| 9/23/2009 | Email this article • Print this article | Resident calls 911 on Maplewood candidate
Council candidate refutes claims
Derrick Knutson
Review staff
Maplewood resident Pat Downs filed a police report last week alleging City Council candidate Dave Hafner made verbal threats against him Sept. 3 after Downs told Hafner to stop putting campaign signs in his yard.
Unneighborly neighbors?
Downs told the Maplewood City Council during the meeting's visitor presentations Sept. 14 that he had two run-ins with Hafner, who lives about a block away from him.
Downs said Hafner first stopped at his property about a month ago in an attempt to convince Downs to vote for him. Downs said during that episode, he disagreed with assertions Hafner made about other city council candidates, about one of his neighbors and about Maplewood's smoke task force.
"Each time I disagreed with him, he raised his voice until he was screaming out his philosophy at me," he said at the meeting. "I asked him three times to quit yelling, and was told I had to vote for him because he was my neighbor, and only he could save me."
He asserted that Hafner had put his campaign signs in his yard, without Downs' permission, which is a violation of Maplewood's sign code.
Downs said he took Hafner's signs off his property.
During the second incident, on Sept. 3, Downs said he and his 10-year-old grandson were returning home around 9:30 p.m., and, driving into the neighborhood, he spotted Hafner along his property line. He said Hafner appeared to be putting his campaign signs on his neighbors' properties.
"When I told him I objected to him putting signage in my yard earlier, without permission, he demanded his signs back, and called me a thief. My reply was he obviously knew he had put the signage (in the yard), and it was mine now. At that point, he went crazy; yelling, screaming and swearing," Downs told the council.
Downs said he then drove past Hafner to make a U-turn and enter into his driveway.
"He called me a liar and a thief - calling me out of the car to fight. (He said) that I was a chicken not to get out. He chased (my car) down the street, swinging his fist and finger at us, and at this point I stopped and I called 911," Downs reported.
Downs said he was concerned for his own safety, and that of his grandson.
He alleged that Hafner continued to scream at him while he was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, but then got in his truck and left before police arrived.
At the end of his presentation to the council, Downs said, "This is not the type of person that we need on the council, to sit up here - who, if they don't get their way, they shout and try to intimidate you."
Downs also mailed a letter to Hafner. The letter, drafted by Downs' son, who happens to be an attorney, requests Hafner "have no further contact" with Downs, including "communication by third parties on your behalf."
Police report
According to an incident report filed Sept. 4 by the Maplewood Police Department, Downs told the police "David is a 'crazy man' and I do not want anything to do with him, including him being on my property."
The report also states that Downs told police that he thought Hafner was going to attack him through Downs' car window.
The Maplewood officer who filed the report also spoke with Hafner. According to the report, Hafner said he was placing signs in Downs' neighbors' yards, and he had permission from those neighbors.
"If I did place a sign in his yard, it was by accident," Hafner's statement reads in the report.
The report also states that Hafner told police, "Patrick is a dishonest person and a thief."
However, the officer added, Hafner said he did not want to do anything about the missing signs.
Hafner refutes claims
In an interview with the Review last Wednesday, Hafner initially didn't want to be quoted and voiced concern about possibly being recorded.
However, agreeing to be quoted, he said he believes Downs' presentation to the council was a set-up by current council members to disparage his reputation on the eve of the primary elections.
"There isn't a word of truth that dribbled out of his (Downs') mouth the whole night," Hafner said.
He called Downs' statements to the council a "new 'new low'" for Maplewood politics.
He added that Downs' statements constitute a gross misdemeanor.
However, Minneapolis attorney Mark Anfinson, one of the state's leading experts in libel law, disagreed with that assertion.
"There is no gross misdemeanor here at all," Anfinson said. "It would be hard for Hafner to successfully sue for civil defamation."
Hafner is on his way to the city council election in November, having come in third of four candidates to make the cut out of 11 primary candidates.
Derrick Knutson can be reached at dknutson@lillienews.com or at 651-748-7825.
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