Video: Vadnais Heights council member removes mayoral candidate’s campaign sign, tosses it aside

Video: Vadnais Heights council member removes mayoral candidate’s campaign sign, tosses it aside Renée Cooper KSTP A Vadnais Heights council member now admits she is the person seen removing a mayoral candidate’s campaign sign in a video.Video shows Vadnais Heights City Council Member Katherine Doll Kanne pulling Greg Urban’s campaign sign from the ground and tossing it aside. Urban, a Vadnais Heights mayoral candidate, reported it to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office as a theft after saying signs kept disappearing from two vacant lots close to Doll Kanne’s home. City Council member accused of removing mayoral candidate’s signs in Vadnais Heights “They’re disappearing very quick on this stretch,” Greg Urban said in an interview on Thursday.Urban said he has lost about 20 signs between the two vacant lots, and he said he had permission from the family who owns both lots to put the signs up there and they were not the ones removing them.“When it got to the point of every sign was disappearing within a couple of hours. And then I got a tip from a neighbor about who it was, then, that’s when we put the cameras up,” Urban said.The surveillance video that appeared to capture Doll Kanne was recorded Tuesday, according to Urban.“Lo and behold, it was a sitting city council member who was also running for re-election… So that was pretty crazy,” Urban said.The Ramsey County Sheriff’s office provided the incident report of a theft to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS and said it referred the case to Mounds View police because it involves an elected official in a city the Sheriff’s Office patrols. Mounds View police confirmed they are investigating.Doll Kanne initially declined an interview Thursday but spoke briefly with 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS over the phone.5 EYEWITNESS NEWS asked her, “Did you remove signs from private property though?”Doll Kanne replied, “No, I am not going to confirm or deny any of those type of comments.”Permission disputeOn Friday, Doll Kanne acknowledged on social media that she was the person in the video. In a video posted to her campaign Facebook page, she said, “I’m aware of a video of me moving a political sign.”Doll Kanne said the family that owns the property gave her permission through text messages to remove signs. However, after multiple phone calls with multiple family members, including the one in the texts, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS found they authorized her to remove a sign on a lot next door to her home, not the lot shown in the video.The family told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they did not give Doll Kanne permission to remove any signs from the lot seen in the video. Doll Kanne on Friday agreed to a scheduled interview, but before the interview officially began, she walked away.Mounds View police said the case remains under investigation.