Letter to the editor

To the residents of the City of Maple Lake, I would encourage you to watch the Meet the Candidates forum that is on the city website that took place on September 24th. There are two people running for the mayoral seat and four people running for two council seats.

I finally had the chance to watch it and would like to comment on the two council seats that are open. The lady who is running for one of the two council seats had been on it in the past. She was on the council the same time I was. During the candidate forum she stated how important small businesses were for our city. How nice it was having King’s 46, Cuddigan Leather, Flower Child Tattoo and the new barber shop downtown. Well, I’m here to tell you that this lady voted no against King’s 46. The council passed it by a 3-2 vote.

This lady voted against The League of MN Citys coming in for free to do a strategic workforce plan for day to day operations at City Hall to see where our strengths and weaknesses were. The City’s books at that time were already six months behind under our City Administrator. Our current council today had this same study done this past year. The League no longer offered it, but referred a company at a tune of 25-30 grand.

This same individual also stated in the forum about the turmoil from the past council which she was a part of. She also stated how the City has gone through two mayors, that’s true. The one mayor stepped down and his wife left City Hall in Nov. 2021 because there was confidential information leaked from a closed session meeting during this lady’s tenure on the council. This same lady is the one who did the background checks on the finalists for City Administrator back in 2021.

The administrator that was hired at the time was incompetent and cost our city a lot of money. That administrator left the City in February 2024 and it’s still costing the City money to fix the mistakes and catch up.

I stepped down as acting mayor in July 2022. Our books were 7-8 months behind along with numerous other things not completed, and this lady was on the council then. After I stepped down, she became the acting mayor. One of her first agenda items was to get rig of the Pledge of Allegiance. Thankfully the rest of the council voted her down on that.

The election is coming soon, be mindful of who you vote for.   

Deb Geyen

Maple Lake