HomeMy WebLinkAbout1995-09-20 Agenda AGENDA
IOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL
SPECIAL COUNCIL MEETING - SEPTEMBER 20, 1995
6.~ P.M.
COUNCILLCHAMBERS
ITEM NO. 1 - CALL TO ORDER.
ROLL CALL.
ITEM NO. 2 - RECONSIDER RESOLUTION NO. 95-265 DIRECTING THE JOHNSON COUNTY
AUDITOR TO PLACE THE QUESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY BALLOT
BEFORE THE QUALIFIED ELECTORS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA AS A PUBLIC
MEASURE, TO BE VOTED UPON AT THE GENERAL CITY ELECTION OF
NOVEMBER 7, 1995.
Comment: At their regular Council meeting of September 12, 1995,
Council voted to reconsider a resolution passed August 29, 1995
regarding the Presidential Advisory Ballot question. If this motion passes
the ballot question remains with the Auditor for inclusion on the
November ballot. If the motion fails staff recommends proceeding to
item number 3 for clarifying purposes and delivery to the Johqson
tio.:
ITEM NO. 3 - CONSIDER A RESOLUTION RESCINDING RESOLUTION NO. 95-265 WHICH
DIRECTED THE JOHNSON COUNTY AUDITOR TO PLACE THE QUESTION OF
A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY BALLOT BEFORE THE QUALIFIED ELECTORS OF
IOWA CITY, IOWA, AS A PUBLIC MEASURE ("CITYVOTE") TO BE VOTED ON
NOVEMBER 7, 1995, AS NO LONGER EXPRESSING THE WISHES OF THE CITY
COUNCIL.
Comment: see item above.
^ctio,-,:
ITEM NO. 4 - CONSIDER A MOTION TO ADJOURN SPECIAL M~ETING.
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ITEM NO. 2 - RECONSIDER RESOLUTION NO. 95-265 DIRECTING THE JOHNSON
COUNTY AUDITOR TO PLACE THE QUESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL
ADVISORY B/%LLOT BEFORE THE QUALIFIED ELECTORS OF IOWA CITY,
IOWA AS A PUBLIC MEASURE TO BE VOTED UPON AT THE GENERAL CITY
ELECTION OF NOVEMBER 7, 1995o
Horow/ Moved by Pigott, seconded by Throg. Discussion.
Baker/ A question on procedure. Why do we have two different items?
Horow/ Because the last time you voted to reconsider the resolution
and if it had fails-If it passes, it passes. If it fails, it
is a negative vote and rather than sending a negative action
to the County Auditor, we would then go to the next one, the
rescention-rescinding it which would ten be positive. Okay?
Baker/ I am sorry.
Pigott/ It is pretty complex.
Baker/ I will accept the explanation.
Kubby/ Is there anything in the process in terms of reconsideration
for someone who voted negatively the first time around?
Woito/ No, you are not precluded from any-
Kubby/ In either resolution?
Woito/ Correct.
Throg/ She just couldn't make the motion-
Horow/ Okay. Any internal discussion here?
Baker/ Just a point of clarification. Why would we want to
reconsider a resolution that has-until we get a decision from
the appropriate officials about the appropriateness of the
resolution?
Horow/ Because four of you voted to reconsider this last time.
Baker/ Well, I realize that but I didn't understand the reasoning
back then either and I thought I would bring it up again. The
question is why would you want to reconsider even before you
have a decision from the appropriate officials about the
certification and non-certification appropriateness of the
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ballot is the question?
Kubby/ Well, we have been told by the City or by the County
Attorney that he does not believe this is- the original
resolution is legal. We have been told by our City Attorney
that he is the person that will make that determination.
Baker/ I understand and you are actually right but we knew that
before we took the original vote. That hasn't changed. I am
wondering what factual difference are we operating on now that
we didn't operate on before?
Lehman/ Larry, as far as I am concerned, this is not a major issue.
If this were something that were very directly related to Iowa
City and Iowa City businesses then I guess I would be far more
inclined to say let's keep going with it. The connecting
thread between this straw poll and Iowa City is very thin at
best.
Baker/ This is-that is the second part of the discussion under
actual rescindtion.
