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The perks of elected office in Mason City: Bookmeyer is the worst offender

Editorial by Matt Marquardt –

They get to sit on a perch 12 inches higher than the rest of us, these so-called leaders here in Mason City.

Seems to me our elected officials at City Hall know no shame. With a disgraceful voter turnout here in Mason City, 27% of the eligible voters bothered to show up at the polls in 2009, when our infamous Mayor Eric Bookmeyer was swept in to office.

In the first in a series of editorials, I will lay out how several of our elected City Hall officials have, in my opinion, abused their office.  I will begin with the worst offender, Mayor Eric Bookmeyer.

#1 Worst Offender: Mayor Eric Bookmeyer

Mayor Eric Bookmeyer has been the #1 offender
Mayor Eric Bookmeyer walked in a parade in Clear Lake in 2012

Mayor Eric Bookmeyer has been the #1 abuser of his office. Let’s examine his record. Since he took office in 2010:

    • In 2010, Bookmeyer was told to leave the Other Place Bar after slamming two $1 bills onto the bar and yelling at the bar staff “I want to play some f****** pool!”  The young lady behind the bar refused Bookmeyer’s request to make change and told him it was time to leave. Brent Trout then put his arms around Bookmeyer and the two men laughed and walked out of the establishment.
    • In December of 2009, with a drink in his hand, Bookmeyer was screaming at a television set at Frank’s bar during a football game as his Nebraska Cornhuskers were losing to the Texas Longhorns. A Mason City citizen warned him to quiet down.
    • Early in his tenure as Mayor, Bookmeyer berated an employee at a local hair salon when he wasn’t treated to a haircut fast enough. According to reports to NIT, Bookmeyer raised his voice to a young woman and demanded his haircut immediately, asking her “do you know who I am” and then telling her he is the Mayor of Mason City. The young lady was in tears over the experience.
    • Bookmeyer admitted this year that he took postage and invitations from City Hall for his “private” mayor’s luncheon; a meeting that he claims was closed to the public and not official city business. In the business world, this is called pilfering.
    • Bookmeyer commandeered city staff to perform his personal errands in setting up his private meeting at the Mason City Library that he says was not official city business and then ordered Brent Trout to physically intimidate and force a citizen of Mason City out of the meeting.
    • After using the IC Systems call center to help him get elected in 2009, and using a family member of an IC Systems upper management on his election committee, Bookmeyer then set about the task of tearing down Human Rights in Mason City.  NIT has been told from many sources that IC Systems faced a number of complaints at the Human Rights Commission, as it does all over the internet.
    • Since 2010, Bookmeyer has now taken three trips to Washington D.C. all paid for in full by the people of Mason City, with absolutely nothing to show for it.
    • Early in his tenure as Mayor, Bookmeyer stood up at the Mason City Country Club, after consuming alcohol, and proclaimed in a loud voice that “Weaver, Nelson and Marsters have to go!”
    • Bookmeyer claims to be a “stay at home dad” but in reality distorted the very definition of a stay at home parent.  Bookmeyer employs cleaning personnel at his home and daycare providers for hours and hours each week.
    • In October of 2010 at the Prime n Wine restaurant, Bookmeyer approached a Mason City citizen whom he had never met and told the man to “give up” on his new business and that it would for sure be a failure. Bookmeyer then set about doing his part to make that happen, by approaching customers of the man’s business and discouraging them from working with him.
    • In 2013, several expensive pet projects that Bookmeyer advocated for – including Blue Zones, Micro-Enterprise, sculptures and others – cost the people of Mason City tens of thousands of dollars and contributed to an amended budget that the city council will face this month.  The new 2012-2013 budget is $1.8 million larger and the city must raid its reserves to cover the expenses.
    • Bookmeyer has mocked citizens of Mason City with facial expressions and hand gestures as they walked to the podium to address the City Council.
    • Bookmeyer insulted all senior citizens when he told a Mason City citizen that he was looking for “young people” with “fresh ideas” for his appointments to boards and commissions. Several upstanding citizens questions whether Bookmeyer was guilty of age discrimination.
    • Bookmeyer ran a dirty mayoral campaign in 2013, taking to the radio airwaves and ridiculing and insulting three Mason City citizens who had become candidates for city council, not running against him for mayor. One candidate’s wife had just died, and the another was a mother of 6.
  • More at a later date.
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