Editorial by Matt Marquardt –
MASON CITY – After dozens of unanimous votes, a “no” was finally uttered at a Mason City Council meeting Monday night.
Alex Kuhn broke ranks from Mayor Eric Bookmeyer’s carefully orchestrated charade and voted no to leverage $10,000 of city dollars in order to spend $96,200 more for what Fire Chief Bob Platts called a “vital” need for traffic light controls for emergency vehicles. This was a last-minute change order, and Kuhn had an issue with spending more on something “not at the very high end of the list” of city priorities.
It was an odd choice from Kuhn, but the Mayor was stunned, and after the meeting he promptly approached Kuhn and got in his ear about his no vote (see photo above of Bookmeyer, left, seconds after the council meeting ended, standing at Kuhn’s chair having a chat.)
Otherwise, the meeting went essentially to script, everything else was a straight “yes” vote. No citizens spoke before or after the meeting at the public forums; heck, no one really showed up except city staff and a couple of speakers from out of town. The only out of the ordinary occurrence was that Jean Marinos showed up in person, freshly tanned from the beaches of Europe, where she has ruled the Third Ward for the last several weeks.
Taking Marinos’ place on the absentee list was Janet Solberg. It was said she was on a camping trip.
Watch video of entire meeting:
httpv://youtu.be/Gr3sLWDlamY
25 thoughts on “First “no” vote cast at Mason City Council meeting”
Is it just me or is this council and mayor a massive joke being played on the people of this fair city? Seems like no one is laughing, though.
People we all had a right to vote, to bad over half did not, so now live with what you asked for, and remmember come next time
The no vote was carefully planned to throw you off. It was just a “set up.”
The beerman to Kuhn. No more free drinks for you. Bloatmeyer is such a pathetic excuse for a human being. And I use the term human very lightly.
Look at how bookmeyer is standing there, WHAT A BULLY! Get rid it!!
Not to take anything away from Councilman Kuhn, it is reassuring to see somebody thinking on their own, but it is a double standard how some citizens and media will react to this. Kuhn is being praised for being a leader and doing his research but had former councilmen Nelson or Weaver voted this same way, people would have jumped all over them for being too old or too confrontational. I can hear it now, They are jeopardizing the safety of our town because they don’t want to spend any money!
You are exactly correct Mike. The good thing is anyone with half a brain pays no attention to the comments John Skipper makes.
I too had more hope for Lee when it came to spending our money, BUT, you have to remember, he makes a very comfortable living on our money. Maybe these people just think all of our money is theirs to play with. Why budget?
On a side note, the number of people packing up and leaving this town is unbelievable! People making a living off of our tax dollars are soon going to find out people have had enough of their hands in our pockets.
You are not kidding. I am done with good ol’ boy I-OWe-A helluva a lot of thanks and praise to the relationship is king mantra. Bullhockey! it has turned to destroy me. But I will not be ruined. I will simply leave this discriminatory, backward, awkward, “good Christian” town.
Nice article Matt. All I can say is it is about time one of them showed a little common sense and disagreed with the establishment on spending our money. I still hold out hope for John Lee and am surprised he has not established himself as a leader. Maybe he spent to much time teaching and has forgotten how to lead.
If and i do say IF what Bookmeyer was doing was chastising Kuhn for his vote, then i would just ask this…We say we are against bullying in our school systems, so why are we allowing it in city hall? I commend Kuhn for standing up for what he felt was right. And i’m glad he didn’t feel pressured to do it Bookmeyer’s way. More people need to stand up to him. Kudos.
My take away, Kuhn has brains, guts, and works hard.
Good reporting Matt. Questions for you, I wasn’t there but watched the video. Wouldn’t you agree that Kuhn was NOT compromising public safety he was voting no on mistakes by staff and MORE wants from the taxpayers and coming back for $100K and Kuhn was watching out for taxpayers??
I say bravo Kuhn, we’ve got one real good councilman…think sanitation as well. Besides, Tornquist and Kuhn, no one else at the table even knows what is goin going on.
Okay, Alex.
Whats high on my list of city priorities is STOP SPENDING MONEY. What a waste
“After dozens of unanimous votes, a “no” was finally uttered at a Mason City Council meeting Tuesday night.”
The meeting was held LAST NIGHT due to the 4th holiday. Matt misstyped and wrote Tuesday night in the article as that is the usual meeting night but i can assure you, it was last night making this an after the fact article and not a vision of the future. I would suspect that would be common sense as I’m sure Matt isn’t that good to be able to post a video of the future. Maybe where you come from that doesn’t seem all that far fetch but here in the real world, that would be an amazing feat.
Huh?
Not an unusua mistake. The Globe made the same mistake in 3 stories last night. The brain is wired for patterns and habits. The Monday threw folks off.
Facts are hard. We shouldn’t come to expect them from news sources.
Watchdog, my comment was to “Reporting Things That Happen in the Future?”. He/She was focusing in on the fact that Matt typed “in the meeting Tuesday night” in the first sentence of the aritcle when the meeting actually took place on Monday night instead of focusing on the real part of the story. I felt that it was a pointless comment on his/her part. It should have been obvious that was a typo. But then again the obvious is missed by too many people these days.
Freudian slip. We all do it.
Definitely my mistake there, thanks for catching it. Still feels like Wednesday now.
And this week, Wednesday is a holiday so I hope you’re enjoying yourself!
I enjoy everyday, but like everyday, I will be at work that day. But, I love what I do, so I cannot complain. Enjoy the holiday!
what would be “high end of the list” of city priorities” ? spend more on “main street”, bail out southbridge”, “chase another business away”
other then someone finally having the balls to stand up to drunkmeyer.
thats par for the course if you go against drunkkmeyer he has a tizzY fit.
thou personally i rank Kuhn right up there with drunkmeyer i must applaud him for saying NO, thou i know i wish for the impossible too bad the other 5 don’t grow a pair and do the same.