Duluth mayor’s girlfriend and campaign manager is involved in city business, emails show

DULUTH — The campaign manager and girlfriend of Mayor Roger Reinert has been directly involved in city business, from coordinating Reinert’s involvement with President Joe Biden’s January visit to asking a city staffer to complete research for Reinert, public records show.

Emails beginning at the start of the year when Reinert first took office detail Amber Gurske’s requests to the city’s public information officer and Reinert’s former assistant. The emails, obtained through a data practices request, were first reported by the Duluth Monitor, an online news site.

Gurske, a business development and marketing manager for Superior, Wis.-based Amsoil, offered a city staffer ideas and copy for social media topics to be covered by Reinert, coordinated a potential mayoral proclamation, reviewed a press release and asked his assistant the nature of a meeting Reinert was taking when it was requested to be added to his schedule. Gurske was on a panel that interviewed a candidate for a senior adviser role for Reinert’s office, and also acted as his staff at a local elementary school where he read to students, emails show.

Reinert declined an interview request and Gurske didn’t respond to one. Reinert on Wednesday sent a memo to city staff and also released a public statement. He said that the city was conducting an internal review of allegations in media reports to ensure “that everything that was done was done in a correct, legal, and ethical manner.”

Of Gurske, he wrote that she is his “significant other” who is “a talented professional and someone I trust. She is also just as passionate about the future and success of our community as I am.”

He noted that he would never “intentionally — or ask anyone else — to do something that negatively impacts this office of the City of Duluth organization.”

As his campaign manager and not a member of the city staff, Gurske’s involvement in city operations is unethical, and potentially illegal, said David Schultz, a political science and legal studies professor at Hamline University.

“She doesn’t have the authority to direct staff,” he said, and Reinert could face conflict of interest and accountability accusations.

Gurske asking a city employee to conduct work is likely misappropriation of public dollars, Schultz said, especially if she is directing work for campaign-related social media accounts. Reinert frequently posts about city business on an Instagram account that is labeled as a campaign page.

“Can you please research/chat with folks in the next few days to get an update on Brighton Beach?” Gurske wrote to Kelli Latuska, the public information officer. “Folks have been talking about it and Roger wants to on perhaps Thursday do a post and maybe a video about where we are at, but we don’t know.”

However, another email shows Reinert was at least aware of optics with his social media accounts.

A Duluth teachers union event was deemed by Reinert too political and “campaign-y” for his social media accounts, Gurske wrote to Latuska in February.

Latuska declined to comment.

Ashlie Castaldo is head of the city’s disabilities commission, made up of citizen representatives. She said in a statement that the commission “has encountered consistent challenges in communication with the Administration. Calls, emails, and other forms of outreach have often gone unanswered, making it difficult to connect with the Mayor’s office and effectively fulfill our role within City Hall.”

”Some commission members have expressed concerns that the prioritization of responses may be determined or unhealthily influenced by an unvetted individual without official employment status,” the statement reads, “potentially handling sensitive inquiries best handled by elected city leaders and other officials.”

Reinert dismissed his assistant in June, according to an internal email obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. She moved to another city department and did not respond to a request for comment.

No payments to Gurske have been documented in Reinert’s expenses.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer and a professor at the University of Minnesota, said the situation is problematic. It would be difficult to prosecute her for any order she gave or influence she used under bribery laws because she’s not a government employee, he said. The federal Hatch Act also prohibits someone like a campaign manager using public resources for political gain.

“The campaign manager needs to stay with the campaign and not get involved in telling staff what to do,” Painter said.

It’s also “frowned on” for the significant others of elected officials to give them ideas and instructions, but over something like the dinner table, that can’t really be stopped, Painter said. A significant other working with staffers, however, is crossing a line, he said.

City Councilor Wendy Durrwachter said she found the content of the emails “appalling,” and said she has concerns about cronyism and integrity.

“It makes me wonder if this is the tip of the iceberg,” she said.

It is unclear why a White House coordinator emailed a schedule to Gurske on her private email and not to Reinert’s assistant — the staffer, who included a Duluth police leader on the email, did not respond to a message.

Reinert, who is also a licensed attorney and active member of the U.S. Navy Reserve, has served on the Duluth City Council and in both chambers of the Minnesota Legislature.