‘Facelift’ at Medford Muni leads to frustration

Last week, Medford Mayor Danny Thomas apologized publicly to a pair of city employees and a volunteer firefighter after he became “flustered” during an exchange over the Easter weekend.

This week, he’s awaiting the results of an independent investigation into the same incident.

The Municipal Liquor Store closed April 8-10, allowing several volunteers to provide a “facelift” by painting, cleaning and refreshing the business.

One of those volunteers was Matt Mullenbach, who’s been a Medford resident and firefighter since 2008.

“I went from Cloud 9 on Easter Sunday to disappointment in less than 12 hours,” he said during the public comment portion of the Medford City Council meeting last week.

“The next morning … I walked into a complete disaster,” Mullenbach said. Two city employees had been asked to strip the old finish off the floor and apply a new clear coat, but were doing it incorrectly.

Their inexperience was leading to the floor “getting gummed up all over,” he said, “and Mathias told me one of our elected officials came in and told them to stop, and just put sealer over the top of the floor.”

So Mullenbach, a veteran carpenter, said that would cause more problems – and wasted money – down the road, so he stepped in to help the remaining city employee, Mathias Heinrichs.

Minutes later, he said, “the elected official came storming into the Muni, yelling, ‘Mathias, I told you to stop and just put clear coat on it. I am the boss, and you will listen to me.’ I let him know that was wrong, and he should never speak to anyone like he just did.”

The official, it turned out, was Thomas.

“I walked in, I was brash, and I said something like, ‘I’m the boss guys, what the heck’s going on, we had a plan,’” Thomas said later. “It was pretty loud; it needed to be apologized for – it was wrong.”

After explaining what needed to be done to the floor, Mullenbach said, “the elected official did apologize, and we acknowledge that. But how he acted – truly, the apology cannot be accepted.”

Mullenbach’s reason for appearing before the council, he said, was to request a public apology to Heinrichs “for how he was treated.

“I also want a public thank you to Rachel and her staff for how hard they work to make this community better; and last, I don’t ever want this to happen again. I’m glad I was there to witness it.”

Rachel Heinrichs, the manager of the liquor store, is married to Mathias Heinrichs.

She also addressed the city council members at last week’s meeting, though she wasn’t present during the incident April 10.

The business earned more than $20,000 profit for the city in the first 10 weeks of this year, she said, thanks to a hard-working staff and community support.

No staff members or volunteers were required to help that holiday weekend, she said, “but when you love your community and want to see things in your community succeed, you work together and make that happen.”

That was part of the issue, Thomas said Monday.

“This whole time, I never knew how we got all these volunteer workers up there, because they never were approved by nobody,” he said.

Mathias Heinrichs, also a volunteer firefighter for the city, put out the call for help to the rest of the department that weekend, and “he got quite a bunch of workers to come up and help him.”

According to Thomas, the city attorney believes people aren’t volunteers if they’ve been asked to help.

“You don’t reach out as a city employee and ask for volunteers,” Thomas said. “If you do that, you need to pay them.”

Now, he said, “I want to pay everybody that was up there, because of how it was handled.”

The extent of the work done at the bar is also an issue, he said.

“All I knew was it was supposed to get paint,” Thomas said. “The council had approved $1,000-$1,200 for paint and a facelift.”

His understanding was that the city would pay the liquor store’s hourly employees for doing the work, since the business itself would be closed.

What Rachel Heinrichs took issue with, she said at the council meeting, was a decision to close the bar on April 11.

“I was informed that an elected official made the decision to close the Muni for another day, because he didn’t think we were ready to open the doors that Tuesday,” she said, “without any sort of communication with me.”

Going forward, she said, all communication should go through the city administrator, “as he is my boss.”

Despite never having his name mentioned during the city council meeting, Thomas addressed the issue.

“I will tell you this, in public, I’ve apologized to each and every one of you one time,” he said. “This is the last time: I apologize. I made three or four mistakes that day, but (the city administrator) was gone, and I was getting phone calls.

“I got flustered,” he said. “There was a number of things we did wrong – not only me, but people along the line…

“I mean it. I was wrong,” he said. “I don’t know how much more you want me to tell you, because that’s all you’re getting from me. We have to grow as a group, but I want you guys to know I appreciate you, and I want to know why the Muni’s running so good. Sometimes I’m there just asking people that, because it’s amazing to me the amount of money we’re bringing in.

“That’s where I’m going to leave it – I hope that’s good enough for you,” Thomas said.

“It was me, I’m guilty. Guilty. It’s all true, so let’s get on to the next subject, please.”

But that wasn’t it.

“This wasn’t settled,” Thomas said Monday. “The group that presented that night has settled, but the rest of the community is irate.”

They’re angry, he said, “about how taxpayer dollars got spent that weekend, and who approved what.”

In addition, he said, some residents don’t understand “why the mayor can’t make decisions within the city when there’s not a lead person around, and there’s people upset that the liquor store is bringing all these people from out of town into the community. What’s going to happen?”

Still, Thomas said, “I know what I did that day; I know what I did was wrong. I don’t want to battle and battle. I want the people at the liquor store to learn what they did wrong, and learn from that.

“Let’s get this thing behind us,” he said.

The city’s administrative director of operations, Jed Petersen, will lead an independent investigation into the whole Easter weekend process, Thomas said, and report the findings at the May city council meeting.