How Will I Vote? City Council Edition

Tomorrow, the good people of Marion Iowa take to the polls to play their part in shaping the future of their fair town. And I, as a voter, am burdened once again with the need to discover for myself who is the best qualified and most inline with my vision of what our town should be so that I can be the most satisfied with my vote upon casting it.

This is not an easy feat in a local election, local sources of information about candidates and issues can be scarce and not terribly telling. At least in a mayoral election year some activities and debates get planned. There are some upsides to this, you don't get lost in a sea of sound bites and flashy promotional mantras. The solution to learning more about the individual candidates also reveals itself in this microcosm of society, if you want to know something about a candidates position or thoughts on an issue, ask them.

To this end I was able to use the counties election website to dig up a listing of email addresses for all the candidates on my ballot for tomorrow. I read up a little bit on the local issues that effect my community and determined several issues that I felt strongly about, devised several concise questions and simply asked them. I have been very pleased and humbled by the responses.

Of the total of 6 candidates for the the two council seats (5 on ballot and one incumbent running as a write in), I heard back from 5 of them, 4 of which answered all my questions and gave me a much clearer picture of who was running. Complete responses can be viewed here.

(Update: File sharing not working so hot, shoot me an email if you want a copy of my spreadsheet)

So now that I've prefaced this post to no end, lets get to the good stuff, how will I be voting tomorrow?

City Council At-Large: I am truly impressed with the group of candidates we have and can relate to each of them on some issue or another. There is a stark contrast between the challengers and the incumbent, Mr. Adamson, when it comes to how to address both traffic and development issues on 7th Avenue, but not nearly as clear of a difference between the challengers themselves. Mulling over the minor differences in the three challengers for some time I believe I am going to vote for Ron Swearingen. The specific item that helped sway me was his thoughts on the use of any local option sales tax coming through from this ballot that would be earmarked for community improvements. His response tells me he as an awareness of potential back door options that can arise with an abundance of funding even when public opinion is working against you.

Council Ward 2: A very large leap in the number of options. The incumbent Mr. Spinks appears to be in great opposition to me on most issues. He also responded to my first question be stating he would include another (4th) roundabout into the corridor plan, even though he was the sole 'no' vote for the original 2009 proposal on the very basis that he wasn't sold on roundabouts. Hard to vote for him, but what is the alternative? Chris Schumaker is on the ballot but did not respond to my emails, nor did he participate in the one and only debate/event for the election. I can find nothing about Mr. Schumacher. This is going to be a game time decision, but right now I'd have to give it to the person who appears to want it more.

And that Leads us to the issue of tax referendums:

Increasing the property tax levy for the Library: This is a bit of an odd question, given that the City just lowered the general property tax levy by more then the amount asked in the increase. Also considering that the Cedar Rapids library just reopened it's doors at it's new location that moves it about 4 miles closer to Marion. I support the wait and see approach of what impact this will have on our library before we commit a lot of new tax dollars to it.

Extending the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST): This is a tricky one. 70% of money raised is to be directed toward street repair sounds all well and good, so this vote is perhaps more a referendum on the level of trust that we have in our local government to stay within not only the letter of the law, but the spirit in which it was passed. I read a piece from the Cedar Rapids Activist Blog that Cedar Rapids spends more cleaning streets then they do fixing them. I checked the same stat for Marion, the closest 'gotch ya' I can come up with is that the City spends more on Salt/Sand then it does on wither concrete or asphalt (pg. 114). Either way, this is always marketed as a temporary tax for an item that will need to be maintained in perpetuity. A sales tax is the most regressive tax there is. And why are we trying to raise a regressive tax and lower a much more progressive tax (pg. 9 of budget)? For now, I'm voting against this.

There it is, some insight into the who and why of my ballot for tomorrow. For any of you undecided Marion voters who aren't satisfied with the candidates, fill in my name and see if KCRG will run it as part of their results. That would make my day, and isn't that what democracy is all about?