Lehman/ I am just saying personally, as far as I am concerned, we
have got sewer plants, we have got water plants, we got
rezoning-a lot more important things for this council to do
than hassle over something like this.
Baker/ I don't disagree with that at all. I am trying to get a
sense of what has changed since our original vote and the
reconsideration that would have prompted the reconsideration
that we didn't know before.
Lehman/ I think most of us assumed that the County Auditor would
immediately say hey, folks you can't do this. He hasn't said
that and rather than wait for him to say that, I am willing to
get rid of it.
Horow/ I would like to however disagree respectively with you,
Ernie. I feel that all of the items that you mentioned that
are of greater importance fall under the urban issues and that
this particular process is designed to sensitize people, both
at the national level and the local level, about the problems
of urban issues which in previous presidential elections has
not had, I think, its do. So, for me this has been a very
interesting process to take on to sensitize more citizens. so
i do see a direct connection but that is only my-
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Baker/ I also think that is a discussion relevant to the ~tem #3.
Throg/ And we should discuss it. I would like to respond to that in
a way but not right here.
Horow/ Is there any other discussion?
Throg/ Yeah, I would like to say something. I guess I want to kind
of clarify my own thinking about why I voted the way I did
three weeks ago and why I want to change that vote. If I
remember correctly, the topic first came up five weeks ago
during a work session and then-Or maybe it was during the
Formal.
Pigott/ Council time.
Throg/ All right. And I remember thinking oh, that sounds like kind
of an interesting idea. Yeah, let's look into it. I didn't
understand then that that meant two weeks later there would be
a resolution on our agenda and of course, I discovered that,
when I saw the agenda roughly two weeks later. So, I have a
pretty busy life. Pretty full agenda myself. I focused on what
I thought was important. I didn't think the CityVote issue was
terribly important. I came in that Tuesday night thinking what
I want to do is focus on the constitutional question. I am a
bit skeptical about the arguments with regard to CityVote
itself but I am curious about the constitutional question. So,
I voted for the resolution on the basis that ther~ might be a
First Amendment issue that I wish to pursue. Upon reflection
I think that I let myself decide too quickly without adequate
information and in the interim, in the two or three weeks
since then, I have been able to talk to a lot of people. Read
quite a few e-mail messages from people, read Kenneth Agran's
paper, think about it and it has given me time to conclude
that in my judgement I made an error. So, that is the story as
far as I am concerned.
Horow/ Okay.
Pigott/ And from my perspective, I share Sue your interest in terms
of the ordinance and I was a supporter of CityVote. I still
love the idea. I think it is a great idea in general terms.
But once the process stated to move on and you know, I think
that we decided-we started to hear from people about how the
process of going through the wait to hear decision which is
taking a long time and I heard from people that they wanted us
to move along. And this is a good way to get that movement
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going. I mean, we are reconsidering. We are going to stop
instead of waiting for a decision we know is going to turn out
one way. We are going ahead with this and I think that's
appropriate. So, given the fact that I thought it was good,
honorable, interesting idea in the first place, my decision
rests on reconsideration of the fact that knowing that I
didn't want to fight a court battle and knowing that the
decision is going to come down that it was illegal and that we
might have to fight one anyway, we might was well get along
with business.
Horow/ Anybody else? Roll call- Yes means that we want the
resolution to stay.
Woito/ If your vote on item #2 means that your first vote is wiped
out, the slate is clean and you are voting on the resolution
as it stands as if it were a new born babe today for you.
Throg/ so, what does voting yes mean?
Woito/ It means it stands and Tom has to-It stays with Tom.
Shall we start over?
Horow/ Okay, the resolution does not pass, Horow and Baker voting
yes, majority voting no.
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ITEM NO. 3 - CONSIDER A RESOLUTION RESCINDING RESOLUTION NO. 95-265
WHICH DIRECTED THE JOHNSON COUNTY AUDITOR TO PLACE THE
QUESTION OF A PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY BALLOT BEFORE THE
QUALIFIED ELECTORS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA, AS A PUBLIC MEASURE
("CITYVOTE") TO BE VOTED ON NOVEMBER 7~ 1995, AS NO LONGER
EXPRESSING THE WISHEB OF THE CITY COUNCIL.
Horow/ Moved by Kubby, seconded by Lehman. Discussion.
