News : Council: 2nd Precinct Seat, VMEU Board Appointment, Funding for Braille School

I have completely given up on writing a traditional article to try to explain the 2nd Precinct election situation, which was explained pretty well by Lu Karr at the very beginning of the City Council Meeting.

The clip you will want to watch is at the very beginning click here. and at the 43:48 mark where the council, attorney, auditor all address this issue.

These are the cliff notes in case you get lost as you listen or if you decide not to listen:

November - The Election is held with no candidates for the 2nd Precinct

2 write-in candidates win Lu Karr and Le Cox.

Karr is chosen by the draw of a hat

Karr declines being told that if she does, Le Cox would be offered the position

Cox contacts City Hall and is told if Lu declines she will be offered the position

(Editor's Note: State Code 37611.2 which is also in a packet given to the City Clerk explains how tie votes should be handled.)

Someone somewhere in the City Government thinks that Cox lives in the 3rd Precinct

December - The City Council decides to take applications for the position, but it is unclear where this idea came from or when it was made known as Vinton Today heard nothing.

Mark Noe and Andrew Elwick expressed their interest.

The council chooses Elwick to appoint

It is also explained at a council meeting that a petition can be filed to bring a special election if residents so choose, and this was also probably underway.

January 1 - Lu Karr wonders, "What happened to Le Cox?" Karr reaches out to Cox.

2 - Karr and Cox visit the Auditor's office where it's discovered that according to paperwork filed by the City Clerk, Cox lives in the 2nd Precinct

The Auditor's Office does its job, based on the paperwork and issues Cox her 2nd Precinct voting card.

Cox had been told that she can be the council person for the 2nd precinct.

3- (approximately)

Andrew Elwick is filing his paperwork at City Hall when he is told to stop

(the question remains who made this decision and remember the council has already appointed Elwick.)

6- Cox goes to fill out the paperwork and is told that there is a problem

....she cannot fill out the paperwork

The City discovers that the City Clerk sent the wrong paperwork to the Auditor and that Cox does indeed live in the 3rd Precinct

City files the correct paperwork with the Auditor

The auditor must now undo the previous paperwork which had put Cox in the 2nd Precinct and return her to the correct Precinct, where she was originally located, the 3rd Precinct.

No contact had been made with Cox to explain what happened.

Tami Stark, Councilman at Large apologized on behalf of the council.

Karr was quick to explain that she doesn't care who is appointed to fill the seat, but she said, "I do care about how decisions have been made and how problems with openness and transparency may have diminished the confidence we have in our city government.

A mistake started the problem. What made the problems worse was charging ahead without stopping to understand where the discrepancy in voter precincts came from, making further decisions without carefully consulting rules and requirements and doing all of this without communicating with all parties involved and with the public."

As the council circled back to the topic of the 2nd Precinct, it was explained by the Auditor's office that the council needed to run public notice of their intention to appoint no less than 4 days before and no more than 20 days before the appointment. If they intend to hold a special election there are other steps that must be taken.

VMEU (Vinton Municipal Electric Utilities)

Amy Edison again presented her case to the council to be appointed to the VMEU board which would put the board in compliance with the Gender Balance Law asking the Mayor to appoint her.

The Mayor at this point is the one that makes the decision who should be appointed and the council must then vote on his decision.

Mayor Bud Maynard last made the decision to reappoint Mike Elwick, a relative, in spite of the Nepotism and Gender Balance laws, the council voted to approve that appointment which by ordinance is allowed to override the Nepotism law, but then the council reconsidered the appointment at their last meeting.

The seat has been vacant since the end of December. With 4 members, 3 men and 1 woman.

The Mayor wants the city to "have a policy in place of how to handle all further appointments, how it's going to deal with gender balance, and I think that's our first step," Mayor Bud Maynard said. "Before I rush into making another appointment I want to make sure the city has a policy in place," he said, "advertising 3 months in advance, accept applications, there's a lot of details to work out."

City Attorney Bob Fischer agreed that "having a policy in effect would put all boards on notice that the boards need to be gender-balanced," according to Iowa Law. 'You have got to advertise for the position...we're down a member, so we want to get that taken care of as soon as possible" he said.

Former Mayor John Watson asked, "Who's going to determine the qualifications to be on that specific type of board?" right now it's up to the Mayor to decide.

A policy will be created and presented to the council for future board appointments.

In other news...

Braille School Funding

The city has been awarded $2,000,000 by the Iowa Economic Authority toward the Braille School project. After a lot of hard work by Pat Baird, Dennis Lasaur, Melissa Schwan and City Administrator Chris Ward, $1,000,000 was awarded for a Vacant State Building Demolition Grant and the same for Vacant State Building Rehabilitation Grant with $500,000 forgivable loan and $500,000 0% interest loan.

Vinton was the only City to apply for the funds. The state legislature made the money available for communities like Vinton that need to dispose of vacant and unused state property. The money is intended to be used by local governments to encourage developments that would generate economic activity, job creation and property taxes.