01/07/2026
🚨 UPDATE FOR OUR SUPPORTERS — PLEASE READ
We proved the Calumet was safe. Doug Fortune and Jeff Jones’ “emergency” story was a lie.
I’ve gone back and forth about writing this because it hurts to relive. But you deserve the full story. Doug and Jeff’s lie didn’t just hurt our family. It ripped a hole in this town. Pipestone has been missing a living piece of its history for years now, over nothing.
The Calumet was not just a building to us. It was our family’s pride and responsibility. We poured ourselves into keeping it running, restoring its history, and making it warm and welcoming. It held regulars and strangers, birthdays and reunions, and it was a place Pipestone could point to and say, “That’s ours.”
Then the red signs went up, and everything changed.
What happened next wasn’t just financial damage. It was devastating heartbreak. It was watching something we loved get publicly labeled a danger. It was the sick feeling of seeing people look at us differently. It was the grief of losing what we built, while being told we didn’t even deserve a real chance to be heard.
And it never had to happen.
────────────────────────
✅ WHAT THE EXPERTS SWORE UNDER OATH (THE COURT RECORD)
• Minnesota State Fire Marshal: testified the Calumet was not remotely worthy of being VACATED or CONDEMNED, and he never called it a “distinct fire hazard,” nor told the City that.
• Minnesota State Health Inspector: also supported that the building was safe.
• Licensed structural engineer: confirmed the building was safe and the City’s accusations were false.
• Bottom line: the City’s entire “emergency” premise did not hold up on the record.
So when we say the building was safe, we are not asking you to take our word for it. The experts put it under oath.
────────────────────────
⚖️ WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE DEPOSED DOUG FORTUNE
Doug Fortune told the public in March 2020 he had “no choice,” that the Fire Marshal pressured him to condemn us, and said it was a fire hazard.
But under oath, when asked if that was actually true, Doug didn’t even try to defend it. He just…conveniently and suddenly couldn’t remember.
And I need you to understand what that means: the story Doug couldn’t repeat under oath is the very story he used to condemn us.
That is not a harmless mistake. It is a *lie* that caused real devastation and heartbreak. It cost us sleep, stability, income, and peace. It strained our family. It dragged our names through the mud. And it took a historic, loved place away from the community for years.
────────────────────────
📄 WHAT THE PUBLIC DIDN’T SEE
We obtained sworn statements describing a broader pattern:
• Multiple affidavits describe a pattern of abusing “emergency” powers and bypassing due process.
• They describe a recurring playbook: declare a fabricated “emergency,” act first with maximum force, and bypass real process.
• They also describe this tactic being used as favors for local buddies and as a shortcut to push out people they wanted gone.
• In other words: what happened to us fit a bigger pattern.
────────────────────────
🧾 THE KEY DISTINCTION: VACATE VS. CONDEMN
VACATE and CONDEMN are not the same.
• VACATE can be a narrow, temporary closure that might be survivable with prompt review.
• CONDEMNATION triggers a domino effect that hospitality businesses do not survive.
VACATE = a bruise (survivable)
CONDEMNATION = coma
────────────────────────
📉 HOW CONDEMNATION DESTROYED US
Condemnation did not pause our business. It crushed it.
• Operating licenses were immediately removed.
• Insurance was cancelled and became impossible to renew.
• “Condemned” branded us like we were running a death trap, causing lasting reputational harm.
• Reservations cancelled immediately, including future bookings.
• Employees had to leave to survive.
• Vendor relationships and contracts collapsed.
• We lost eligibility for over $500,000 in COVID-era relief.
• We lost grandfathered protections that can never be restored.
• We were forced to restart licensing like a brand-new business, while closed and without revenue.
The building didn’t kill our business. The condemnation did.
And the town lost too. People lost a landmark. Visitors lost a destination. Pipestone lost a piece of itself. All because Doug and Jeff chose a false “emergency” narrative instead of truth and due process.
────────────────────────
⛔ THE SECOND PUNCH: NO REAL APPEAL
• The condemnation notice gave *zero* appeal instructions.
• We repeatedly demanded an appeal for over a month.
• The City ignored us for weeks.
• After about 5 weeks, the City said it would provide no local appeal at all.
• Then they sent us on a wild goose chase to the Minnesota DLI, which did not even apply to a local condemnation order.
• We prepared the packet anyway because we were desperate for real review.
• The same day we obtained Doug's signature on the completed packet, the City pulled the red signs and tried to make it “moot,” after the injury was already done.
A “remedy” that arrives after you are already destroyed is not due process in real life.
────────────────────────
⚖️ WHAT THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT RULING WAS ACTUALLY ABOUT
The ruling was not that the Calumet was unsafe. We proved safety on the record.
It became about "immunity" and technical “process.”
The court treated paper, theoretical options as “good enough,” even when they were inaccessible, inapplicable, unrealistic...and too late to save anything.
This is one of the hardest lessons we have learned: justice is not always about truth. Sometimes it is about timing, technicalities, and whether the law shows up before or after the harm is complete.
────────────────────────
➡️ WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND OUR FAMILY
This is a repeatable playbook:
Declare “emergency,” act first with maximum force, give no clear appeal path, funnel the owner into an illusory process, run out the clock, claim immunity--and the business dies before any hearing.
**No local official should be able to destroy a business in an instant with a false narrative, provide no real appeal route, and then walk away protected.**
We are not finished.
We will continue appealing.
Thank you to everyone who has stood with us, checked on us, listened, and remembered how hard we fought just to get the basic right to be heard.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring.
❤️ Tammy
────────────────────────
P.S. City leaders were spreading a false story behind our backs that “all we had to do to end the condemnation” was pull a permit for drywall. They never told us or our lawyer. We learned the extent of it later through the City’s internal emails.
That logic is absurd. If the building were truly an imminent “death trap,” a drywall permit would not magically make it safe. And if a drywall permit was truly the issue, it never justified emergency CONDEMNATION in the first place. That drywall story is one of many reasons we believe they knew the building was safe all along.