Throg/ Yeah, I think I want to say I agree with the CityVote
organizers that the selection process does strongly tend to
divert attention away from urban issues. In my judgement, our
nation's urban issues do, really do, deserve much greater and
wiser attention. But that does not mean that CityVote is
timely or an appropriate idea for Iowa or for Iowa City. And
there it is worth noting that the CityVote organizers,
particularly if you read Agran's paper, conscientiously seek
to reduce the influence of presidential selection contests in
small, largely rural states like Iowa. And as Agran puts it in
his paper, one of the principle purposes of CityVote is to
provide a creative outlet for the frustrations of millions of
urban dwellers, effectively shifting the focus of the
presidential primary campaign away from Iowa and New Hampshire
and toward America's urban centers. Now maybe that is a good
thing but I don't know that it is good for Iowa or the
caucuses that are held in Iowa. I also am concerned that it
would distract attention away from issues that directly
concern the people of Iowa City, first with it's population of
60,000, and with few severe environmental or class or based
problems, our city scarcely constitutes the kind of city that
CityVote envisions and is directed toward. It's really
oriented toward a very different kind of city and city dweller
than Iowa City. Secondly, CityVote would be likely to focus
attention on the presidential candidates, on their
personalities and their frequent efforts to disparage one
another. It would be li~ely to divert attention away from our
city council candidates. One of them's sitting in the audience
right now. And the issues that they need to talk about. So I
think we ought to let our citizens debate and discuss which
candidate would make the best council member and why rather
than which candidate might make the best president, so I think
we should rescind.
Baker/ Sue, there's a point to clarification here. I think there
really are three issues tonight, one of which is the value,
and I think Jim has reached a to begin with the value of the
CityVote project itself, regardless of Iowa City's
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participation. Whether that idea has merit. And then whether
or not Iowa City, there's a reason Iowa City should be part of
that. And that can only come after you establish if you accept
the idea that CityVote itself has value. If four people don't
think that the overall national project has value, certainly
we shouldn't participate in it. So if we clarify that first,
then we can talk about whether or not the city, this city,
ought to participate in it. Then the legal questions are
actually the third issue because once you, if you really the
majority believes that it is something nationally to do,
locally to do, then you would confront the legal issue. So I'd
like to get a sense of the council. I think Jim has
established the idea that he is uncomfortable with the
CityVote project itself, the national urban primary period.
Throg/ I think that the CityVote might be a good idea in general.
I do not think it's a good idea for the people of Iowa or the
people of Iowa City more particularly and more importantly.
Baker/ Okay.
Horow/ I would have to respond that the cities in Iowa, now that's
30 over 10,000. That certainly isn't a big city by anybody's
mind. But there's nine over 50,000. The cities in Iowa do have
the same sources of funding from the federal level. They are
threatened with being cut. They have fortunately many of the
same problems in terms of those that are in our cities, and so
I guess I see the metropolitan residence cities in Iowa having
the same concerns only albeit on a smaller level then the
residents of the major cities throughout the United States. I
guess I am able to see a bigger picture of what Iowa
represents, not just rural people.
Throg/ Oh, boy. I guess I have to disagree in that I really don't
think that Iowa City experiences the same kind of problem for
the same kind of reasons as do Chicago, Los Angeles, the Twin
Cities, Baltimore, Cincinnati, or any other much larger city.
They're fundamentally different.
Horow/ (Can't hear) Naomi all the time, having grown up in Chicago.
But that doesn't cut any ice to me. I think it's all on a
scale, relative.
Nov/ Since you brought me into this.
Throg/ Dragged her into it.
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Pigott/ Here comes the Chicago person.
Nov/
Well, I really do believe that there are far more urban
problems. Our problems are less urban even though we are a
city. And I still think there is some value in CityVote. I
think the cities that have chosen to participate choose to do
so far earlier than we did. I think they've been at it for a
year and a lot more public education involvement, a lot more
planning time. And perhaps if we had put in that year of
planning and public education, we might feel differently about
it.
Pigott/ I want to touch on it too. I agree with you, Sue, that many
of the concerns that urban share in terms of federal funding
we in Iowa City share. I share that with you and I agree that
that's important, especially since the federal government
seems to be leaning toward funding in transit, in Community
Development Block Grants, in other areas, that will affect us.
