most-trafficked parts of town and removed about 300 campaign signs placed improperly. City Administrator Aaron Parrish said that signs from all local candidates who had campaign signs were found in rights of way and removed; he also said that one of LaFave’s signs was removed during that time. LaFave said that between the one sign he recovered from the city right of way sweep and those recovered in the search warrant, there are still several of his signs that have gone missing.

City prosecutor Michael Welch did not return a phone call seeking comment on how the city would handle the citation, but Parrish said that should Rimma Winnick’s citation require active prosecution, the city would forward those duties to Washington County to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.