MASON CITY – The Cerro Gordo County Board of supervisors appointed Casey Callanan as Chairman, while a tense and heated outburst in the courthouse between the County Administrator and a Supervisor has been confirmed – leading to more questions.
At their January 3, 2023 meeting, in addition to Callanan’s appointment, Lori Meacham Ginapp was appointed as Vice Chairperson of the Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors. She remains under investigation by a state campaign ethics board for her campaign for Supervisor.
Also of importance at the meeting, the Board of Supervisors named Brandon Billings as County Engineer with his bond fixed at $5,000.
(Photo: Casey Callanan of Clear Lake is Board Chairman. He runs a lucrative insurance company and likes to attend Hawkeye football games.)
Meanwhile, NIT continues to investigate and gather details after an alleged outburst in the Board of Supervisors office on January 6, 2023. The incident involved shouting from County Administrator Tom Meyer. The source(s) that reached out to NIT understood Administrator Tom Meyer delivered phrases to Supervisor Chris Watts in a loud, shouting manner. This evidently caused a number of county employees to leave their offices and stand by along with citizens in the lobby area and watch as this ordeal unfolded for nearly 30 minutes or longer. One quote overheard, “I have enough to put you both away for a long time!”
After NIT emailed the appropriate cast of characters in the courthouse for clarification on the matter at 2:08 PM on January 6, Administrator Meyer confirmed to NIT in a response that he “became a little animated” with Supervisor Watts during this incident. Administrator Meyer claimed, in a 3:30 PM email (just one hour and 22 minutes later), to have apparently obtained and perused multiple security camera footage tapes that filmed the courthouse first floor. “Our security cameras clearly show” who was in the lobby during the heated outburst, he said.
More details to come. NIT will publish an update in the future.
Students of history will recall that Tom Meyer was City Attorney for Mason City, until he resigned in 2011, amidst plenty of drama (accusations of retaliation against a current councilman). NIT reported at the time, as if we had a beautiful, glittering crystal ball in our newsroom, that Meyer had his eye on a tasty Courthouse job (that he is taking full advantage of now). Another councilman said of Meyer’s resignation, “It’s strange” while yet another councilman was “shocked.”
Just two years later, Meyer had been hired as city attorney for Cedar Falls, but they eliminated the position, effectively ousting him. Meyer told NorthIowaToday.com in 2013 that his position as city attorney at Cedar Falls has been “outsourced” and City Hall was moving to having no in-house attorneys. At the time of that story in 2013, Meyer’s intention, he claimed, was to pursue a private practice in Mason City, which he did until 2017, his LinkedIn profile says. He then realized his dream of taking a job in the courthouse – not as an attorney, but as Administrator. More to come on this, as well.
MEETING MINUTES FROM 2023-01-03:
EXPENSE REPORT FOR 2023-01-03:
5 thoughts on “Cerro Gordo County Courthouse: Tense confrontation confirmed; Casey Callanan named Chairman of Board”
Mr Meyer worked at Curries also a few years back. He got into alot of trouble there and he was fired.. Of course after all of the incidents with his employers the county hires this knothead !!!
Why has it taken this long for these supervisors to see what loose cannon Meyer is? How come he get’s away with making these threat’s to them he works for.
If this guy still is at the court house next week, we will know he has some thing on them two Republicans, wonder what it is?
The wife, she use to work for a lawyer in Mason, was amaze when another secretary flipped the guy crap, about ever week. Well guess what it turns out this lady she knew about the affair the attorney was having with some floozy and threaten to tell the wife of the boss everything.
When a worker get’s away with threats to a boss, then that boss has secrets he don’t want nobody to know.
When somebody says ““I have enough to put you both away for a long time!” there’s plenty of dirt to go around.
Why do they have an administrator? Seems expensive to have a lawyer. I was in the Manly clerk office one time and they were talking to Tom who was also the city lawyer about some issues, it seemed like he was getting paid by the supervisors to do work for the town of Manly. Shouldnt a lawyer know to not yell and make threats? Sounds like a liability for the county, glad its there problem.
Thanks for reporting on this story, which nobody else has done anything with. Can you clarify why the new county engineer needs a bond? Thanks.