And because they will affect us, I'm concerned about them.
That was my initial appeal on this issue. Then I hear from
people much of what Naomi's saying. We haven't had a lot of
time to talk about it. Because we haven't had a lot of time to
talk about it, we haven't built a lot of base of public
support for doing this.
Horow/ Public understanding almost rather than support.
Pigott/ Right. Maybe understanding as well. As a result, I've heard
an incredibly negative reaction and I hear the public saying
to us, no. We don't want you even touching. You're wasting
your time on this or spending any money on this. And not just
whether it's tens of thousands of dollars or twenty. It
doesntt matter. They want us to get on with what we're doing.
And yet, I share that same concern about those issues which
we're going to be really tough ones (can't hear) and I like
the idea of having presidential candidates address those ideas
that we can hold them accountable, so that was a big appeal
for me in this whole process.
Baker/ Sue, I think it's obvious that our discussion tonight is not
meant to sway each other.
Horow/ Right.
Baker/ We came in here with our minds made up. I assume that. But
there is I think an obligation to make sure the public
understands where we come from, but also to understand the
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basic issues. I think one of the things that you've all sort
of alluded to is that's what's been lost in here is that the
whole purpose of Iowa City's straw poll vote is to participate
with other cities across the country in a national project
that began three years ago. Cities large and cities smaller
than Iowa City. Cities in the range of 9-10 to 30,000 as well.
Not just large urban areas. So that's why I raise a question
about, let's clarify what the first issue is and from there to
the first issue. I think there's a great deal of merit in the
CityVote project nationally. We started late. That is the
fault of nobody. But one of the misconceptions that the public
may of had is that it sort of sprang full grown here at the
council level and that it was an Iowa City straw poll vote. It
was never intended to be that way.
Kubby/ I don't where that comes from because I never heard anyone
say it came from Larry.
Baker/ No, but what I say is all the discussion editorially and in
the news reporting and internet and everything else has been
almost been based upon the idea that this is an Iowa city
project. It's an Iowa City issue. It did not start that way,
at least at this council level. It came through us. Let me
talk to some of Jim's concern, because once you recognize that
this was a national project, what you realize is that many of
your concerns were the same concerns that every other city had
to address and to accommodate themselves to. The only unique
situation that Iowa City had was that we are in Iowa. You are
absolutely correct. One of the purposes of the national
project is to redirect attention of candidates in public,
especially in urban areas, towards those issues that most
directly affect their lives. There is a comparison and
connection between Iowa City and other larger cities. Any time
we talk abo~t losing money for transit or CDBG, we know all of
that. So the unique situation in Iowa City is our status as a
caucus state. I want to come back to that, but I want to
address very quickly some of your other concerns. There are
two of them that seem to coming back over and over again. This
will distract from local issues, local candidates. I think the
debate has distracted from local issues and local candidates
but the process itself would not have done that if we had
started earlier and brought the public along better,
absolutely. But one of the questions that comes up is-I mean,
it is almost an insult to the candidates to think that they
could be lost in a discussion of other issues as well. One of
my concerns is that if this is true, if the discussion of
presidential issues at the same time we are having a local
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election undercuts the public discussion of local issues, then
how is it that we can justify having a Board of Supervisors
race in conjunction with Congressional races, state races,
presidential races-all of which gets thrown in the mix and
people still seem to wallow through that and understand the
connection of local issues and the Board of Supervisors and
even the state legislative races that are competing against
Congressional races and so on and so forth. I don't think-I
mean, it is understandable-
Kubby/ I think part of the answer is those elections are happening
all over the country at the same time CityVote is happening in
a very limited number of cities and the candidates have-the
presidential candidates with money can get to many of those
cities and if there is a choice for the press to have a
picture of Julianna Johnston on the front page or Bob Dole on
the front page, I believe they are going to pick Bob Dole.
Baker/ You are going to have the same problem with Jim Leach versus
Charlie Duffy or Chuck Grassley versus Joe Bolkcom. There is
always that conflict and it is compounded more with more races
that you have. I just don't think that that is a compelling
reason not to participate.
Pigott/ But you would have to agree that it is more concentrated in
this case because it is more likely that presidential
candidates would come to Iowa City a lot more than other
places and precisely why because it is a caucus state.
