Lawsuit filed against Oronoco mayor and city council members
Jul. 27—ST. PAUL — An Oronoco woman says her First Amendment rights were violated earlier this year after she was removed from a city council meeting, according to a new lawsuit filed today in federal court.
Oronoco Mayor Ryland Eichhorst, along with council members, Jim Phillips, Jim Richards and Carl Krause are named in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that the named parties unlawfully retaliated against Andrea Johnson for engaging in constitutionally protected speech at council meetings. The lawsuit also alleges that government officials caused disruptions during a public forum period during a March city council meeting.
Following Johnson's comments about representation on the council during a March council meeting, Krause abruptly said he was resigning at the end of the meeting.
"I'm gonna resign from council, effective immediately," Krause, who was elected in 2022, said at the meeting. "I don't have to be humiliated by any other councilperson and to have puppets come in and talk."
He would later rescind his verbal resignation. Council members are required to submit their resignations in writing, something that Krause said he had done but had not.
Krause
told the Post Bulletin in March
that he resigned mid-meeting due to "humiliation, or whatever you'd call it, from the start when people had comment."
"One of the council people had somebody come in and speak ... because I was down in Arizona, so I missed a couple of regular meetings," he said.
Johnson criticized Krause's response to her complaints during an April council meeting.
Those named in the lawsuit repeatedly attempted to verbally stop Johnson from speaking during her allotted time before Phillips ordered an Olmsted County Sheriff's Deputy to remove her.
Hours after her removal, Richards began to complain about Johnson, saying that people shouldn't be allowed to come into the meeting and shame Oronoco"s political leaders.
"When someone, especially who it was, says discriminatory statements against the Council, against the white males on Council, I take great offense to it and I think they need to be shut down immediately," Krause said at the meeting.
Eichhorst later apologized to the council, Oronoco residents and Johnson in May 2023 for removing Johnson from the April meeting.
In her lawsuit, Johnson said she believes that she will once again be silenced by city officials if she attends any more meetings
"As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of Defendants, Ms. Johnson has endured and/or will endure medical expenses, emotional distress, pain, suffering, humiliation, embarrassment, and other items of compensatory damages in an amount to be determined by the jury," part of the complaint reads.
