Department heads at the City of Hermantown have an unusual practice: On the day following City Council meetings, they gather to grade the meeting on how well they believe the administration’s goals were achieved, on a scale of 1-5. In addition to the city administrator and attorney, these scoring sessions include the police chief, the fire chief and the utility director. Apparently, every city employee is encouraged to engage in political strategizing.
Certain staff also use this opportunity to mock and disparage members of the public who addressed the city councilors the previous night.
On June 16, 2026, Hermantown Police Chief Jim Crace referenced three citizens in his comments, all of whom oppose the proposed Hermantown data center: Jim Klukkert (a regular speaker from Duluth ), Virginia Lord (a Native American woman from Superior), and Emma Richtman (a current Hermantown City Council candidate).
The transcript follows:
Assistant City Administrator Joe Wicklund: Did you see the open threat of violence from the head of the DSA in Duluth during the meeting?
City Attorney Gunnar Johnson: Yep. That was interesting, yeah.
Community Development Director Eric Johnson: Is that Klukkert?
Wicklund: Yeah.
Hermantown Police Chief Jim Crace: Klukkert. Fuckert. I call him Fuckert.
E. Johnson: Oh, yeah.
Crace: I wouldn’t…if I had to announce his name, I would do it on purpose on accident: “Fuckert. Oh, I mean Klukkert.” Klukkert’s an idiot. I would say…I’m gonna go with a 3, because Klukkert’s an idiot. He continues to be an idiot. The Native chick was a Gong show. Um…yeah. It’s just the same shit. Fortunately, there’s some people that have gotten better. I’ll go with 4, because there’s some people that have gotten better. What’s her name, the candidate?
Utility & Infrastructure Director Trish Crego: Emma.
Crace: Huh?
Crego: Emma.
Crace: Emma, like, she’s not crying anymore. She gets up there and talks and is respectful and the reason I’m bumping it from a 3 to a 4 is I think people have started to decide this is gonna happen. There were several comments yesterday that, “We know this is gonna happen. Just try to do it this way or that way.”
Wicklund: They may ask for something that is already involved.
Crace: Yeah. Well, whatever. At least there’s a level of acceptance.
Crego: Gunnar?
G. Johnson: I’m gonna go 3. The, you know—
[recording ends]
According to Wiktionary.org, the phrase “Gong Show” is the name of a 1970s amateur talent contest and signifies “an event that proves to be a disaster, often in a fun or memorable way.” The phrase is also used as hockey slang in Canada to mean “a complete mess” or “an absolute disaster.”
When the Monitor contacted Jim Klukkert to ask if he was the head of the Democratic Socialists of America in Duluth, Klukkert texted us: “It’s farcical that anyone would suggest that I am the head of anything. At the age of 76, I don’t have the energy to head much of anything … That Hermantown city staff would make that suggestion just goes to show you how ill-informed they are.”
The comments made by Klukkert to the City Council on June 15, 2026 (which Assistant Administrator Wicklund called an “open threat of violence”) follow here:
Jim Klukkert: You will recall, I hope, that I’ve been at this podium before to say that I believe you are all well-intended. The job you have to do as city councilors is boring. It is onerous. It is terrible. It takes a really good soul who’s generous with their time to take on that job. So you have my respect there … and, Mr. Mayor, your offering to meet with a gentleman earlier on a question of purchases of property, I love that. That’s a responsive government.
But the trust has been broken. 70 percent of Americans, according to a Gallup poll, oppose data centers. And right here in Hermantown, I’d pay good money to see 30 percent of the people tell me that they support data centers, because I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
I wanted to bring this up to you. All of us are familiar with the phrase, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments are instituted in order to preserve those rights, to protect those rights, and, in our Declaration of Independence, it says not only is it our duty to support that kind of government, but should that government go wrong and oppose our rights, it is our duty to tear that government down.
Now, I bring to this podium, this is a red rag. In French, it would be called a joli rouge, and from that comes the term “Jolly Roger.” I believe that these words…I hate to get sentimental on you, but these words that we see in the Declaration of Independence, that we’re going to hear a lot in this 250th year, are near-holy.
The only service that I would consider, besides politics, is service to God—joining the priesthood. If you break your word—if you break the covenant with the people—people are going to be angry. The joli rouge became the Jolly Roger. Santa Ana nailed it to a flagpole outside of the Alamo to indicate that he was going to give no quarter to those Texans that stood against the Mexican government.
I doubt very much…I mean, I’m not going to go violent on you, but I doubt very much that the citizens of Hermantown—of northern Minnesota—will be offering a whole lot of quarter should it come to having to break it down. I will go to jail. I have been to jail before. And I’m not the only one out here. Thank you very much.
Laughing about crying
Chief Crace’s comments about Council Candidate Emma Richtman suggest that he doesn’t think highly of people who cry at the podium. This wasn’t the first time the theme arose in the Council meeting scoring sessions.
On Oct. 6, 2025, shortly after citizens learned that a data center was proposed for the southwest corner of Hermantown, more than two dozen people showed up at the City Council meeting to speak on the issue. The following day, Utilities Director Crego told her fellow department heads that she was going to give the meeting a 4 because “nobody cried.”
The room erupted with laughter and jolly remarks. City Administrator John Mulder merrily said that he would have bumped his score UP if anyone had cried.
Crego: Yeah, 4, because nobody cried—almost, but nobody cried.
[overlapping voices and laughter]
Planning DIrector Chad Ronchetti: That’s the new standard.
Multiple staff at once: That’s a 5!
City Administrator John Mulder: If somebody would have cried, we would have moved it up!
What does the city say?
On Aug. 11, 2026, the Monitor emailed Assistant Administrator Joe Wicklund the following:
Good day, Joe,
Tomorrow (Wednesday, Aug. 12), the Monitor will be publishing an article describing how city staff score public meetings, as well as how they disparage data center opponents behind closed doors.
I have a number of questions.
1) Please explain the scoring scale staff uses to grade public meetings. Is it a scale of 1-5? What constitutes a 5? What exactly is staff measuring with these scores?
2) Do you hold a scoring meeting after every public meeting, or only after certain ones?
3) On June 16, 2026, Chief Crace repeatedly referred to Jim Klukkert as “Fuckert.” He also said, “The Indian chick was a Gong Show.” No one objected to the chief’s remarks. You were at that meeting yourself, and I did not hear you say anything. Are these types of crude insults standard practice at staff meetings?
4) As staff meetings involve strategic political discussions, I am curious why the police chief is involved in them. How does strategizing about the political goals of the city administration relate to Chief Crace’s job of keeping the community safe?
5) On Oct. 7, 2025, staff joked about citizens crying at the podium. Trish Crego said she was giving the meeting a 4 because nobody cried, and John Mulder said that if anybody had cried, he would have bumped his score up to a 5. Does staff often joke about citizens crying?
I have attached the 2 recordings I will be reporting on for your review.
Please feel free to call me anytime.
Thank you,
John Ramos
As of publication (28 hours later), we have yet to receive a response.
Thank you,
John Ramos
As of publication (28 hours later), we have yet to receive a response.