Baker/ Absolutely.
Pigott/ And of course that is going to draw more candidates at the
same time. Of course the media angle is going to be covered
that way.
Baker/ You are totally underestimating Karen Kubby and yourself,
Bruno. You really are.
Pigott/ Well, maybe.
Baker/ You are underestimating Anna Buss, you are underestimating
any other candidates out there.
Throg/ We are talking about media coverage here. We are not talking
about skills and abilities of council people to speak well and
articulate.
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Baker/ We are also talking about those people, their efforts in
getting out the vote, their efforts in educating the public.
I think you are totally underestimating those people.
Horow/ They are addressing the urban issues. That is what excites
me about this particular concept. I think the timing of this
is, for me, the frustrating thing because I just would like to
see the context of urban issues more heavily gone into with
our local candidates.
Throg/ To tell you the truth, I would be astonished if presidential
candidates or their spokespersons came to Iowa City and
focused on urban issues that are of importance to Iowa City.
I would be astonished.
Baker/ Jim, one of the things we talked about earlier is the way
you are assuming that the council is behind this and the
public understood it. No, this is one of those things that
local elected officials all over the country in these cities
that are doing this are very conscientiously and consciously
doing is forcing those issues in the debate.
Throg/ Forcing them? How?
Baker/ Yes. In the form of confrontation with the candidates
themselves. In the form of working with their local media when
those candidates come to town. The media has given a list of
specific questions from local officials saying here, focus on
this.
Throg/ We are going to control the Press Citizen and what they ask?
Baker/ You know, I think the press, once they understand the
issues, they will ask the right questions. I have greater
faith in them than probably I should have sometimes. But the
issue about the caucuses is it is unique to Iowa City and I
thought that was very interesting because you have worked in
a caucus. Most of us probably have. It dawned on me one of the
interesting things about the Iowa caucus system it is
important not because we control conventions. we control
perceptions. We start perceptions which is exactly what the
urban vote wants to do. I understand it and I agree with them.
The perceptions ought to be controlled on certain issues if
possible. When you get right down to it the Iowa caucus is a
straw poll. It is a momentary picture of sentiment at that
time. It is not a binding vote in any way. It begins the
process where- I remember it was 1988- I think George McGovern
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won Johnson County in 1968. Does anybody remember this? This
was after he announced that he was no longer a candidate. It
is a process at this point and then the bickering goes on down
the line and I don't believe you have ever seen the delegates
split at the end of the process that was the same as the
percentages at the beginning. It is a straw poll to shape
perception which is exactly what this other thing was.
Horow/ Does anyone else have anything else they want to say?
Kubby/ I have a couple of things. See I would frame the issues
totally in a different way in that I would first ask the two
questions° I-Do we want national discussion on the
presidential level to talk and focus on urban issues? 2-How
can we increase turnout for local elections and one of the
options that we might brainstorm is to get involved in
CityVote. So I would ask those bigger questions first and then
see if CityVote as one of many ways to be involved in those
issues because there might be some ways that we as a council
want to, during the presidential debate here in Iowa City and
during the caucus time, get involved in some of these focusing
attention on these urban issues that we probably will all
agree on.
Baker/ Absolutely agree.
Kubby/ I think-There are a couple of comments I want to make after
framing the issue a little bit differently. One is that the
people of this community have said that they want non-partisan
city council races. When you have a partisan straw poll
although you will have opened it up to more people because of
independent and third party candidates which I am very glad
CityVote does as someone who is very sensitive to those kinds
of issues. That putting it with a non-partisan race I really
think that you denigrate the integrity of that non-partisan
race and Naomi brought that issue up at this level first and
I thought that was pretty powerful. I hadn't really thought
about that aspect of it. I am very glad to see this kind of
renewed activism on the part of some members of council, do a
lot of research to push staff to get information to bring
something up and to fight for ito I am very glad to see this
kind of activism from council. I think it will be helpful when
we talk about housing, when we talk about development and
environmental protection. So I hope it is something that isn't
a short lived thing but carries over and transfers. Then I
start thinking about all the legal stuff and as someone who
has I don't know if the right word is committed or performed
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civil disobedience that when I do that I take that very
seriously and when I have done that I have gone through a
personal process of saying I want to take a stand on a certain
issue and I pick that issue very carefully. It has to be
something that is important enough to me to be willing to take
those risks. I have to understand the consequences and I have
to be willing with my friends and family around me to live out
those consequences. When you take on that responsibility for
the whole community or not just me as an individual, my
family, the whole community will feel those consequences. We
have to be very careful that it is worth the struggle because
I like that the city council has said we are open to the idea
as a council of committing civil disobedience. Of doing
something that is not legal. To test a law to make laws
better. I am very proud that this council is open to that
because I think some councils would just say absolutely not.
