Dive team controversy divides Baldwin
If you want to meet the most controversial person in Baldwin Township, all you need to do is show up in the K-Bob Café in Princeton at about 6:30 on any given morning. Paul Vollkommer will be there.
[image]
Former firefighter and township Board Supervisor Paul Vollkommer is engaged in a lengthy legal battle with Baldwin.
"It keeps the arteries well lubricated," he says with a wink and a laugh.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Vollkommer is suing the township, its Fire Department, its clerk and four past or present members of the Board of Supervisors over the Fire Department's now-defunct dive team.
The team was formed in 2005 with the goal of performing water rescue operations. Vollkommer argues it was unnecessary, illegal and so fraught with sloppy bookkeeping it's impossible to account for all the tax dollars spent on it.
As a former volunteer firefighter, Vollkommer also claims the department violated whistle blower laws when it fired him in 2007. The issue divided the young Fire Department, and a number of firefighters quit in solidarity with Vollkommer.
"This isn't about me. It's about what happened," Vollkommer says. "It's an issue of safety and public waste."
Vollkommer's crusade against the dive team began four years ago, when he was elected to the Board of Supervisors.
First, he brought the case to the attention of the State Auditor. The Auditor's office told the township to improve its accounting standards and reimbursement processes. It also advised Baldwin's Fire Department to leave the diving to the County Sheriff. The town board disbanded the dive team in 2007.
Vollkommer wasn't satisfied. He pushed for a criminal investigation, but the Sheriff's office found no charges were warranted. A judge refused his petition to appoint a special prosecutor, so he went to civil court instead. He lost there, too, and now Vollkommer is appealing.
"They won't take 'no' for an answer, even though it's been proven that there was nothing criminal that went on," said Supervisor Jim Oliver, who was a member of the dive team
and is a defendant in the lawsuit
. "When you look back, no, we should not have [formed a dive team,] but there was no criminal intent."
Oliver says at first the controversy had some positive effects, because it forced the township to improve its bookkeeping. But he argues the cost of the lawsuit far outweighs the $51,000 that was spent on diving equipment.
Others have harsher things to say.
"I have never seen more destruction to a community done by one person ever in my life," Supervisor Jay Swanson said of Vollkommer. "It completely shut down the board. What's illegal? What am I going to get in trouble for now? I'm not going to stick my neck out ever, because holy cow, the ones who did are screwed."
Swanson is not named in the lawsuit, because he wasn't on the Board of Supervisors when the dive team was formed.
Jess Hall was on the board at the time, but Vollkommer didn't sue him, because they agreed on the dive team issue. Still, Hall doubts Vollkommer will succeed in court.
"I advised Paul from the start, 'Forget it, Paul. You're not going to accomplish anything with a lawsuit. All it's going to do is cost a bunch of money and cause some concerns in the township. And in the end, nothing's going to change,'" Hall said. "But Paul being Paul, he went ahead with it anyway."
And Vollkommer isn't giving up.
"I'm a very principled person," he said. "This is about recovering the money and making sure it never happens again."
An appeals court will hear Vollkommer's case on March 24.