Jaszewski and cronies tip city vote using vile, cowardly tactics

Opinion by Matt Marquardt:

When you run for office in Mason City, there are certain realities that you need to understand and be prepared for.

1) You must pledge allegiance to the Power Structure in town; this consists of, first, the Chamber of Commerce and second, their agenda. The power structure is further composed of the newspaper, the radio station, most of the elected officials, and those who stand to benefit from controlling city hall and how its money is spent. You are not allowed to question their plans. If you do, you will be labeled an “outsider,” a “naysayer” or a lot of other more-colorful adjectives. This then leads to the second reality. 2) The attacks will then come next. Sometimes they will be subtle and sometimes blatant and outrageous. