Nisswa Mayor Jennifer Carnahan facing call to resign amid controversy

NISSWA, Minn. - Less than a year after Jennifer Carnahan took over as mayor of Nisswa, this tourist city in northern Minnesota is embroiled in controversy, with at least one council member calling for her resignation.

Carnahan is the former chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota after getting pushed out of that job. She did not attend a special meeting called Wednesday to discuss her conduct. More than 40 residents filled the room the morning after a snowstorm dumped 8 inches in the area.

Nisswa’s four council members said they were hoping Carnahan would be there so they could find a better path forward as a city in the midst of dysfunction. There has been a revolving door of staff leaving and, the city is now without an administrator or clerk.

They called the special meeting after Carnahan recently claimed online that she was physically assaulted by a resident. That resident had sent Carnahan an email addressing what she felt was unfit conduct for a mayor. The resident denied assaulting Carnahan, and prosecutors twice declined to press charges.

“This is not an act of violence against a city official. This is a violation of our code of conduct,” Council Member Bruce London said in an interview. “It’s a trainwreck, and I think it’s our responsibility to prevent this from going further in this negative fashion.”

At the meeting Wednesday, Council Member Jesse Zahn called for Carnahan’s immediate resignation.

“She brought failed city politics to cabin country, and she’s burning the cabin down,” Zahn said in an interview.

She didn’t attend the meeting “because it appeared clear from the start that it was just going to be political theater” and “a coordinated effort to use official city business as a platform for political retaliation against me as the Mayor,” the statement read.

“No evidence of wrongdoing was presented. No specific code violations were identified. ... Instead, residents and council members aired personal opinions and political disagreements under the guise of official concern.”

Months of tension, infighting and accusations of Carnahan creating a toxic workplace, which the Minnesota Republican Party also accused her of, led up to the meeting. Some longtime staffers have resigned since Carnahan took office. Two interim city administrators stayed several weeks before resigning.

Maggi Wentler, the city’s finance specialist who is filling the roles of administrator and clerk, said “there’s a lot of tension” at city hall that she has not seen in her 12 years with the city. “Not to this level, not to this degree.”

The most recent administrator, Keith Hiller, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, noted in an organizational assessment many anonymous staff complaints about the mayor, according to a copy of the report.

Carnahan won her mayoral bid in November 2024 by 134 votes in the town of roughly 2,000 people.

She has owned and operated a boutique in Nisswa for a decade and had vacationed in the area with her family when she was growing up. After the 2022 death of her husband, U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn, she relocated to Nisswa from the Twin Cities.

Carnahan resigned as state GOP chair in 2021 a week after donor Anton “Tony” Lazzaro was convicted in federal court of sex trafficking minors. Carnahan had close ties to Lazzaro but denied any knowledge of his criminal activities.

After a few months as mayor, Carnahan ran in a special state Senate primary to fill the vacancy left by former state Sen. Justin Eichorn, who resigned after being charged with sexual solicitation of a minor.

Zahn said he donated $2,000 to her Senate campaign and $8,000 to a Political Action Committee supporting her “because it was clear to me that Nisswa was a stepping stone” for Carnahan.

It started with an email that Sophie Foster, 27, sent the mayor on Nov. 20 after she said she overheard Carnahan in the Nisswa bar and restaurant where Foster works talking about ways to get Zahn off the council.

In an interview Tuesday before the meeting, Carnahan denied discussing this at the restaurant.

Foster emailed Carnahan and councilmember Joe Hall in defense of Zahn and asked Carnahan to apologize.

“Multiple of us overheard hostile/rude comments about him, which I’ve been told is not a new thing for you,” Foster’s email said in part.

Carnahan never replied to the email. A week later, after the city’s annual Holiday Lights Parade, Carnahan said she was aggressively confronted by Foster outside the municipal bar, Ye Old Pickle Factory.

“Last night I was physically assaulted,” Carnahan wrote in a Facebook post, noting she had filed a police report.

Records obtained by the Star Tribune show the prosecutor declined to press charges over a lack of probable cause. The case was closed and re-opened a week later given another eyewitness account (there’s no surveillance footage), but the prosecutor again declined to press charges.

Copies of Foster’s email and the last city administrator’s report were handed out at Wednesday’s meeting attended by Foster and many of her supporters.

“I drove through the snow today on my bald tires to be here for Sophie because what happened over the last few weeks to her is completely unacceptable,” said Josh Gazelka, of Breezy Point, who also ran to fill Eichorn’s seat. He is the son of former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka.

About a half dozen residents spoke out against Carnahan’s behavior, noting they were disappointed in what led up to the meeting and also her absence there.

“Nisswa does need to heal ... I feel this is an inappropriate way to handle this,” said Heidmann, who was with Carnahan when Foster said she overheard them talking about Zahn.

Heidmann was not reelected in 2020 following a high-profile, profane disorderly conduct case with police. The council voted to censure Heidmann and asked him to resign. He refused.

Now the four council members said they will consider voting to censure Carnahan or cast a vote of no confidence at its next meeting.

Carnahan said in her statement that any attempt at censure is a “political stunt.”

In the Tuesday interview, Carnahan said she accepts the outcome of the alleged assault case but stands by her account of what happened.

Asked what is feeding the tension and dysfunction at city hall, Carnahan said “I’m limited in what I can say in my role as an elected official.”

Zahn, asked the same, said he doesn’t understand why there is so much drama in Nisswa, but he believes Carnahan is repeating a troubling political pattern.

“She is so conditioned to defensive posturing when it’s so premature that she doesn’t know any other way,” he said.

Foster said Wednesday that she felt good being surrounded by so much support and was relieved charged were not filed.