DULUTH — Public records show that Mayor Roger Reinert’s campaign manager and girlfriend was directly involved in city affairs, from coordinating Reinert’s involvement in President Joe Biden’s January visit to asking city staff to complete an investigation for Reinert.
The emails, dating back to the beginning of the year when Reinert took office, detail requests made by Amber Gerske to the city’s communications director and a former assistant to Reinert. The emails, obtained through a data processing request, were first reported by a Duluth online news site.
Gersk, business development and marketing manager for Superior, Wisconsin-based Amsoil, provided city staff with ideas and scripts for social media topics for Reinart to cover, coordinated potential mayoral statements, reviewed press releases and queried assistants about the nature of meetings Reinart was attending when he asked to add them to his schedule. Gersk also served on the committee that interviewed candidates for senior advisers for Reinart’s office and served on Reinart’s staff at a local elementary school, reading to students, emails show.
Neither Reinert nor Gruske responded to requests for interviews.
David Schultz, a political science and law professor at Hamline University, said Garsk’s involvement in city operations as campaign manager rather than as a city employee is unethical and potentially illegal.
“She has no authority to direct staff,” he said, adding that Reinert could face accusations of conflict of interest and accountability.
Schultz said Gruske’s requests for city employees to do business with him are likely misappropriation of public funds, especially if he is directing the work of campaign-related social media accounts. Reinert frequently posts about city business on an Instagram account that is listed as a campaign page.
“Could you please research or talk to people over the next few days to get an update on Brighton Beach,” Garsk wrote to spokesperson Kelly Latuska. “People are talking about this and Roger hopes to do a post or video probably on Thursday about where we are, but we don’t know yet.”
