| 8/12/2009 10:51:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | City Council candidate suing Maplewood
City officials say claims are frivolous
Derrick Knutson
Review staff
Julie Binko, a candidate for Maplewood City Council, is suing the city in small claims court for $3,000. She claims the city used her ideas to implement "greenway" projects in south Maplewood, and she was never properly compensated.
The city and Friends of Maplewood Nature, a non-profit environmental organization of which Binko was formerly a member, say Binko's claims are arbitrary.
Along with the city of Maplewood, other defendants named in Binko's suit include Community Development and Parks Department Director DuWayne Konewko, Maplewood Natural Resources Coordinator Ginny Gaynor, city Environmental Planner Shann Finwall, Maplewood City Council Member John Nephew and chair of the Maplewood Parks and Recreation Commission Peter Fischer.
Binko's conciliation court hearing for the suit was July 31. A judge will decide the matter, and if either party is dissatisfied with the result of the decision, they may file an appeal to have it brought to jury trial.
After the nearly two-hour hearing wrapped up, Nephew, City Attorney Alan Kantrud and Barbara Kroll and Ron Cockriel, both members of the Friends of Maplewood Nature, offered their views on the proceedings.
Grant proposal leads to lawsuit
In January, Binko formed her own nonprofit organization, called Stonehouse: Educational Enterprises for Sustainability.
At the time, Friends was in the process of attempting to obtain a $15,000 Xcel grant to study the preservation and expansion of greenway corridors throughout the city. Greenways are continuous strips of undeveloped land that allow animals and birds to move from one park or preserve to another, Kroll said.
She said Binko approached Friends about helping to write a grant proposal in an attempt to obtain the $15,000. Binko was supposed to be allocated $5,000 of that money to write and revise a curriculum for greenway-related plans, Kroll said. Kroll said she broke off the Friends' relationship with Binko when Binko changed her allocation of the money for the project from $5,000 to $7,000.
The four-page grant proposal Binko produced was never actually submitted to Xcel for funding.
Kroll and Binko had corresponded via e-mail during February of this year, and on March 7, the Friends' board of directors accepted Binko's offer to help in the grant-writing process.
"She sought us out; we said, 'Fine.' What was the risk?" Kroll said. "We didn't know we'd have to go to court."
Kroll added that Binko was actively writing the proposal from March 7 to March 10, a total of four days.
Over that time, Binko put together a four-page "draft proprietary proposal" to obtain the funding. During the court hearing, Binko said the document encompassed more than four pages and took her 30 hours to write.
Kroll said she had helped Binko with an Xcel grant template, which was nine pages long, and that might be the more-than-four-page document Binko was referring to.
City refutes claims
The statement of claim and summons for the court hearing reads, "City staff, city council members and commissioner(s) used the concept and the proposal without (Binko's) verbal or written consent and violated the use of proprietary intellectual property."
That is a claim city officials refute.
Nephew said the city had already been working plans for greenways throughout Maplewood before Binko began her grant proposal writing process.
City Council meeting minutes from Jan. 28, 2008, detail how the city approved retaining services from Applied Ecological Services for preparation of the Natural Resources Greenway Plan.
According to Gaynor, the city began mapping areas of Maplewood for its natural resources greenway plan in March 2008, and a draft for the city's comprehensive plan was completed by July 24 of that year - again, before Binko started working on the Xcel grant.
Nephew added that the city had applied for and received a grant from an environmental organization called Embrace Open Space that the city used for the greenway project.
Gaynor said that grant application, which Embrace Open Space refers to as an "activity assistance request," was submitted during February of last year. The cover letter of the document reads "Feb. 20, 2008."
The request for funding from Gaynor to EOS states: "Maplewood would like to take a comprehensive approach and use greenway corridors to guide natural resources planning and protection."
Not her own ideas
Nephew argued that Binko's claims are refuted by verifiable fact and documentation.
"All of her material is derivative of city material," Nephew said. "It's as though somebody copies the Harry Potter movie and then sues J.K. Rowling for stealing their idea."
The city also has the opportunity to purchase land in southern Maplewood in order to expand one of the greenways near Fish Creek. A deadline for the purchase of the land from the CoPar development company passed June 30, but the city still has the opportunity to purchase some of the property because CoPar is currently in foreclosure.
Nephew said the city had been working towards the purchase of land for greenway use from CoPar long before Binko began her grant writing process, and that serves as another example that the city couldn't have taken ideas from Binko.
Kantrud said the document Binko drafted lacks the content to be worth $3,000, and he stressed that Binko knew she was volunteering her time and would not be compensated for it.
He points out a February e-mail sent to Cockriel, Binko wrote, "I already volunteered 30 hours of my time to Friend(s) of Maplewood Nature by writing the Xcel grant."
Kantrud said as far as the content of the document, "a page-and-a-half of it is basically her saying, 'Once we get the money, here's how I'm going to spend it for you,'" Kantrud said. "On the second page - I would suggest - ends up being no more than her plan of a curriculum later on for the Friends to pursue. That's her 'proprietary proposal.'"
He added that she likely named the city, Nephew, Fischer and city staff persons in the suit instead of Friends because she was probably going after the "deeper pocket" because Friends really doesn't have any money since it's a nonprofit that has only been in existence since 2007.
Non-response
A call by the Review to Binko about the suit was returned with an e-mail. The message body was blank and the subject line read:
"You sat in the courtroom -- you tell me what the case was about."
Derrick Knutson can be reached at dknutson@lillienews.com or at 651-748-7825.
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Reader Comments
Posted: Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Article comment by:
Stephan Flister
Mr. Nephew has posted a follow up to this article noting that the conciliation court has made its ruling.
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