MASON CITY – A man recently elected to the Mason City council who sources say may have mis-lead a county supervisor before being appointed to the county’s economic development board has resigned from that board.
Sources tell NIT that Brett Schoneman told county supervisor Jay Urdahl earlier this year that he had no aspirations for running for city council. Schoneman was seeking and was soon appointed to the North Iowa Corridor’s Board of Directors, an economic development agency that is granted hundreds of thousands of dollars every year by the governments of Mason City, Clear Lake and Cerro Gordo county. Supervisor Jay Urdahl championed Schoneman’s appointment to the Corridor board, based partly on Schoneman’s word he would not run for city council.
Soon thereafter, however, Schoneman announced his candidacy for Ward 3 city council. Sources tell NIT that Mr. Urdahl was “irate” at Schoneman’s announcement and feared potential political fallout with voters, as he is likely to seek re-election next fall.
Last month, NIT questioned the county supervisors about Schoneman’s existence on the North Iowa Corridor’s Board of Directors. The supervisors were challenged as to whether or not the county as a whole would be improperly represented if two Mason City council members sat on the board – Travis Hickey being the other city council member on that board. The supervisors were also challenged as to how much they knew about Mr. Schoneman. All three supervisors – Casey Callanan, Phil Dougherty and Mr. Urdahl – admitted they knew virtually nothing about Mr. Schoneman except his name and where he works (Schoneman Realty). None knew he was a member of the Mason City Airport Board. All three admitted no other candidates were considered for the open board spot at the Corridor. Mr. Urdahl said his choice of Mr.
Schoneman for the Corridor board was based largely on “phone calls” from certain un-named individuals and that Mr. Schoneman was somehow involved in economic development. Mr. Urdahl denied he was lobbied or pressured by Mason City Mayor Eric Bookmeyer to place Mr. Schoneman on the board. Some have said Eric is Mr. Schoneman’s “mentor”, and has groomed him for months to fill the council seat many knew would be vacated by Jean Marinos, but Mr. Schoneman denies this relationship with Eric. Mr. Urdahl adamantly told NIT that “I can assure you, Eric Bookmeyer never tells the county what to do.”
During interviews with NIT, Mr. Urdahl and Mr. Callanan refused to rule out revisiting Mr. Schoneman’s membership to the Corridor board. Mr. Schoneman told NIT in an interview he would also think about his future on the board.
In the wake of these development and revelations, today, the Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors quietly accepted the resignation of Brett Schoneman from the North Iowa Corridor Board of Directors.
How this resignation finally came to pass is not readily clear, and Mr. Schoneman did not immediately respond to NIT when asked about his move to resign.
What is clear, however, is that the Cerro Gordo Board of Supervisors has made a move to be very open in future appointments to the North Iowa Corridor Board of Directors. Breaking from the tradition of more or less secretly picking out an individual for nomination, the board today revealed that it would take applications from the public. The document shown below will allegedly be posted to the county’s website, and anyone will be able to send in an application, so long as that individual is paying dues to the North Iowa Corridor.
Supervisors are over-paid—under worked and part of our corruption in area politics!!
Nothing is going to change in Mason City as long as Bookmeyer is the mayor. Plain and simple. The elitists voted him in and use middle class common folk get to pay the price. And personally, I don’t think ANY realtor should be allowed to be in the council. It’s too much of a conflict of interest.
How is a realtor more of a potential conflict of interest compared to any other occupation or profession. Please explain
Let’s remember the North Plaza, or whatever is was called when Fareway moved….wasn’t Jean Marinos the person pushing that fiasco?
That whole fiasco was called Northbridge and put a lot of small businesses out of business.
Am I correct that Jean Marinos was at the helm of that?
Still paying for that mess. Thanks Jean! You wise old Yoda-look-alike, you.
You all seem to be missing the jest with this article and getting off track again!
The Good old boys at the Courthouse and the shenanigan’s that have been going on for years!!
Maybe the Supervisors are finally trying to do the correct thing??
Only because Matt was in their face requesting information that they discuss in their quarters
Now, if he would just resign from the city council we would all be better off.
I’m definitely willing to give Brett a chance. He says he’s not Eric’s puppet. We will see.
@Matt-You go right ahead and give him a chance. I will remind you of it when he screws you over. I can not ever remember a real estate council member that wasn’t special interest and the common citizen took it in the shorts. He is drunkmeyer’s buddy and will be nothing but a yes man for his highness.
OK LVS…… I challenge you. Tell us about past council members who were also real estate agents. Specifically how did they poke citizens in the shorts?
Start with Marinos-she screwed us when she was a mayor and kept it up as a council person. We have spent millions on the downtown and still have nothing. Now we are spending 32 million more and it will flop too. You heard it here first.
Come on dude. Quit with the rhetoric. Always blanket criticisms and never any facts to back them up.
@Reality-You know I always thought you were pretty intelligent. Why would you ask such a dumb question. We are still paying for Northbridge that she railroaded through on change orders and the same with Central Park. She just did change orders until she got what she wanted. And she set up the whole Vision Iowa fiasco. How much have you gained from that? Did your taxes go down or up after that. Everything was done to increase the property value of American Realty. Then we had Old Tom Jolas. What a laughing stock he was as a mayor and he is still trying to manipulate the government. You really needed to live through it to understand it. There were a lot of businesses that went under with Northbridge but they didn’t care because they got what they wanted.
Which is it marquee matt first you prove Schone can’t even pay taxes on time now u backing him up what a sell out