Ex-Ramsey County worker files whistle-blower lawsuit

A boiler operator who worked for Ramsey County claims he was retaliated against and ultimately fired after he tried to get the county to fix or replace defective equipment that caused sewer gas and carbon monoxide to be pulled into the Roseville Library.

Gary Imholte's whistleblower lawsuit against the county said he discovered sometime in 2007 that the library's boiler and ventilation system were drafting carbon monoxide into the building during the heating season and sewer gas in the summertime.

When his supervisor, Julie Neville, refused to do anything about it, Imholte called the state boiler inspector, the lawsuit said. He then reported the problem to Neville's supervisor and later to that supervisor's supervisor, the suit said.

Neville referred a reporter's phone call Tuesday to Susan Nemitz, director of the Ramsey County Library System.

Nemitz said there was an anonymous complaint about carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, a sewer gas, in April 2008. She said the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) inspected the Roseville and Arden Hills libraries on April 9. According to a letter sent to the libraries by OSHA, the "inspection resulted in no proposed citations."

According to the lawsuit, Imholte, of Newport, worked for the county's property management division from April 2005 until he was fired April 14, 2008. As a licensed boiler operator, he was responsible for the care, maintenance and repair of all the boilers in the county's library branches.

Imholte said Tuesday that he kept a daily boiler log where he recorded complaints and his findings. Nemitz asked a reporter to submit a written request for that log.

The lawsuit said Neville retaliated against Imholte by moving him to a weekend schedule and keeping him out of the loop on boiler issues. After Imholte made a written complaint on March 11, 2008, about the retaliation and the boiler and ventilation issues to her supervisor, Bruce Thompson, he was told to stay home from work until he heard back, the suit said.

A week later, Imholte was reassigned to the Ramsey County Government Center East Building and told he was being investigated for doing another job on county time.

Imholte's attorney, Alf Sivertson, said, "They killed the messenger instead of dealing with the problem. It violates the law. You can't fire someone for reporting serious violations that appear to have had health effects on the people at the library."

As for the claims of wrongdoing against Imholte: "That's trumped up," Sivertson said. "There's no question about it. When an employer gets backed into a corner like that and knows they're exposed legally, they're going to make up something to get rid of the employee. This is a textbook case."

The complaint and the county's answer were filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court. The answer, written by Assistant County Attorney Karen Kugler, denies most of the allegations in the lawsuit, including "that the boiler issues were left uncorrected" and that Imholte was fired in violation of Minnesota's whistle-blower law.

The county's response admits that Imholte discovered problems with the boiler and air handler at the Arden Hills Library in 2005 and found mold in a 50-foot section of an air tunnel there in March 2007. Both those problems were fixed, although the lawsuit said that Neville told Imholte not to tell anybody about the mold. The answer denies that allegation.

Pat Pheifer • 651-298-1551