Three warned to get out or personal, financial details will be published
By John Brewer, Pioneer Press
jbrewer@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 07/23/2009
Before the race for White Bear Lake mayor had even started, someone wanted Jo Emerson out of it.
An unsigned e-mail arrived at her inbox July 15, barely a week after she filed for office. It called her and city council candidates Kevin Edberg and Doug Biehn "cronies" of outgoing Mayor Paul Auger and Council Member Tom Frazer.
"We will publish each of these cronies' personal, financial, business and family backgrounds in the near future, unless of course one or more formally withdraws their candidacy," the e-mail read.
The e-mail was sent from wblwatchdog@neomailbox.net, but who is behind it remains a mystery.
Even in White Bear Lake, where city council meetings have led to contentious arguments, two of the three candidates named in the e-mail said it is mean-spirited and misinformed. One forwarded it to police.
"There's no place for this kind of hateful, hurtful, malicious message," Emerson said. "I consider it a threat. I am taking it seriously, and I'm not letting it slide."
Emerson said she's no crony and wants the e-mail sender held accountable for what she perceived as a threat against her. Other than the two candidates who confirmed receiving the message, it is not clear how widely circulated the e-mail was.
While the message may have been trying to influence the upcoming municipal election in the northern Ramsey County suburb, election and public information experts said the e-mail might not be criminal.
Minnesota election law doesn't cover an instance of someone trying to force another person not to run for office, said Joe Mansky, Ramsey County elections manager.
If the e-mail tried to persuade a citizen from voting for or against a candidate or rewarded someone for not running, it would constitute an election law violation, he said.
"I've never heard of similar instances of somebody being threatened to cease being a candidate," Mansky said.
Emerson passed along the e-mail to White Bear Lake police Wednesday, and Capt. Randy Johnson said his department would try to forward the information to an appropriate agency. Johnson said police have not opened a criminal investigation.
While the e-mail appears to threaten the release of information, said Jane Kirtley, the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, as long as that information is publicly available and accurate, its release is not a crime.
"Yes, it's true, one of the things Web publishers are doing is making practically obscure information very publicly available," Kirtley said. "Some view it as a threat; some welcome it as contributing to transparency."
Once a publisher starts drawing conclusions from the public records — calling someone a liar or a cheat, for example — those conclusions could be subject to litigation, Kirtley said.
If a candidate did file suit, she said, unmasking the John or Jane Doe behind a Web site can be time-consuming, costly and not a given. Courts have said that anonymous speech has value, Kirtley said, and some Web site hosts fight legal actions to give up customer information.
"It's complicated" to unmask publishers, she said.
The White Bear Lake e-mail comes from an address that has the same name as a local Web site — wblwatchdog — that has published information about public officials, most notably on the back taxes of Mayor Auger. The e-mail also encourages its readers to read those postings.
The site is registered by Domains by Proxy, a Scottsdale, Ariz., domain-registration company. The company said Thursday it does not disclose account information to the public and wouldn't share information on wblwatchdog.com.
Nora Paul, director of the Institute of New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota, said sites like the watchdog can exemplify the best and worst of electronic media.
"Everybody is a publisher now," Paul said. "In the past, this would have been an angry man with a mimeograph machine in the basement" who slipped screeds under doors and posted them on telephone posts.
The site and e-mail could also be taken as an interesting source of information as newspapers lose staff and the ability to be watchdogs themselves, Paul said.
But, she added, "As an information consumer, if I can't find out who's behind it, I'd just discount it."
That's what Edberg, a candidate for the Ward 4 council seat, said he was going to do.
The longtime school board member said his 20 years of exposure on the White Bear Lake board "is open and fair game."
"But delving into family, business and other aspects of personal life that are unrelated to public performance of duty ... people should be outraged," he said.
He calls the claims of "cronyism" patently untrue.
Biehn, a Ward 2 council candidate, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The wblwatchdog Web site did not respond to a request for comment off its "Contact Us" page. A message sent Thursday to the address from which the e-mail was sent was returned as "undeliverable."
None of the named candidates have withdrawn from their races.
"Whoever's behind it, I hope their names will come out. They should be held accountable for this type of behavior," Emerson said. "If you believe that strongly in something, you should be willing to stand up and say it."
John Brewer can be reached at 651-228-2093.
2 candidates
withdraw from
mayoral race
White Bear Lake's mayoral pool for the upcoming election has been cut in half, after two candidates withdrew from the race Thursday.
The absence of John Rhodes and Zachary Morgan means there will be no primary in the mayor's race, which now pits Jo Emerson, a community volunteer and vice chair of the planning commission, against Renee Tessier, current council member for Ward 1.
Both Rhodes and Morgan said they are going to support Tessier.
Rhodes said he respects Tessier's work on the city council — he lost in the primary for the Ward 1 seat two years ago.
Morgan said he and Tessier share many of the same views and her experience made her a more viable candidate.
In the city's other races, Douglas Biehn is running unopposed for the Ward 2 seat being vacated by Tom Frazer, and incumbent Pam Johnson faces challengers Kevin Edberg and Nancy Poferl in the Sept. 15 primary for the Ward 4 council spot.
— John Brewer
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