Gregg Schildberger, Katie Ettish, Emily Groth and Ryan Green
FARGO (KFGO) – Four former City of Fargo employees have filed a federal lawsuit against the city over an investigation into the City’s Communications Department.
Gregg Schildberger, Katie Ettish, Ryan Green and Emily Groth are listed as Plaintiffs in the case, the complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the District of North Dakota says they were subjected to a hostile work environment and unfair investigation by City Administration and Human Resources, who allegedly had a strong dislike of the communications department.
The investigation, released in August of last year, found through exit interviews that management in the communications department was difficult to work with, describing the environment as intense, rude, and demeaning. Several former employees reported that the level of anxiety had a negative impact on their mental health. They began binge eating or drinking excessively. Others had bouts of crying, both inside and outside the office.
The complaint disputes these claims, saying that the investigation was supposed to be fair, but “reeked of bias and incompetence”. The complaint later accuses the investigator of selectively interviewing former employees with negative perceptions of the communications department and grudges against the plaintiffs.
While being interviewed during the investigation, the Plaintiffs say that they did not know the subject of the complaint or who had filed it. It was later revealed Zoe Bolonyi had filed the complaint, who worked in the communications department as a producer and videographer.
The complaint says that the Plaintiffs did not know who filed the complaint until the investigation had been completed and the complaint was provided to Schildberger August 7 of 2025. The Plaintiffs resigned from the department on August 13 of that year. The results of the investigation were provided to the media about a week later.
“The investigator finalized a written report of the investigation that was laden with inflammatory and defamatory language. The City immediately published this report despite promises to the Plaintiffs that the matter would be handled internally and there would be no publication.” The complaint says.
Former City Commissioner Dave Piepkorn is also listed in the complaint, alleging that Piepkorn had repeatedly criticized the communications department, and got into a verbal altercation with Ettish and Schildberger in May of last year in front of then-Mayor Tim Mahoney, Commissioner John Strand and members of Fargo Fire and Fargo Police. Piepkorn is also accused of leaking the internal investigation to the media.
The plaintiffs say they submitted a detailed written response to the investigation which they were told would be included in the final report that was sent to the media. The response was not included.
The suit says the group of former employees are suing to hold the City of Fargo accountable for due process violations, civil libel, false light publicity, negligence, discrimination, retaliation, equal pay violations, reprisal and deceit.
“It appears the city set out to engineer a report to accomplish its goal in getting rid of the Plaintiffs while simultaneously destroying the professional reputations they worked for decades to establish,” the complaint says.
Fargo City Administrator Michael Redlinger, former Assistant Administrator Brenda Derrig, Human Resources Director Jill Minette and former Assistant Director of HR Beth Weigman are all listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
A recorded conversation with Mahoney and Schildberger is also shared in the complaint. Mahoney can be heard calling the investigation “horses**t”.
“If the primary catalyst for this was Zoe, I don’t feel that was investigated. A disgruntled employee that left, he should have stayed to that, what he instead did is find anybody that’s got a beef with you and listen to that.” Mahoney later says in the recording.
Schildberger, Ettish, Green and Groth are asking for a jury trial and are seeking damages for lost wages, damages to their reputation, and emotional distress. They are represented by Eckland & Blando, a law firm with offices in Minneapolis, Washington D.C. and New York City.
“What happened to us did not end when our employment with the City ended; this has damaged us in ways people cannot see,” the Plaintiffs said. “A simple internet search of our names immediately brings up this investigation, overshadowing the public service careers we spent years building — and who we are as people. Every day, we work to rebuild our lives in the same community where we built them in the first place, while carrying the uncertainty of what people may have heard, read or concluded about us without ever hearing our account.”
KFGO News reached out to the City of Fargo for a comment, but has not yet received a response.
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