MASON CITY – The first mayoral candidate for the upcoming City Hall elections in Mason City will be announced Tuesday in the Globe Gazette.
NorthIowaToday.com has known about the young man’s intentions for weeks but as a courtesy to him -at his request- will continue to withhold his name until his candidacy is fully prepared. Sources tell NIT that the Globe’s John Skipper was “relentless” in contacting the candidate this morning so that he could make the report.
The upcoming candidate announcement would be the first for the mayor’s seat currently held by Eric Bookmeyer, who has not declared whether or not he will run for re-election. Several other names have been floated as candidates but nothing has developed yet.
In addition to the mayor’s seat, three city council seats are up for election. Fourth ward seat (held by Janet Solberg), At-Large (held by Scott Tornquist) and Second ward (held by Travis Hickey) will all be on the ballot. No one has declared for any of those seats yet, nor have the incumbents made their intentions clear.
Interested citizens are encouraged to run for office -and vote- in Mason City. Mason City has had very low voter turnout in recent elections and few candidates. Read about the apathy, here.
To become a candidate for a city election in Iowa, a candidate must:
File an affidavit of candidacy: http://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/candidates/affidavit.pdf
File a nomination petition: http://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/candidates/nompetnonpartisan.pdf
Each candidate must file nomination papers with the city clerk. The affidavit of candidacy and nomination petitions must be filed together or they will be rejected. The first day to file nomination papers to be a candidate for an elected office on the ballot at the November 5, 2013 Regular City Election is Monday, August 26th. The deadline to file is 5:00 p.m. Thursday, September 19th. All such nomination papers must be filed in the office of the respective city clerk.
Click here to see the seats that are open for every town in Cerro Gordo county and the required number of petition signatures for each seat.
Candidate’s guide: http://sos.iowa.gov/elections/pdf/electioninfo/citycndgde.pdf
One of the great things about living in America, is that anyone can run for any office. On that note I wish the kid good luck in his bid for mayor.
On that note, a couple of bits of advise. Number one drop the free wi-fi stance, becuase the majority of Mason City residents and more importantly…voters are older, who even if they know what wi-fi is dont care about it. it is a non issue to the voting public. Second to try and stop bullying and hate sounds great but cannot be accomplished…it is the way of our world. The average voter will look at that platform as a pipe dream.
To be elected mayor of Mason City you must do the same as any candidate that has run for any office in the past 50 years… that is lie and make promises you could not possibly keep. Tell the Mason City residents you will bring many new jobs to the area all high paying with great benefits, tell them you will replace sanitation workers with robots to save taxpayer money, tell them re-doing downtown will be great for everyone while other parts of the city crumble, and finally tell the voters taxes will not rise but actually go down.
I do wish you good luck but to quote the great sportscaster Al Michaels……”do you believe in miracles!”
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=518141208227529&set=a.470870569621260.98643.470772172964433&type=1&theater
My daughter use to work with this guy, he has been in run ins with the law. Then so has Bookie I hear. What did he mean about this no hate zone. Sounds like something Foster might say don’t it. At least somebody is going for it, we need change.
Go search him on Iowa Courts Online…
…..and the lynching begins. :))
You aren’t the now wife that has been slandering him all over town now are you?
Guest while your there you can search for bookmeyer as well, he is on there as well!!!
Well, he told his first lie already, he’s not “exactly” single.
I hope he has more to his platform than what he mentioned. The complainers on NIT aren’t going to be very happy if he doesn’t go into attack mode, but I hope all candidates keep it classy, tactful, and stick to the issues and how to solve problems.
Jobs. That is what bookmeyer ran on. Well done Eric.
With the help of the Globe, Eric declared himself some kind of master recruiter – and a stay at home dad. Four years later, we know both were falsehoods and totally made-up. Thanks for being “first, best” at misleading us, Globe.
@Matt-I think what he said was he was a executive recruiter. I have dealt with those people most of my life. e used to call them headhunters and a more crooked bunch of people you have never seen. I can believe that Eric was one of them. He fits the type.
http://globegazette.com/news/local/symonds-to-run-for-mayor-of-mason-city/article_577791ca-a078-11e2-97b6-0019bb2963f4.html
The Globe doesn’t read NIT? Skipper posted his article about this candidate 31 minutes ago as of 1:50 PM Monday. NIT article above posted at 12:32 PM.
What’s wrong John, print too slow?
Hope you and the rest of the newsroom enjoy reading NIT today.
Not John. Not even a Globe employee. Don’t even LIKE the globe. Just doing my part to un-sensationalize a non-story.
That’s one reason NIT never did a story on this issue. The man is still developing his platform and ideas. I would think a candidate who intends to run would approach the media when he/she is ready to announce. The entire goofy mantra of the Globe “First, best in local news” is almost as laughable as KIMT saying “Iowa and Minnesota together.”
The globe employees don’t read NIT huh? Now that’s funny.
Fact is that they DO read NIT it has been witnessed several times.
If he wants to be anonymous, he shouldn’t be talking about it on the Facebook page of someone who has 1,000+ friends and also touting that he was working with NIT to scoop the story.
I would have to agree with that. However, we honored his wishes. There’s plenty of time to cover the candidacy.
My wish for anonymity in regards to this is because I simply wasn’t ready to announce my candidacy to all of mason city, yet. But Mr. Skipper heard about it, from as you were saying, talking to people about it on facebook, gathering feedback and such. And he wanted to hear my ideas, so I told him. He was very respectful and liked what I had to say.
Getting Support from your friends and family is an Important First step. As they will be the ones who help start off a campaign run. I myself am in a similar situation where I want to announce my intentions to run for US Senate, but I still have a few internal people to tell.
Once I step away from Obama shadow, I’ll be announcing my run in 2016…… and so it goes.