Iowa mayor, council member tied to controversial land development

Grimes residents are upset about a proposed housing development that would include 27 homes, 34 duplexes and 5 acres of commercial space.
They say the city didn’t give them enough notice about the public hearing on the project.
They also say they’re concerned the mayor and a council member’s involvement in the project could pose conflicts of interest.

On social media and in emails and calls to city officials last month, Grimes residents tried to air what bothered them about the proposed housing development west of Highway 141 in a neighborhood already bursting with new homes, apartments and businesses.

Planning and zoning officials sent out last-minute notices to nearby neighbors saying a limited liability corporation called Station Crossing Farm wanted to build 27 homes, 34 duplexes and 5 acres of commercial space — including a sports training facility. The development would sit on 33 acres of a tree-lined field east of northeast Heritage Drive and north of Northeast Station Crossing.

Neighbors complained traffic in the area was already a big problem. A huge new apartment complex with 480 units was being constructed nearby, they said, and fast-growing Grimes already had 10 sports facilities, including 515Fieldhouse, developed by Mayor Scott Mikkelsen, and the massive new GrimesPlex, financed with taxpayer money.

More: Metro Des Moines teems with sports facilities. Should cities use public money to compete?

“Do we know what we want to be when we grow up, other than the sports capital of the world?” Patrick Wall quipped in an informal discussion between neighbors at the Grimes Public Library in mid-August.

Several residents brought questions to Watchdog. Some wanted to find out who owned the land in question because city officials didn’t say. Some questioned why city officials were trying to rezone the property before its annexation had even been approved by a state board that acts on petitions to change municipal boundaries. Several asked if the city’s hit-and-miss notices to neighbors — which didn’t arrive in some mailboxes until after the scheduled public hearing date — adhered to state laws governing notices of public hearings.

Beginning Aug. 14, Watchdog sent a series of questions to City Manager Jake Anderson, including several seeking to clarify whether Mikkelsen and council member Eric Johansen — both developers, investors and previously accused by residents of conflicts of interest — were involved.

The city’s marketing and communications director, Whitney Tucker, responded in an email to Watchdog on Aug. 30, saying Justin Frampton of Frampton Homes submitted the project application and was “owner of Station Crossing LLC.” She said city officials supported it because it “would generate significantly less traffic than the 250 units” called for on the tract in the city’s comprehensive plan.

But Frampton was not the owner of the land, county records showed. Public mortgage and corporate filings showed Mikkelsen and Johansen were behind the big project, which residents felt was being rushed and altered to accommodate denser housing.

Mikkelsen, Polk County recorder documents showed, is manager of Station Crossing Farm and signed a $1.95 million mortgage in 2022 on the land. The two agricultural parcels that make up Station Crossing Farm are currently assessed at less than $50,000, county records show. He also sought to survey the land this spring, records show.

Johansen signed off last fall on Station Crossing Farm’s documents for reinstatement as a legal corporation with the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office.

Residents say that information stokes new questions about conflicts of interest and transparency by city leaders in a rapidly growing community that is fast losing its small-town feel. While the City Council didn’t act on the development, residents said they felt city officials hid the local elected officials’ involvement in the proposed project leading into the resonance hearing.

In an email to City Council members the day of that Aug. 6 hearing — obtained by Watchdog under Iowa’s open records law — Anderson, the city manager, did not disclose or mention the elected officials’ involvement in the proposed project, either.

Anderson urged the council to “cheerlead” the project, suggesting traffic might be worse with another proposal if they didn’t get behind this one.

More: Grimes is growing rapidly. Its first-ever economic development director hopes to keep it up.

“The tenor of the public discussion at this point has not been welcoming to Frampton and it’s completely unwarranted,” Anderson wrote to city officials the day of the hearing to rezone the land. “…We should be thanking Frampton for his investment in our community.”

Then, after a slew of complaints by residents, the city abruptly canceled the hearing, with Anderson and some council members telling neighbors that Frampton Homes backed out because of the backlash.

To some that moved felt like gaslighting.

Neighbor Terri Golightly, who had been the first to question the Station Crossing Farm development on a community Facebook page in August, said Anderson blamed her for getting other residents riled up.

But she said she felt city leaders botched the whole thing and actively tried to keep residents in the dark.

“Something smells to high heaven,” said Golightly, who now monitors city meetings with her neighbors. “This isn’t going to wash anymore in this town.”

