End in site in historical battle?

This week, once again, this mewspaper has a story on the continuing saga of the Le Sueur County Historical Society.

Over the past few years, we’ve given plenty of attention to this group, along with the Scott County Historical Society and the New Prague Area Historical Society. The difference is, with the latter two groups, the stories have been about the programs and exhibits they have had to educate people about the history of the county. With the Le Sueur County group, the bulk of the stories have been about legal issues, both the current one, which involves a lawsuit brought by members who allege wrongdoing and undemocratic practices against current board members, and one from a few years ago, where a group of members from Elysian tried to split off from the county group because of alleged mismanagement of a property in that community. This week, the judge in the current lawsuit, Mark Vandelist, appears to have had enough of the current board members. He ordered them to court last week to explain why they had not followed his orders to hand over certain documents, and when those members didn’t show up in court, he scheduled a meeting where, if they didn’t show, he threatened to hold them in contempt of court.

He has appointed a receiver to take control of the society’s finances and records, and a meeting to elect a new board has been scheduled for later this spring. Hopefully, that will be the end of a contentious chapter in the society’s history. If so, we look forward to once again publishing articles about historical programs and exhibits offered by the Le Sueur County Historical Society.