FARGO – After working without additional pay since April, the two men serving as interim co-executives of the Metro Flood Diversion Authority will be compensated for their work on the diversion project.
At its meeting on Thursday, August 22, the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Board of Authority voted to pay Fargo City Administrator Michael Redlinger and Cass County Administrator Robert Wilson each $3,250 per month for their service as interim co-executives of the Metro Flood Diversion Authority.
The Metro Flood Diversion Authority oversees work on the non-federal portions of the $3.2 billion Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Project.
Redlinger and Wilson were named interim co-chief executive officers in April when the Diversion Board accepted the resignation of former chief executive officer Joel Paulsen.
Paulsen abruptly resigned from his post on April 9.
Cass County Commissioner Chad Peterson led the effort to come up with a plan to compensate the co-directors, saying he found himself in a similar position when he served on a board and that the compensation was due due to the time frame of the expanded workload.
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“Given that our CEO resigned some time ago and knowing that our interim directors will have to share a number of responsibilities, likely through December, perhaps even longer, I did not think it was fair to ‘assign other duties’ to them in terms of their compensation,” Peterson said.
The monthly amount is 20 percent of Redlinger and Wilson’s average salary as city and county administrators, Peterson said.
“Our proposal calls for significantly lower compensation than that of our CEO,” Peterson said.
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The plan adopted by the Diversion Board is retroactive to June 1 and will remain in effect until a new permanent executive director is hired.
Last month, the Diversion Board approved a job description and timeline for the search process for the executive director position. Under the approved timeline, the Diversion Board would appoint its preferred candidate during its October meeting and the candidate would begin in December or early January 2025.
Shelly Carlson, mayor of Moorhead and chair of the Diversion Board, answered questions about Minnesota’s role in funding FM Diversion, which she said were asked by Fargo City Councilman Dave Piepkorn.
Piepkorn, who works for the Diversion Authority, was not present at Thursday’s meeting but discussed Minnesota’s share of diversion funding on KFGO during the July 31 broadcast of “News and Views” with Joel Heitkamp.
On the radio show, Piepkorn said Minnesota has no interest in the diversion project and that Cass County residents are the project’s “financial backing.” The project will be levied with a property tax on land in Cass County, which could be activated in emergency situations to pay the local portion of the project’s costs.
“We have people from Minnesota on the Finance Committee, on the Diversion (Authority), voting on things they don’t have money for,” Piepkorn said on the show. “That’s what scares me the most.”
To date, the city of Moorhead and the state of Minnesota have contributed $124 million to the project, Carlson said during Thursday’s meeting.
“With a river, you have to make sure the current flows north on both sides, so you need dams on both sides,” Carlson said. “So we’ve done our part.”
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Towards the end of the meeting, the Board members held two consecutive Board meetings and decided to work on both meetings after their conclusion.
The first meeting was a closed session to advise attorneys on negotiations in a dispute over epoxy-coated rebar, meeting records show. The meeting also addressed a possible amendment to the project agreement between the Diversion Authority and Red River Valley Alliance, the developer of the diversion project.
The use of epoxy-coated rebar in diversion channel structures is the subject of an ongoing dispute between the Diversion Authority and the Red River Valley Alliance. The Diversion Authority says the project agreement between the two parties requires the use of epoxy-coated rebar in all structures on the project. The Red River Valley Alliance says this should only be the case when steel is exposed to corrosive environmental conditions.
After the board meeting, the Diversion Board approved an infrastructure agreement with the Red River Valley Alliance. The infrastructure agreement specifically addresses the Sheyenne River Aqueduct, General Counsel John Shockley said. The agreement states that the Red River Valley Alliance agrees to use epoxy-coated rebar in the aqueduct. Shockley said the agreement does not address other structures that are part of the ongoing dispute.
The second Board meeting was held to hear from general and outside counsel regarding Paulsen’s employment claims against the Metro Flood Diversion Authority.
After the board meeting, the Diversion Authority approved a severance and termination agreement with Paulsen. In a statement, Carlson said the $82,000 payment included in the agreement “covers payment for unused annual leave and other negotiated items.”
The agreement also requires Paulsen to comply with all confidentiality obligations arising from his employment with the Diversion Authority. During the July meeting, the Diversion Board served Paulsen with a cease-and-desist order because of concerns about disclosing confidential information.
“The agreement also protects the MFDA from ongoing legal costs and the potential disclosure of privileged and confidential information related to the FM Area Diversion Project,” Carlson’s statement said.
