Ever since the Osceola County Supervisors disapproved of county attorney Robert Hansen taking additional employment in O’Brien County in January of 2006, members of the Osceola County legal community have behind the scenes been aggressively attempting to intimidate the Supervisors and anyone else who objected to Hansen’s profitable arrangement. Evidence of these attempts is below.

January 3, 2006, the Supervisors passed the resolution found here disagreeing with Hansen. By January 12, 2006, the Supervisors received a letter from the Osceola County Bar Association. Keep in mind that this is the group which former County Attorney Harold Dawson referred to in 1995 when he said that none of their members were interested in the County Attorney job. Do they have a financial interest in seeing Mr. Hansen keep his Full-time position? The letter repeated many of the themes Hansen has been saying, but disingenuously added that “Mr. Hansen’s salary received through his employment as the Osceola County Attorney is significantly lower than the salaries of identical positions in surrounding counties.” First, the positions are not `identical’ because Hansen has far less work to do than the other counties around us. Second, compare this false statement to the FY 2007 salaries of county attorneys, as provided by Iowa State Association of Counties in Des Moines. Hansen - $66,533, Dickinson - $57,200, Clay - $46,989, O’Brien - $51,500, Sioux - $88,561, Lyon - $72,681. Hansen’s is only lower than Sioux and Lyon County and each of them has a larger population than our county (Sioux County is nearly 4 times the size.) The Bar Association’s letter closed with this statement - which reveals little concern for the taxpayers – “In the interest of fairness and of the benefit to Osceola County this decision should be reviewed and overturned.” The OCTA believes the very opposite of such a proposed action is what is best for Osceola County. This letter was personally signed by E. H. Philiph, Frank Kennedy, Joseph Feller, Daniel DeKoter, Michael Thole, Harold Dawson, James Benz, Nicole Jensen-Harris and Melinda Roman.

Not Good Enough For DeKoter!

But Daniel DeKoter didn’t stop there. In February of 2007, the OCTA employed a consultant to look further into Hansen’s dealings with O’Brien County. Our consultant chose not to identify us while doing his initial research of public records. After sending a letter of inquiry to the O’Brien County Auditor in Primghar, regarding Hansen, our consultant’s first reply came from whom else, but Sibley lawyer Dan DeKoter. DeKoter assumed our consultant was working for a particular member of the Osceola County Board of Supervisors. See excerpts of what he wrote here -

From: Dan DeKoter
To: dcs@iowatelecom.net
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 9:53 AM
Subject: O'Brien County inquiry

Dear……:
I heard a rumor at the O’Brien County Courthouse that you are investigating the time spent by Bob Hansen as an assistant there. The legal community is very small in this area, and word gets around quickly. Apparently you indicated that you have a client for whom you are working. Presumably the client is someone on the Osceola County Board of Supervisors, or someone working closely with a board member. It appears to me that certain board members have a vendetta against Bob Hansen for whatever reason. I suppose the idea is to try to cut his job to half time or take away part of his salary, and your job is to gather the evidence to support such action….As an interested citizen, I just want to make an observation which I would ask that you pass along to your client. Human nature being what it is, acts of revenge tend to beget other acts of revenge. The Osceola County Board of Supervisors has made itself very vulnerable to attack by routinely violating the open meetings law and the law requiring that items of discussion at public meetings be on the agenda 24 hours in advance…Human nature being what it is, I would be shocked if one or more of Bob’s many friends in this county did not report those violations as counter-revenge against the Board if it attacks Bob’s livelihood…..I think it would be unfortunate if people in this county went down that path of revenge/counter-revenge.

Sincerely,
Daniel E. DeKoter

In a follow-up eMail to our consultant’s response DeKoter wrote –

From: Dan Dekoter
To: dcs@iowatelecom.net
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 3:38 PM
Subject: RE: O'Brien County inquiry

….Hardball is a game in which everyone gets hurt. If you choose to see that and my other observations as a “veiled threat”, so be it.

Dan DeKoter

And a final threat in response to our consultant was sent as follows -

From: Dan Dekoter
To: dcs@iowatelecom.net
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 6:04 PM
Subject: RE: O'Brien County inquiry

Dear…..

I have offered an observation about the likely consequences when people become petty and mean. It is easily foreseeable that….it will have serious ramifications beyond those which your client intends…..And you might want to tell your client to seek legal advice. There are potential legal ramifications for him or her personally, which I have not described. You can say that I am huffing and puffing if you like, but your client is plotting to mess around with Bob Hansen’s employment and reputation. That is serious business, sir.

Daniel E. DeKoter

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During the above correspondence DeKoter was under the impression that our consultant was working for a member of the Board of Supervisors.

DeKoter strikes again.

When our President, Kevin Wolfswinkel, was preparing to make his April 24, 2007, presentation to the Supervisors, on OCTA’s behalf, asking them to reclassify Hansen as Part-time and to inquire of Harold Dawson (see other link on this site), a copy of his presentation was forwarded in advance to the Auditor. The Auditor’s office forwarded it to Hansen the week before. Apparently Hansen then forwarded it to DeKoter. The day before President Wolfswinkel testified before the Supervisors, Dan DeKoter struck again. In an eMail sent to the Auditor and forwarded to the Supervisors dated April 23, 2007, regarding Wolfswinkel’s pending public testimony, DeKoter wrote –

“In my opinion, the letter is libelous as to our law firm and particularly as to Harold Dawson…The Board of Supervisors does not have any legal obligation to provide a public forum for libel……I would ask that the Board inform Mr. Wolkswinkel that he must seek legal counsel and have his letter critiqued and edited for libel before he reads anything publicly. Frankly, the Board would be doing him a big favor. If he publicly reads the letter in its current form, our firm is considering a lawsuit against him….

Daniel E. DeKoter

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Consider how this message was to serve as a threat to us and the Board of Supervisors. First, if one believed printed material is libelous to another, the first remedy, most libel attorneys will advise, is to go to the party who wrote the material, inform them of your views and ask them to retract or not print the material. But DeKoter has never approached us or our President regarding his opinion of this letter. Instead he went to the Board of Supervisors and asked them to relay his opinion on to us. Why not come to us directly? This served two purposes. In addition to trying to scare us off, it also served as an attempt to scare the Supervisors who received the message. They must have asked themselves, `What will happen to us if we do provide the OCTA a forum and DeKoter would be right?’ The OCTA had every confidence that the 1st Amendment protected our non-libelous speech regarding a former public official’s public statements made in a public meeting. We proceeded ahead, but who did the Supervisors have to turn to for legal counsel – Robert Hansen?

In OCTA’s view, attorney Daniel DeKoter is trying to usurp the normal civil rights of the citizens of Osceola County. He has not followed up on one of these hollow threats, regarding the county Supervisors or us. Why? Because, we're confident, he had no real basis for these threats in the first place and we wouldn't be surprised if DeKoter didn't already know that. We find his strong-arming repugnant and encourage every Osceola County taxpayer and voter who agrees to contact your Supervisors and ask them not to yield to his intimidation tactics. If you are so inclined, also send Mr. DeKoter an Email and let him know what you think of his actions. Clearly "unity" in Osceola County will only be - in the mind of Spirit Lake resident Daniel DeKoter - on his terms.

(If readers question the veracity of these quotes above or their source, feel free to contact us and we'll forward the eMails on to you. They will include the header section of the eMails, which includes the IP address to the computer Mr. DeKoter used to send them from. They are his.)