FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council held a special meeting on Thursday to once again discuss the city administrator candidate, Jason Baker. The council had previously questioned Baker’s experience, but considered whether he’d be best suited to serve in an interim capacity to start.

Human Resources Manager, Rachel Viesselman, provided some background on the situation. The city administrator position became vacant at the end of November 2025 when Jeff O’Neill left his role as interim city administrator after a year in the role. Since then the council has considered various options to fill the role including both on a permanent and temporary basis.

“That led to the eventual interview of two candidates who expressed interest, one of which was selected to go through the background phase of the process,” Viesselman said.

Those interviews were done on Jan. 9 and Jason Baker, current city administrator of Oronoco, underwent the comprehensive background check and Viesselman said that it was determined by Crescent Investigative Services that he was an available candidate.

However, at the last regular meeting on Feb. 9, the council decided that it wanted some more information, which was made available over the last week.

“Now we’re to the point where it’s time to consider whether or not to proceed with making an offer to Jason or look at other alternatives,” Viesselman said.

Mayor Lee Baarts asked the council if any of the members had any ideas on how to proceed.

Council Member James Kotewa questioned whether the council was looking at Baker as an interim option or a full time hire.

“You can pretty much classify it as you like,” Baarts said.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said, on the advice of the attorneys, the council could not discuss what it saw in Baker’s evaluation, but that he felt like the council would be doing Baker and the citizens a disservice by hiring him as full time option.

“I think going from 1,500 to 10,000 people and all the departments we have, I wouldn’t feel comfortable hiring him full time… If the majority wants to hire him on an interim basis and see what happens, I guess I’m not opposed to that, but I don’t think it would be good for the citizens of Fairmont if we hired him full time at this point.”

Council Member Wayne Hasek, however, said he wanted to extend Baker an offer to serve full time.

“Our pool is getting smaller and smaller,” Hasek said.

That was something that Council Member Jay Maynard agreed with. Maynard acknowledged that Baker has been looking at other employment options and could be getting an offer elsewhere soon.

“We are not the only city where he is a finalist,” Maynard said. “If we want him at all I think we need to make him a regular, full time offer because if we don’t we won’t have the option.”

Lubenow fired back and said, “He applied to Blue Earth, Blue Earth didn’t hire him. He applied to Jackson and didn’t get hired. Jackson parted ways with the person they picked and apparently didn’t offer him the job after that. Those are both smaller cities than we are. I don’t think we should fill the spot just to fill the spot.”

Council Member Britney Kawecki questioned how Maynard had his information about Baker having other job offers and Maynard said it was from a Google search.

Kawecki said she agreed with Kotewa about the possibility of having Baker serve in an interim capacity. She said she recently learned that the city administrator position in Oronoco is new, which plays into consideration.

“I also agree with Councilor Lubenow that it’s a very small town of 1,500 people and we did turn away a number of the 27 candidates because they were coming from such a small community,” Kawecki said, referencing the candidate pool from when the council first looked for city administrator candidates this time around in the fall of 2025.

She added that the position would offer Baker a big jump in his career and a lot of opportunity as an interim to show his capability to learn and grow and “prove himself.”

Kotewa said he would be willing to hire Baker as interim but that he did not think a year would be long enough. He made a motion to offer Baker an interim city administrator position for two years with quarterly reviews for the first year and six month reviews thereafter.

The motion was seconded by Kawecki. In a roll call vote, the motion passed 4-1 with Lubenow opposed.

Following the decision to extend an offer, the council spent some time discussing employment start date, starting salary, placement within the 2026 pay scale and vacation and sick accrual placement along with a potential moving expense reimbursement.

Maynard made a motion to offer Baker employment at a mutually agreeable date, starting salary and placement within the 2026 pay scale at the job grade assigned to the city administrator, step one. Vacation and sick accrual at the beginning of years of service, zero, and living expenses up to four months, up to $5,000 until permanent residence in Fairmont.

The motion passed unanimously.

Finally, the council talked about the severance package. After some discussion, Council Member Britney Kawecki made a motion that zero to six months would see no severance benefits, six months to a year would get two months of severance benefits and one year to two years would get three months of severance benefits. Lubenow seconded the motion. The motion passed 4-1 with Maynard opposed.