City elections forum showcases many agreements, key differences

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

Candidates for mayor and City Council had a full audience facing them during Thursday evening’s forum, held in the Charles City NIACC Center.

Mayoral candidates Dean Andrews and Matt Lovik pitched similar visions for Charles City during the upcoming mayor’s term, but with slight differences in how each considered the city’s role, notably in housing policy.

City Council incumbents DeLaine Freeseman and Jerry Joerger were also present, but they are both running unopposed for their council seats, and questions were mostly aimed at the contested mayor’s race. The election will be held Nov. 7.

CITY PRIORITIES

Charles City’s biggest priorities should remain on holding landlords accountable for nuisance rental properties, addressing an ongoing drug issue and bringing in more job opportunities, Lovik, a deputy at the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office, told the crowd.

“We have a drug issue in town that needs to be addressed,” Lovik said when asked to name his top three priorities. “We need to nip this in the bud.”

Andrews said the city needs to continue to address nuisance property complaints, support skilled labor and expansion at businesses like Zoetis and Cambrex, and try to foster a broader housing market in the community.

“A lot of people are searching for houses in the $100,000-175,000 range, but they can’t find it. It’d be nice if we had more of those housing units available so people have a choice,” Andrews said.

HOUSING AND ATTRACTING NEW CITIZENS

Attracting employees of new businesses means the community should invest in amenities and a substantive housing approach, Andrews said.

“We don’t have the availability that people are looking for. There’s not many choices,” he said.

Amenities such as The Learning Center, a licensed day care, or the Charley Western Bike Trail help attract new families to live in the region, he added.

“It’s easy for people to live in Mason City, Waverly or even Cedar Falls and just commute. We have to make our community attractive and provide the amenities that you’re looking for.”

Lovik said the city needs to focus on city needs first, and could advertise more and build a stronger jobs base.

“As for housing, people are adults. … They should be able to figure it out on their own,” Lovik said.

PERCEPTION OF RISING CRIME

In response to a public question about perceived rising crime, Andrews said there is a community misperception about local housing programs.

“I don’t know that there’s more crime in Charles City than in other places. You read about bad things happening everywhere,” Andrews said. “A lot of people think crime comes in from the housing program. … I think there’s a lot who come in and are good, productive citizens. I don’t know that it’s worse than other places. We can always improve.”

Lovik said Charles City is seeing higher instances of crime “than we should,” although he did not clarify how high those rates are.

“The way to combat that is combatting drug use,” he said. “We stand behind our police, strengthen ordinances, work on places crimes occur and hold people accountable.”

SHARING RESOURCES

Candidates for the mayor’s seat and the City Council seemed split when asked if the city should consider sharing municipal positions with other cities or counties.

“We need to focus on Charles City. It allows us to be productive as it is without someone taking on another workload,” Lovik said.

Andrews said he didn’t see job sharing working as well as sharing resources, and pointed to the Cedar Valley Transportation Center as a success between city, county and state partnerships.

“There may be some personnel sharing, but the biggest thing is in resources and sharing opportunities and facilities,” Andrews said.

Joerger also pointed to the CVTC, but said the city has to be considerate of all opportunities as budgets get tighter.

“Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but we have to keep working and looking. As budgets get tighter, we have to utilize facilities available,” Joerger said.

“Anything like that needs to be looked at and talked about,” Freeseman said. “Budgets will force us to look at those. … You can’t do the things you’ve always done.”

“Do I think we have to at this point? No, but you can consider those options,” Freeseman added.

YOUTH INVOLVEMENT

Candidates on Thursday generally agreed that the community needs more input from younger citizens on what they want to see in the town.

“The topic has come up several different times, and we’ve heard it all around town,” Freeseman acknowledged. “That’s always been a tough nut to crack. … It’s something we need to continue to work on as a community. Try to work on those types of things and have more discussion, get kids involved and see what we can do to promote a better life for our kids.”

Andrews said the City Council had tried to address the problem with the skate park project, during the 18 years he was a member of the council.

“The skate park was a big thing. It was popular for a year” before students seemed to loose interest, Andrews said. “To make things that are popular with kids, you have to see what they want. Every group of kids will have different ideas, but we have to help them accomplish their ideas.”