Some residents feel that city officials’ plans don’t include them

The city of Grimes last month also hastily withdrew an application to annex the Station Crossing Farm land from Polk County that was before Iowa’s City Development Board — a must if the development would be in Grimes. That throws into question what Mikkelsen and partners will do with it now.

Mikkelsen, Johansen and Frampton did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment. Council members also did not reply to a series of questions from Watchdog sent Sept. 5. Among other things, Watchdog asked them whether they believed the mayor and Johansen could serve the city and their own business interests at the same time, and whether they think Grimes may need a conflict-of-interest policy or ordinance to guide them.

That matters to residents because Mikkelsen and Johansen have been at the center of concerns before. Some were raised last year in another Watchdog column about similar perceived conflicts of interest.

County documents showed Mikkelsen had started buying properties within the proposed Heritage at Grimes site on the city’s north side after he was elected to his first term in 2017. He eventually sold a large commercial parcel in town at a more than $600,000 profit to a development firm he created. After the city approved a site plan in 2020, he constructed a 50,000-square-foot town center, with retail and office space.

He and Johansen have been developing more of the property around 515 Fieldhouse.

Johansen, 40, a former political director of the Iowa Republican Party, is chief operating officer of Mikkelsen’s TAAG Development.

He and his wife, Tara, also own a more than $2 million parcel of undeveloped land in Ankeny on the southeast corner of Northwest Irvinedale Drive and Northwest 36^th Street with Mikkelsen and investors Ryan and Mackenzie Barton of Cedar Rapids.

In the years since Mikkelsen and Johansen have been re-elected, Grimes has changed its long-term plan. Its population has been projected to grow incredibly fast — by almost 170% in a generation, to 44,679 in 2040 from an estimated 16,615 this year.

Anderson insisted last year it’s not unusual for elected officials to develop commercial properties.

“This happens across the cities in the Des Moines metro, in Polk and Dallas Counties, and across the state of Iowa and is done pursuant to the state’s conflict-of-interest laws, which Grimes has followed,” he said in an email.

But neither Des Moines’ current mayor nor any of its council members have attempted to do so.

Des Moines council member Josh Mandelbaum said he believes acting as a for-profit developer while overseeing city plans and staff is a direct conflict and a breach of public trust.

That’s because City Council members and the mayor have inside knowledge and influence that most members of the public do not, he said. Particularly in a place where people are speculating on future growth, developers can maximize value if they know how land will be used in the future and information such as where infrastructure and schools will be added.

“If you’re in a position of power, it’s way too easy to take advantage,” Mandelbaum said.

If a local official wants to be a developer, he said, transparency is critical, and the development should be done outside the jurisdiction where one governs “if you’re putting your constituents first,” he said.

‘It’s very disturbing,’ former mayor candidate says of lack of transparency

Residents say they wonder now who comes first in Grimes.

Sticker-shocked by home prices in Waukee, Wall said he bought his new home on the corner of Northeast Station Crossing and Northeast Heritage Drive in Grimes because it was outside the busiest parts of the Des Moines metro but still in the path of its progress. The Winnebago employee worried before the Station Crossing Farm flap that city officials weren’t putting enough thought into neighborhood planning.

The hidden details of the mayor and council member’s involvement in the proposed development tells him they aren’t listening.

“That should definitely not be happening. “No ifs, ands or buts about it,” he said.

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Neighbor Kyle Scott wondered when the new housing development was announced whether he would suddenly have to move from his dream home on Northeast Heritage Drive. The home backs up to a part of a forested area that Station Crossing Farm proposed to cut down. When he and his wife moved there in 2020, he said, the city’s plans were to keep the trees and build large executive lots in the field, which would have kept traffic to a minimum.

Not anymore, he said.

“With only one way in and out of here, I don’t know how we would manage another 100 to 200 cars a day,” he said. “It sounds miserable.”

In addition to the concerns about conflicts and traffic, neighbors say they also don’t like how they are being treated by City Hall. Some say city officials won’t return their calls or emails seeking answers. Several have discussed forming a neighborhood association to protect their interests.

“The purpose of (announcing the public hearing) was so there should have been transparency, but I don’t think there’s very much transparency at all in what they’re doing,” said Allen May, a Des Moines city planning administrator in the 1980s and ’90s who lost a bid for Grimes mayor in 2021. “It’s been more of a smoke and mirrors thing, and it’s very disturbing.”

But May said one good thing has emerged: Residents have begun to organize and they’re paying attention to what happens next.

Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Reach her at [email protected], at 515-284-8549, on Twitter at @leerood or on Facebook at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.