Days after her 26-year-old daughter was denied a real estate appraiser’s license by a state agency, Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem summoned the regulator, her boss and the state’s labor secretary to the governor’s office for a meeting which her daughter attended, the Associated Press reports.
Four months later, after Noem’s daughter Kassidy Peters successfully completed the needed work to obtain her license, the labor secretary demanded the agency head, 70-year-old Sherry Bren, submit her resignation, prompting a lawsuit that resulted in a $200,000 age discrimination settlement for the supervisor.
Peters originally applied for a license to become a certified real estate appraiser in September 2019, about three years after starting as an entry-level state-registered appraiser, but the application was denied by a review panel because the submitted application contained sample appraisals that did not meet the standards required. South Dakota does not establish its own standards; instead, it uses national standards from professional organizations as its benchmark, and Peters’ work did not qualify.
Peters’ boss, Piedmont, South Dakota appraiser Kristine Juelfs, wrote a letter dated July 27, 2020 to Peters claimed Peters was a victim of a lack of “timeliness and professionalism” in the review process, saying, “This came as quite a shock to myself as she has represented the knowledge and skills necessary.”
On the same day Peters received the letter from Juelfs, Noem summoned Bren, Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman and Bren’s supervisor to meet with her in her office. Also in the meeting were Peters and governor’s general counsel. Noem’s chief of staff and a lawyer from the state’s Department of Labor and Regulation participated by phone. Topics during the July 27, 2020 meeting were not released, although Bren told the Associated Press that Noem asked about the certification process. Having supervised the licensing process for more than 30 years, Bren also confirmed that she was presented the letter from Juelfs at the meeting, which Peters apparently brought with her.
“My upgrade to become a Certified Residential Appraiser was very lengthy and I was expected to navigate through many obstacles from the very beginning,” she said in a statement to the Associated Press about her eventual certification, which came in November 2020. “I’m glad I have it now and that I have the privilege to serve my clients in South Dakota.”
After Peters received her license, Hultman undertook a relentless campaign to push Bren to retire, although there were no significant findings of fault with her work. She ultimately sued for age discrimination and received a $200,000 payment to drop the case. Prior to leaving, however, Bren sent an email to colleagues saying, “I have been forced to retire by the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Regulation at the behest of the Administration,” adding “I want each of you to know that I have sincerely done everything possible to avoid this unfortunate circumstance.”
Noem and her administration have called the attention to the governor’s intervention a political side show created by the media. “The Associated Press is disparaging the Governor’s daughter in order to attack the Governor politically – no wonder Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low,” spokesman Ian Fury said.