TOLEDO — The former Tama County human resources manager and insurance administrator who claims she was wrongfully terminated by the new board of supervisors and the outside HR specialist they hired will take her arguments to court in a jury trial next August, according to publicly available court documents.

In a 17-page lawsuit originally filed on April 18 and later amended on June 9, Tammy Wise, who is represented by attorney Michael J. Carroll of the Carney and Appleby Law Firm in Des Moines, accuses the five current Tama County supervisors — Mark Doland, Heather Knebel, Curt Kupka, Curt Hilmer and David Turner — of wrongful discharge in violation of public policy and violating the Iowa Civil Rights Code with regard to age while accusing HR Specialist Paul Greufe of PJ Greufe & Associates of tortious interference and all of the defendants of libel per se. On July 31, a five-day jury trial was officially scheduled to begin on Aug. 17, 2026 at the Tama County Courthouse with Judge Lars Anderson presiding and a pretrial conference set for Aug. 7, 2026.

In her lawsuit, Wise, who began her employment with Tama County in 2000 and was promoted to HR manager and insurance administrator in 2017, said she “did not know anything about wind turbines nor was she aware that there was a project approved for 60 turbines in Tama County” when a group of citizens who came to be known as TCAT — Tama County Against Turbines — showed up at a 2022 board of supervisors meeting to express their opposition to the aforementioned project.

TCAT eventually filed lawsuits against the county, and Wise worked with the supervisors at the time and attorneys for Heartland Risk Pool to navigate the situation.

“TCAT’s methods became not just litigious, but also disruptive at normal meetings of the board. The meetings, once sedate, became very confrontational, disrespectful, accusatory, bullying, and intimidating, especially toward Wise. The boisterous meetings went on for over a year during which time Wise worked with the county’s attorney through Heartland, Brent Hinders (Hopkins and Huebner) to try and help the board with the meetings,” the complaint reads. “Members of the board remarked to Wise that they had never experienced citizen behavior like this before. Working with Hinders, Wise set up a process to diffuse some of the negative energy at the public meetings and still allow citizens to exercise their political prerogatives.”

Nonetheless, she said she “unfairly” became “a target of the unhappy citizens’ ire.”

“TCAT members constantly complained about Wise and advocated against any recommendations Wise made and also asked for her resignation or discharged all the time. Wise was a convenient target simply because she was doing her job which included helping the board get their meetings in line with the Iowa Code,” the complaint says. “The harassment and hostility directed at Wise became so problematic that on May 15, 2024, she filed a harassment complaint with the board of supervisors.”

On Dec. 17, 2024, Wise filed another harassment complaint with the board related primarily to another citizen’s “verbally abusive and harassing behavior.” When a new five member board — all of whom, the lawsuit claims, belong to TCAT — was sworn in at the beginning of 2025, Wise said they immediately began to take away parts of her job, and Greufe was hired in mid-January to perform a human resources audit, which Wise claims was “a means of setting her up for discharge.”

Wise additionally claims that even after County Engineer Ben Daleske had offered a road grader position to an individual pending pre-employment processes, the board told her she needed to “open the position up” and interview their preferred candidate, which she worried could constitute a violation of Iowa’s veterans preference law. On Jan. 30, she met with Doland and Hilmer to discuss issues with the county’s general fund, during which Doland allegedly said “there are a lot of people overpaid in this county” and suggested she was one of them.

“As the meeting ended, Wise brought up the issue of what the board was doing with the engineer’s applicants and told them the board is breaking the veterans preference law and engaging in nepotism and discrimination. Wise told the supervisors the county needs to open the position back up again if they change the job requirements,” the suit reads. “Supervisor Doland yelled at Wise from the door as he was leaving: ‘We are not opening it back up.’ Wise told Supervisor Hilmer that she thought the county was not following the code or labor laws.”

Greufe, the suit claims, then asked Wise about several matters including whether she had told a member of the Board of Adjustment to complain to the Iowa Public Information Board (IPIB) about open meetings and records issues (she had), whether a candidate for the Board of Adjustment was not interviewed due to “conduct concerns” — namely, engaging in “abusive behavior” toward Wise — and the termination of a naturalist, Raina Genaw, from the Tama County Conservation Board.

Greufe subsequently accused Wise of receiving a discount on a home generator by using her county position and not paying sales tax on the purchase, which she denied and characterized as part of a “witch hunt” to remove her from her job. Greufe also accused Wise of mishandling the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for the county, and she said she couldn’t be responsible for what he alleged as she did not know who was off day-to-day.

This culminated in a closed session of the board of supervisors on Feb. 3, during which the generator accusation was brought forward, and Wise, according to the lawsuit, proved she had not received any discount based on her job with the county.

“Wise’s document showed she received a discount for paying in cash. She told Gruefe and the board that anyone who pays cash gets a discount. There were some questions raised by Gruefe about whether Wise had paid tax on the purchase, but Wise told the group she paid a cash amount that would include sales tax,” the suit reads. “Wise offered a copy of the letter on her phone and asked them to call Hawkeye Electric. They said they would not call to verify. Karen Rohrs, the County Auditor, told the board and Gruefe that the CPA contacted Hawkeye Electric when she did the audit for the State that year and there were no problems noted.”

Greufe also called the employee handbook “the worst he had ever seen,” and after a closed session that Wise alleges violated Iowa open meetings laws, she was terminated from her position by a 3-2 vote, with Doland, Knebel and Kupka in favor of firing her and Hilmer and Turner opposed.

“After the illegal closed session, the board voted to terminate Wise citing the decision followed ‘an audit’ of policies and practices and a ‘complaint from a member of the community that she may have benefitted financially as a result of the purchase of an item without paying required sales tax. This item was included, at least indirectly, with the purchase of other similar tax-exempt property.’ The statement is false,” the complaint reads. “The documented reasons and rationale were released to the press and public at large and constitute defamation per se.”

The suit goes on to lay out the reasons for each claim, including that the press release was widely disseminated without advance notice or an opportunity for her to challenge the publication or attach her response, that she was terminated for enforcing the veterans preference law and seeking to avoid potential nepotism and discrimination concerns, that she was discriminated against based on her age and that Greufe conducted “a biased audit” resulting in Wise’s discharge.

“Plaintiff respectfully requests that this Court enter a judgment and seeks lost wages past and future, emotional distress past and future, attorney fees and costs, an award of pre-judgment interest as provided by law, and such other and additional relief as the Court may deem just and proper,” the complaint concludes.

In response motions, the defendants have denied the claims presented by Wise and her counsel. At presstime, Wise and TCAT leaders Kathy Harkema and Richard Arp had not responded to a request for comment from the T-R, and Doland declined comment on behalf of the supervisors at this time but said he may reevaluate as more information becomes available.

The supervisors are represented by Amy Reasner and Holly Corkery of the Lynch Dallas P.C. law firm in Cedar Rapids, while Greufe is represented by attorneys Steven Ort and Abbie Liechty of the Bell, Ort and Liechty law firm in New London.

“The County and its Board Members do not comment on pending litigation. The pleadings we filed speak for themselves,” Reasner said in an email.