Winner of the award for friction: Orono

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Orono, a wealthy community on the north shore of Lake Minnetonka, has a reputation as a polite and peaceful suburb. Lately the reputation is starting to slip.

Citizens rise in righteous indignation to challenge the actions of the City Council, which comprises four council members plus the mayor. Some of the council’s critics appear on the edge of tears, some tremble in apparent rage. F-bombs fly.

Most of the recent anger is directed at the council’s decision to establish a municipal fire department. The city’s fire protection services had for a century been supplied, in whole or in part, by the smaller town of Long Lake, which is bordered in all four directions by the larger Orono. Mayor Dennis Walsh and his supporters on the council declared that an Orono Fire Department would be able to provide services more cost-effectively, and began efforts to create one.

When the council’s lone dissenter, Alisa Benson, speaks in opposition to hiring firefighters, promoting firefighters or further spending on the Fire Department, the mayor and others accuse her of insufficient concern for public safety.

“It involves spending taxpayer dollars on a fire department [about which] our taxpayers have not had a seat at the table,” she said at a June meeting.

“I still don’t understand why you continue to not support making the decision that was already made by this council,” shot back Council Member Matt Johnson. The mayor joined in: “You’re voting not to adequately staff our Fire Department, which puts our citizens at risk.”

At last week’s council meeting, Benson argued that the Fire Department initiative puts Orono at odds with its own comprehensive plan.

“I’m not supportive of these expenditures for an Orono Fire Department,” she said, “because the policy decision to create and fund the department is out of alignment with our city mission and parts of our comprehensive plan. Because it has not involved a process for citizen engagement.”

She might have been speaking to an empty room. Mayor Walsh and his backers on the council have proved impervious to objection — even to court orders.

Last year, Long Lake sued the city of Orono for interfering with its Fire Department, and a Hennepin County District Judge ordered Orono to stop trying to recruit firefighters who were already serving in Long Lake. Orono didn’t stop, and the judge has found Orono in contempt — twice.

Walsh told an editorial writer that he believes the judge erred and that people have a right to work anywhere they want. He also said that the voters of Orono elected him and the council to make decisions in the city’s best interest, which in his judgment required a new Fire Department.

Walsh’s critics also object that the mayor and his allies have approved the transfer of parcels of public land into the hands of private landowners. They also complain that the council has moved public comments toward the end of its meetings, after it has taken the votes that members of the public might want to address.

“We don’t have a transparent City Council,” said Jim White, who served as Orono’s mayor from 2007 to 2010. “They are basically operating as a one-man fiefdom.” White told an editorial writer that the land transfers have been part of a “spoils system,” under which Walsh’s friends benefit.

Walsh countered that when the council considers transfers of property, it acts without regard to who may benefit. He said water levels over the years have rendered certain parcels of land unusable, and it makes sense to pass them into private hands.

Allegations of sweetheart land deals would be natural topics for investigation by an outside agency, like the State Auditor’s Office, whose mission is to ensure that local government is “transparent, accountable and effective.” The office, headed by State Auditor Julie Blaha, is rumored to be looking into Orono. But a spokesman said state law prohibits it from making any comment — or even confirming that an investigation may be underway.

Walsh, who announced last week that he is running for re-election, said no such investigation was in progress as far as he knows, “and I would think that I would know.”

Even so, we think an inquiry by Blaha’s office would be appropriate. If one is underway, we applaud. If not, we suggest that one commence, and soon.