But it has to be picked carefully. It has to be worth the
struggle. The other thing I started thinking about this
council race November 7 is going to pick a majority of the
council. If CityVote were on the ballot and it was contested,
if it was contested in a certain way, there is the possibility
that those four people could not take their seat. There is a
possibility that there has to be another city council election
which takes a lot to time and energy, would not be fun from a
personal standpoint or from a community standpoint I don't
believe, and would be a waste of resources. And most
importantly, the city couldn't go on its business on a bi-
weekly basis. So I want to kind of get back to the beginning
and to say I agree with the value of how can we increase as a
city institution voter turnout and involvement in local
elections. I think that is what we should be talking about. I
think there are a couple of real easy things we could do as a
city. We could do massive voter registration drives. People
are transient in this community and need to change their
addresses, moving from one place to another. New people are
always coming into town. And we could provide information
which I-This time, all the candidates are doing a very good
job of providing information to people about our confusing
hybrid local system for election, having at large and district
candidates that during the general election everyone could
vote for. So I think that is where we should focus our
attention and I will gladly vote to rescind this so that we
can go on with some of these I believe more productive ways of
living out the talking about urban issues and increasing voter
turnout for local elections.
Horow/ Anyone else care to address?
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Baker/ ¥eah, I have got a couple of things. One, we really are into
two different discussions now. The level public discussion
here and the disagreements among ourselves and we are skirting
around the private discussion that is going on outside of this
council. I am interested in this whole discussion of the Iowa
City city council race as a non-partisan race. I think anybody
that has followed closely local politics realize that there
are all sorts of efforts to make it a partisan race by various
people in Iowa City. You know, had I brought my other file
with all the internet messages back and forth and we could're
gone through that. But let's not waste that time. It is
supposedly a nonpartisan race. I voted three weeks ago or
whenever it was when we first began with a clear conscious
knowing that I did not believe then nor now that the
nonpartisan status would be affected by the CityVote project.
Now I've also got the, we're not going to do it tonight, but
I can go through demographic, statistics, all sorts of stuff
and show you how various combinations of voters voted in
nonpartisan city elections with a partisan background. And you
know what comes out of the research I've done on that? It's
impossible to predict in CityVote based upon partisan
identification how they will vote in a local election.
Nov/ It's also true that there are very few straight ticket voters
in Iowa City.
Baker/ Absolutely. This is a community that voted for Chuck
Grassley with a Democratic majority of 2-1 in registration it
voted for Chuck Grassley. I don't quite know how to interpret
that, but it points to one thing. It is not labels so much as
candidate. And that is always the issue. In this particular
race, those candidates that are good will not be affected.
Those candidates that are weak would have been weak regardless
of that kind of turnout. But that's a long discussion
involving all sorts of numbers and I don't want to get into it
tonight. The legal questions I think when we voted three weeks
ago, we all knew that, one, we had no clear authority to do
it. We expected a negative reaction from the appropriate
officials. Understandable and they would be doing their jobs.
But we also, at least I thought at that time, well get that
settled and we can talk about alternatives in some sort of
participation. I don't think that's going to happen. I think
the issue's been clouded too much. I, like Jim, have other
things and other issues that I want to get to work on. I think
that we have suffered from starting too late and not bringing
the public along with us, but I do not think we were wrong to
start the process That'~ ,.,~,, I will not change my vote.
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#3 page 10
Nov/ I would like us to-
Horow/ Jim was next.
Nov/ Oh, I'm sorry.
Throg/ That's all right. Go ahead.
Nov/ Go ahead.
