Press release from “Symonds for Mayor”
written by Quinn Symonds –
It’s time to announce that my campaign is going full swing. Starting October 7th you are eligible to start your vote. I want for people to ignore the recent drama between the incumbent and a council hopeful, whether it’s factual or warranted is of no importance. When you’re involved in any sort of politics you need to have thick skin and expect the worst to be said about you. How it was handled and what led to it irreprehensible, I will say, but what we as citizens need to focus on is what is important. Ignore the political drama, and focus on the issues that matter to the majority of Mason City. We need to demand from incumbents and candidates both to debate, civilly and cordially about ideas and goals. As far as I know no one has reached out about any debates. I’m not running on a reputation alone, I’m running on ideas and goals as well as a real perspective that is in tune with the majority of Mason City-ans. From the families I’ve spoken with many of the issues affect me as well, jobs, crime, decorum, and more jobs. I am a single father going to college living paycheck to paycheck. I understand exactly what these people want and what Mason City needs. I’m going to take this opportunity to go over ideas and goals that go past my ideas of encouraging tolerance and diversity, and creating city wide Wi-Fi.
• Firstly, as far as crime goes, we need to make sure our courts system holds criminals accountable for their crime. We need to pressure judges to not let criminals walk the streets freely before sentencing and judge them more harshly for violent crimes. We should be sentencing community service for inmates, criminals and convicted juveniles more often. Put them in orange jump suits and make them walk around and pick up trash and clean our roads, parks and downtown.
• I think we should be doing all we can to encourage both small business growth and keeping the large ones we have in our city. The permit process for small business needs to be streamlined. Other cities are moving their application process done entirely online. That cuts confusion between agencies down, the workload involved, and it makes it simpler for businesses to grow at their own pace. When a large business has a plan to grow, we should take all consideration in doing what we can to encourage that, especially when it involves high paying jobs and more of them. I am not opposed to a casino in Mason City or within its limits. We should also offer city contracts to local companies that are capable during the bidding process.
• Accountability and credibility needs to be addressed in city government. In my door knocking and just casual conversations, faith in our local government’s ability to government is waning. We need to hold our cities officials responsible for their job, after all if they don’t want to listen to or respond to citizens they should resign. We need to bring back a semblance of our former human rights center and have personal representation, or we can have the council vote to make our city administrators duties to be responsible for accountability(they can do that)
• Real transparency needs to be enforced. Citizens should know where their money goes and how much city organizations and committees are spending. No more black veils around projects like the sculptures. Some of them are beautiful and they bring some nice flavor to our downtown, but no one wants to come out and say how much it cost to do so, as well as how much it costs for upkeep. One of them was already torn down during the summer, how much did it cost to fix that and then move it? My last thought on this is making all city council and mayoral terms 2 years.
• Our transit system needs a revamp. Right now it’s run through a brokerage, meaning a community organization that is in charge of more than just that particular municipality. We need buses going out to NIACC to pick up students that go to class past 8 throughout the week, and we also need buses to go to pickups near bars and the likes to pick them up and take them home during the weekends. It won’t encourage people to drink more, but it will encourage them to act more responsibly.
• Lastly, our city government needs to be run more like a business. No more high risk/low yield projects for at least a couple years, unless it’s something completely mind blowing. Yes, that could have meant the possibility of no sculptures downtown or involvement in the Blue Zone Community. The statues are expensive and no one wants to talk about what it costs, and we could have very well created our own wellness program just like another Iowa city, Decorah, is doing. I question the sustainability of the Blue Zone community in the long run, and I think it’s repugnant to place statues all over one part of Mason City and say we can’t afford to keep the Human Rights Commission running as it was. I promise to use mayoral veto power on projects deemed to high risk and low return. Yes, mayors in Iowa have veto power, he or she must not say it at the passing of the bill but has two weeks within it being passed to submit in writing to the council why they believe it should not be passed. The council can accept it or bring it back on the table. This is not something that I will use to draw attention or grandstand on issues, just a power I will use when I deem necessary and when it’s for the best of the majority of Mason City. I believe decorum is important to keep meetings running efficiently.
