The McLeod County Board’s March 25 decision to terminate County Administrator Nan Crary’s employment left many unanswered questions, including some from Commissioner Ray Bayerl himself.

“I was kept out of it,” he said, referring to the process by which Board Chair Grant Knutson arrived at making his motion to dismiss Crary. “I was not privileged to know why it was done.”

Bayerl said Knutson had called him Feb. 27 to notify him he’d asked Crary to resign the previous day. Knutson recalled calling Bayerl to explain the county’s position, vis-à-vis Crary’s employment agreement. The agreement allows the county to terminate her for any reason, and for Crary to resign at any time.

Knutson said his statement that the county “needs to take a new direction” meant, “We wanted an administrator that was not a policy maker … The five elected commissioners should make the policy, make the rules, and the administrator carries them out.”

He did not state whether any specific cases in Crary’s tenure with the county showed that she not serving in that role. “I don’t think I want to pick out any particular instance,” he said. “I’m speaking in general.”

Commissioner Bev Wangerin said she and Crary spoke “well over a month ago.”

“We didn’t discuss whether she was leaving,” Wangerin added. “All I can say is 2007 was a pretty tough year for me … There were times when Nan and I were at odds about how I felt about an issue and how she felt about an issue ... The jail was one of the turning points.”

Wangerin and Knutson staunchly opposed construction of a new county jail for much of last year, and the proposal was nixed unanimously in October. Crary was a frequent champion for the project.

For more on this story, see the Leader’s April 1 print edition.

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com [2])