Throg/ Just another very brief comment about the difference between
Iowa City and other cities because it strikes me personally as
being quite important. Seems to me that the main problem
facing our cities is not a reduction in federal funding for
public transit or public housing and the like. I mean, that is
important but that is not the main problem in my judgement. I
think the man problem is the existence of vast pockets of
poverty largely of consisting of minorities caused primarily
by racism and economic disinvestment. I think that is the core
problem and there aren't such large pockets of poverty and so
on in Iowa City. We face fundamentally different kinds of
problems here than those large cities do. So, I think the
CityVote organizers, if in fact they really are trying to tap
into all these different kinds of cities, small, large,
suburban, urban, all of that.
Baker/ It is not if, they are.
Throg/ They are diffuse. They are too diffuse.
Horow/ Naomi-
Nov/ I would like us to continue this process based on changing the
state law because I really believe the city should be allowed
to put a straw poll or any other issue on the ballot if they
feel that it is important to their city. So, I don't want us
to just drop this.
Horow/ I totally agree with you and I at no time did I ever think
that Home Rule gave First Amendment right to change things. On
the contrary, my position has been knowing Home Rule I feel
that this is something that should be changed by the
legislature. I feel very comfortable with that. I think there
is definitely regulations and the way it would be worded as to
control to avoid frivolous interference in an election process
or straw polling process. But it definitely has, in my mind,
something has to be changed.
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#3 page 11
Baker/ Sue, I would like to ask the indulgence of the council for
two minutes.
Horow/ Two minutes, two and I am timing you.
Baker/ I just want to read you a couple of paragraphs from a letter
from Larry Agran sent to you last week and because I think it
sort of encapsulate our debate. "From the beginning the whole
purpose of CityVote has been to give municipalities a
collective voice and collective power to shake the national
debate on urban issues. Iowa City, as you know, is not immune
from those problems common to cities across the country. You
are receiving money from the recently adopted federal anti-
crime legislation in order to hire new police officers. At the
same time your transit system is facing cuts in federal aid,
your subsidized housing and rehabilitation program are in
jeopardy, your CDBG funding is at risk. As you know, the list
goes on and on. As I go through (last paragraph) as I go
through the list of objections voiced in Iowa City I am
reminded of similar debates in some of the other cities
participating in CityVote. Elected leaders, democrat,
republican, and non-partisan work diligently with the public
and local election officials to answer those objections and
make CityVote a reality. Unfortunately, the biggest problem in
Iowa City, I think, has been one of timing. You entered the
process late and were unable to bring the public along step by
step with your plans. The initial response in Iowa City was
very positive. The public and press responded with (and I like
this phrase) intuitive common sense."
Throg/ Why did he write that phrase, Larry?
Baker/ The initial response of not only the council but the
community.
Pigott/ Well, we don't know that but we do know at the end that the
public said don't spend your time, don't spend- That is the
bottom line. I think a majority-
Horow/ Okay, a resolution is on the table.
Kubby/ I guess I wanted to reiterate something that Jim started to
talk about and that is our normal protocol has been when
someone brings something up at a formal or an informal meeting
and the majority says yes I am interested in this issue, we
schedule it ~or an informal so that we can talk about it and
it doesn't appear on our next agenda as a formal item. I don't
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F092095
#3 page 12
really understand how that came about. But it is not our
normal protocol and feel our normal protocol should be
followed. It is one that has been working well for us to make
sure that we have information in time to talk about it among
ourselves at our work session before something is on our
formal agenda. I am sure that must have been your call, Sue,
but I would have been more comfortable with our normal
protocol. I think it is a good one.
Baker/ We had a deadline in September to meet anyway and the whole
purpose was to get it on the agenda and give us some
flexibility afterwards but I understand that and I agree with
you. In the best of all possible worlds we should have started
a year ago, bringing everybody along and getting this thing
solidly setup. But at the time when you vote, again, I did not
deceive the public, myself, or anybody else. I believe what we
did was right, I voted for it and there is nothing that has
transpired since then. Tonight I think we made a mistake.
Horow/ All right. I would appreciate letting you know I voted for
the resolution to begin with but the majority of council has
spoken and I strongly support when a majority of council
speaks that I lockstep with it and on this issue I will be
voting for rescinding the resolution. Is there any other
discussion? Roll call- The resolution is adopted with Baker
voting no.
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