Northfield has an ethics code

Star Tribune Tue, 18 Dec 2007 06:57:01 GMT
Northfield mayor misused power, investigator says

Northfield Mayor Lee Lansing improperly used his role as a city official to further personal and family interests, according to an outside investigator hired by the City Council. In a report delivered Monday night, attorney William Everett, of Buffalo, Minn., told the council that Lansing exerted improper influence in an attempt to have the city relocate its municipal liquor store to property owned by his son, David Lansing, and David's development partner, Paul Norby. Lansing also successfully pushed the city to reduce -- by more than $20,000 -- a park dedication fee that the city proposed to charge the developers, the report says. ... The City Council hired Everett this fall after the state auditor declined the council's request to investigate a handful of potential problems with the way the city is run. Lansing's offenses constitute a violation of the city's ethics code, Everett said. "I am just dumbfounded," Lansing said after the meeting, adding that, if he had acted improperly, it was "certainly not intentionally."

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