The St. Paul City Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to appoint an outside law firm to represent Mayor Kaohly Her in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Police Chief Axel Henry despite voicing frustrations about a lack of transparency and costs incurred by the city.
“I wish that we were spending money on literally anything else,” Council President Rebecca Noecker said during the meeting.
The lawsuit filed by Henry’s attorney last week alleges Her sexually harassed him on several occasions shortly after she took office in January, including making a reference to his penis size and placing a hand on his thigh during a meeting. The lawsuit also alleges Her retaliated against Henry after the chief filed a workplace complaint with the city’s Human Resources Department.
The city hired an outside law firm to investigate after Henry first raised sexual harassment allegations earlier this year. A summary of the firm’s findings, which cleared the mayor of harassment, was released earlier this month.
Noecker told reporters after the meeting Wednesday that she expects the full findings of the report to be made available to the mayor, police chief, City Council and, ultimately, the public within the week following redactions. She said she expects details of the costs associated with the investigation to also be released by the city attorney.
Council members took the vote immediately after about an hourlong, closed-door meeting. Noecker, Saura Jost, Molly Coleman, HwaJeong Kim and Cheniqua Johnson made up the 5-0 tally, while Council Members Anika Bowie and Nelsie Yang were absent.
Noecker explained council members were bound by “rigorous” statutory requirements that require the city to “indemnify and defend” its employees, unless certain conditions are met. The council will meet again next week to retain another attorney, who will formally decide whether those conditions apply to the mayor’s defense and if the city is obligated to pay for it.
In the meantime, since the city has to legally respond to the lawsuit by Oct. 14 and Her needs to respond by Oct. 16, council members had to make a decision immediately. They voted to retain Fisher Phillips, an outside law firm that can bill the city up to $500 per hour.
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“We are in a horrible position and we have very few options,” said Coleman, who represents Ward 4. “We will be spending unknown sums of money, significant sums of money, to defend against claims that we know nothing about, despite the fact that our money has already been used to investigate those very claims.”
Council members said it is unclear what the total cost of the legal fees will be, only that St. Paul taxpayers will bear the cost since the city has no specific litigation budget, requiring the money to come from the city’s general fund.
The extra costs come as council members aim to put together a 2027 budget amid a projected $26 million budget shortfall. Noecker told reporters potential litigation against the city is always a cost that council members can’t factor into the city’s budget each year, but should the cost of the lawsuit balloon, it’ll be challenging to figure out how to pay for it.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” Noecker said. “If this is an extremely expensive lawsuit, we do not have funds sitting around to cover the cost of that, and that is going to be really difficult for us.”
Coleman noted Wednesday’s meeting was taking place just one day shy of six months since the city attorney received the letter from Chris Madel, Henry’s attorney, that outlined allegations of sexual harassment against the mayor by city employees, including St. Paul police officers. Coleman said the council learned of the allegations via news reports, and that council members, as well as the public, have been “kept in the dark” about the investigation by the Her administration.
“Neither the council nor the public has been informed of the total cost of this investigation [and] neither the council nor the public has seen the findings of this report,” Coleman said. “While vague media reports have circulated that the report will be made public soon, we’re left with the allegations in the chief’s 73-page report and an investigation summary prepared by an appointee of the mayor herself.”
Upon the filing of the lawsuit, a spokesman for the mayor declined to comment on active litigation but pointed to the findings of the independent investigation into the workplace complaint.
The outside investigator, Resolute Law, found that Her had created an “uncomfortable” work environment and made “inappropriate” comments but that the mayor’s conduct did not amount to sexual harassment.
