Eldridge denies public access to emails about city administrator

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The City of Eldridge is denying public access to emails that a city worker sent to a colleague about the city administrator.

The emails in question helped form the basis of the city’s rationale for firing the worker in May.

State records indicate Jody Coffman worked as Eldridge’s full-time utility billing clerk prior to her dismissal. Her job termination led to a public hearing before Administrative Law Judge Sean Nelson on Coffman’s application for unemployment benefits.

During the hearing, City Administrator Nevada Lemke testified that Coffman had sent another city staffer emails that were “kind of obsessive about what I was doing throughout the day, who was in my office, who I was talking to, telling this other employee when I was out of the office.”

In response to the Iowa Capital Dispatch’s Open Records Law request for those emails, City Attorney Allison Wright said Wednesday the records will not be disclosed.

Wright cited an exemption to the state’s Open Records Law that applies to “personal information in confidential personnel records of government bodies.” That exemption allows public entities to keep confidential personal information that is part of “in-house, job performance documents.”

Lemke has not responded to calls from the Capital Dispatch.

During the unemployment hearing, Lemke testified that Coffman and others were suspected of widespread policy violations. On May 22, 2024, Lemke fired Coffman and others based on the results of a city investigation, according to Nelson’s findings.

Former Eldridge Electric & Water Utility Board member Jacob Rowe is currently facing criminal charges of unauthorized use of a credit card, second-degree felony theft, unauthorized computer access to confidential records, tampering with records, and conspiracy to commit an aggravated misdemeanor.

According to police records, Rowe was ordered to turn in all city equipment when he was placed on leave in March, but he retained possession and control of utility records and other information.

He allegedly modified a document entitled “clothing allowance” and then modified or deleted files from a city-owned computer, disabled various operating systems, deleted email communications on his city-owned email account and deleted work-related text messages.

Police records state that an internal affairs investigation confirmed Rowe had submitted an expense reimbursement request for a purchase made at Dillard’s from the store’s “pajamas and robes” department. The investigation reportedly confirmed that the purchase was for men’s underwear.

According to police, Lemke calculated the unauthorized use of city money included $900 in clothing expenditures. The theft charge is tied to two city-owned laptop computers, a separate hard drive and an iPad, all allegedly in Rowe’s possession and worth an estimated $2,800.

This story has been updated to correct a reference to city employees cited in the city administrator’s testimony.