Local elected officials change with the times

Yesterday's politicians grew up in town, knew everyone and generally had no burning cause -- other than public service.

By Robert Franklin

Last update: October 13, 2009 - 5:05 PM

He was born in a wood-heated farmhouse that had no electricity or telephone. His school bus was a horse and wagon. Recreation included parlor games, dances and ice skating on a nearby creek.

When he died last month at age 89, it was in the house he had built 50 years ago, next door to his childhood home.

Along the way, Wayne Neddermeyer became a father of nine, a farmer, skilled carpenter, vocational model for his offspring, world traveler, village clerk and, for 13 years in the 1960s and '70s, the mayor of Medina.

"He was very traditional in all his ways and thinking," said his son Glen.

Neddermeyer also may have been typical of home-grown farmers and blue-collar workers who served as mayors, council members and staff in outlying metro townships before they became villages, then growing suburbs. And who seem to be getting rarer with time.

Many of them tended to be conservative and frugal, and that sometimes led to battles with newcomers over land use, budgets, road maintenance, planning, hunting practices and the environment.

For instance, council members had to seek a balance between farmers who wanted to develop their land and newcomers who, as we used to joke, wanted to shut the gates to development before they had unpacked their suitcases. And newcomers often wanted more urban services than old-timers were willing to finance.

At one time, many elected officials knew practically everybody in town, were related to many of them and had no burning cause.

"So many people get on councils nowadays because they've got some kind of issue," says Marvin Johnson, a farmer, mayor of Independence since 1980 and a former president of the League of Minnesota Cities.

"I was just kind of thrown into it," said Johnson, who got a phone call the morning after a council meeting in 1976 saying he had been appointed to that body, where his father once served. "I had no ax to grind."

Newcomers often say councils will benefit from fresh perspectives, free of old alliances (and grudges).

But new folks often were viewed with suspicion. One candidate for the Medina Council was unopposed on the ballot in the late 1960s but was defeated by an organized write-in campaign for native son Don DesLauriers. (How many ways can you spell "DesLauriers"? The election judges chuckled when they found out.)

Old-timers helped me win a council seat as a relative newcomer in 1970 (and helped me lose in 1976). I served with both Neddermeyer and DesLauriers, and I could relate to Glen Neddermeyer's recollections at his father's memorial service at the Catholic Church of St. George in Long Lake.

Being on the council "was something Wayne really enjoyed," Glen said. "It was one of those thankless jobs, but he loved it."

He also loved polka music, fishing, casinos, home cooking (he once invited a UPS driver to stay for dinner) and his late wife, Dorothy, who grew up in a Medina house that once housed a post office and dance hall. He left his keys in his car and his house unlocked.

And he inspired his children. Four sons, a grandson, a son-in-law, a future son-in-law and four daughters worked in construction at one time or another, Glen said, and they built 14 houses for family members and a cabin near Longville, Minn.

Old-time leaders such as Neddermeyer are passing away. Hunk Scherer, a Medina farmer, butcher and former council member who once complained that newcomers were "building houses they can't afford to impress people they don't even like," died last year.

DesLauriers, a mainstay of the Hamel Fire Department, died in 2007. So did Anne Theis, who as a young woman moved to a lake cabin with no heat and no plumbing and was elected Medina mayor at age 70.

I think they all could relate to a hymn sung at Neddermeyer's funeral (before the playing of the recessional, "Beer Barrel Polka"):

"I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have borne my people's pain. ...

"I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart."

Robert Franklin is a retired Star Tribune reporter and editor.

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