This is not the first adversarial relationship involving Nusbaum and the City Council. Coon and fellow Council Member Tiffani Atherton earlier this year led the drive to bring in state auditors to examine the city’s finances.

The auditors’ report criticized several aspects of the city’s governance.

“It’s the Hatfields and the McCoys, that’s how it is,” genealogical center director Shirley Zimprich termed the feud.

Museum at heart

The mere existence of two historical societies isn’t the rub — both say they can live with each other just as many history groups co-exist elsewhere.

But they can’t both own the museum, a schoolhouse until the district consolidated in the 1960s and sold it to the historical society.

The impressive two-story red brick building sits on a hill overlooking Lake Tustin and is filled with what must be hundreds and perhaps thousands of artifacts. There’s a case with numerous glass shoes and a World War I uniform from a local man who served as a motorcycle courier to legendary U.S. Gen. John Pershing.

The museum’s director of 11 years, Nancy Burhop, declined to discuss the ownership dispute.

‘Not welcome’

There have been two prickly encounters at the museum, one ended by a Le Sueur County sheriff’s deputy. It’s described in the officer’s report included in the civil court filing.

On June 27, society board member John Chamberlain and his wife, Katha, entered the museum and were confronted by Burhop, who asked them to leave.

When officer Keith Frederick arrived, he was handed a cell phone and told by Burhop the person on the other end would know what’s going on.

Nusbaum told the officer that a person from that county historical society was causing problems and that the museum was not part of the historical society.

With an eye toward settling the immediate disagreement, the officer asked Chamberlain to leave, which he did.

The second incident involved Shirley Zimprich, the genealogical center employee, who said Burhop told her she “wasn’t welcome.”