A year-long disagreement between Greenwood and the other member cities of the South Lake Minnetonka Police Department (SLMPD] Coordinating Committee came to a head at the June 6 meeting. The issue: Is Greenwood Mayor Tom Fletcher violating the SLMPD Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) by serving on both of the SLMPD governing committees?
What is the JPA?
The SLMPD is governed by two committees. The Coordinating Committee consists of the mayors of the four member cities: Excelsior, Greenwood, Shorewood, and Tonka Bay. The JPA defines the Operating Committee as “the chief administrative officer of each of the Parties,” interpreted as city administrators or managers, and according to the committee, that implies “not elected officials.” These two bodies are structurally distinct. The Coordinating Committee holds the power to hire, discipline, and fire the police chief. The Operating Committee meets monthly with the chief on day-to-day operational matters, including personnel complaints and HR issues.
What’s the Problem?
Fletcher has served simultaneously as Greenwood’s mayor (Coordinating Committee) and as its council-appointed City Administrator (Operating Committee) since his election. This is a dual role his predecessor, Mayor Deb Kind, held while hiring previous police chiefs and leading the update and renewal of the JPA in 2023. The other three cities now contend this arrangement violates the “spirit” of the JPA.
Why is Greenwood different?
Greenwood is a small city of 500+ residents and 200+ households that has decided for financial efficiency not to have a city administrator. This is not unusual for cities in Minnesota with less than 1000 residents. Instead, the Greenwood council appoints the mayor to also serve as city administrator and has done so for over 10 years. Now, the coordinating committee argues that Greenwood has a city “clerk” who should handle the Operating Committee meetings. That “clerk” operates remotely from Tennessee and performs only day-to-day city matters that don’t rise to the level of a city manager or administrator.
At the Greenwood city council meeting in May 2025, Mayor Fletcher explained the Coordinating Committee’s position that he should not be on both committees. His council had difficulty understanding the “real” cause for the demand. He admitted he was unclear how this had become an issue. He later commented that his council had a hard time “getting their arms around” the underlying reason for the changes.
A year later, in June 2026, a similar conversation again took place among Greenwood council members. As previously, there was no clear answer. The council subsequently passed a unanimous motion for Mayor Fletcher to continue serving on both committees.
Hoping for a Resolution
The Coordinating Committee retained Resolute Law, a St. Cloud firm to give an opinion on the following language of the JPA:
H. “Operating Committee” means the chief administrative officer of each
of the parties.
Resolute delivered its conclusion in an April 13, 2026 letter that in part said:
“Based on the information currently available, it is our opinion that Mayor Fletcher cannot serve on the SLMPD Operating Committee because he is not the City of Greenwood’s chief administrative officer as required by the JPA.”
When Fletcher challenged the $1200 opinion at the June meeting, Shorewood Mayor Jennifer Labadie said:
“I feel like you’re not acting in good faith, by not heeding the conclusion of the lawyer that we paid for, that you paid eight percent for, and my city is going to pay over fifty percent of.”
Although the Coordinating Committee reassured Fletcher multiple times that the dispute was not about him personally, the vote was 3-1 to remove him from the Operating Committee.
What’s next?
The dispute remained unsettled as of the July 13 Shorewood council meeting when Mayor Labadie reported the vote supporting Fletcher’s removal from the Operating Committee. She mentioned that Greenwood has now raised the possibility of leaving SLMPD and joining the Deephaven Police Department.
The four cities are exploring mediation through the League of Minnesota Cities. Mediation would require formal approval from each city council. There is disagreement about who should bear costs: The three cities’ position is that Greenwood, as the party challenging the board’s vote, is the aggrieved party and should pay. Greenwood disagrees.
Is there a compromise?
Multiple compromises have been floated and rejected. According to Labadie, the member cities proposed Greenwood send a resident or a council member to stand in for the mayor, on the Operating Committee or a Greenwood rep could meet with the Chief any time outside a meeting. She said Greenwood turned them down.
However, when at the June 6 SLMPD Coordinating Committee meeting (and memo submitted) a Greenwood council member was finally allowed to speak, he asked if a council member could serve instead of Fletcher, the chair told him “it is not our [Coordinating Committee] preference.” The Coordinating Committee has also suggested Greenwood hire a city administrator to serve on the Operating Committee and solve the “problem.”
At the July 13 Shorewood council meeting, member Michelle DiGruttolo asked the obvious and pertinent questions:
- If this arrangement has existed for years without apparent harm, what is the problem?
- Has the [Greenwood] mayor been untoward, illegal, unethical?
- What has changed that … it is not copacetic?
Labadie said DiGruttolo’s questions were “difficult” and she deferred to city administrator Marc Nevinski for a response that was somewhat difficult to interpret.
“Recent department processes, including the police chief hiring process, surfaced governance questions that made the arrangement’s risk more visible going forward, even without a specific incident of past harm.”
“…I don’t think anything has changed…there are some questions that have just been raised as the department has gone through processes about the appropriateness of that arrangement, the term in state statute is “‘incompatible offices,’… and we might be kind of dealing with that in this situation.
“I think some of the things that have come up have been around good governance and some confusion about is the police chief getting directions from the “administrator” or from a board member. Administrators have no direction over the chief; they only provide guidance and support. It’s a little bit of an awkward situation. Has it been a big problem? Maybe not. But could it be a problem in the future?”
For now, this “hot topic” as Labadie calls it, remains on hold until either Greenwood capitulates or the parties agree to a mediated solution.
Note: Viewing the meeting videos and minutes are important for the reader to understand the full “flavor” of the questions asked and discussions that followed.
Sources:
South Lake Minnetonka JPA Governing document
Greenwood June council meeting of the issue (Jun. 3, 2026)
Shorewood July 13 council meeting discussion of the issue (July 13, 2026)
South Lake Minnetonka Coordinating Committee meeting (Jun. 6, 2026)