So that’s the basics of my platform; I want fiscal responsibility, accountability in city government, I want to help small businesses and large businesses grow, I want to bring different industry to Mason City, I want to created new tax revenue for Mason City to help keep our taxes low, and I want to see it grow in a positive manner. I am the positive alternative for mayor in Mason City, I have run a clean campaign and I intend to keep my promise, and I hope you vote wisely and early this year. I implore you to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to donate.
I wish my two opponents the best of luck this coming November.
Quinn Symonds
641 512 2878
Quinn.Symonds@GMAIL.com
11 thoughts on “Mayoral candidate Quinn Symonds announces campaign platform”
Quinn, you have to admit, it looks like Matt released your whole press release, unlike the chop job the Globe did by countering all of the statements they decided to print.
You came on here and critisized some people and you got spanked in my opinion.
You may be a good guy but I don’t see it, grow up and learn some things and you might be a good choice in a few years.
Quinn,
what kind of leadership experience do you have? I am just wondering why as a student you aren’t starting with getting involved at that level rather than running for mayor? There are a number of organizations at NIACC that are in need of active leaders, and you would be able to actually make an impact. Once this joke of an election is over, I hope you consider the real possibilities available to you, and learn what “we” really need. I would be willing to bet that less than 1% of NIACC and/or BVU students would be interested in increased transit hours.
I have over five years of business management experience. With my last employer I was a senior manager here in iowa, meaning I talked twice a week during conference calls to share my success and how I achieved it, as well as train new managers at my store and theirs. As well as interviewing potential new managers and training their associates while running my store in mason city which was consistently the top in iowa and for about an 8 month stretch in the top 30 in the nation out of well over 1400 stores. And at niacc I am involved with the ceo club. Helped raise almost 300 dollars selling baked goods to help other students afford to go to a convention I won’t be attending.
City government has no authority with the court system. Just who would pay all the additional expenses for transit. how many students currently use transit system?
There are taxis to pick up people at the bars. How many people use those services now. nice suggestions but let’s have some numbers crunched to see just how viable these are.
thanks for being cordial and beginning a dialogue with Nit readers.
City government definitely has no authority but it can have influence in the court system. And I believe the transit system can be run more effectively and efficiently. If you ask people that use it they’ll tell you it’s a mess. A lot of larger cities make use of the transit system and it wouldn’t be for every night, Thursday thru Saturday. That’s what I would like to see. As far as niacc goes I’ll tell you a story I heard during orientation. A man who was recently homeless, had fortunately gotten his life straight and got a real home and job. His problem was that he has no means of transportation and relied on the transit to get to and from work as well as college. His concern was that he had all night classes. He could ride into niacc but had to walk home. There are quite a few students with similar predicaments. Some of them ride their bikes at night also which can be dangerous as well. There are also people I’ve known over the years that just decided to not go to college or drop out because this exact situation. That’s why I feel it’s important we help these types of folks. And to follow up, lots of students use the transit to get to and from niacc. You can go there about any time of the day and see students waiting to be picked up. I do have the cities last four years of financials but nothing too telling about numbers and extra costs. One idea I have is using business advertising on the busses to raise extra revenue if needed.
Sounds like NIACC has a transportation problem, not the city. They need to realize that without students, there isn’t a school.
How much guts does QS have? QS tell us about the story with the maid. It’s all over the streets. Is it true or aint it?
@Blowhard, at least Quinn has an education, you have just given us proof that you never got that in elementary and high school with your spelling and gramar in this post. I make spelling mistakes but what you said was way out there.
Ahem. You might want to at least spell “grammar” correctly.
Like I said, I make spelling mistakes some times!
@John-Not to worry. We understood what you were saying. Thank God for the spelling police on here that make it their business to belittle everyone they can.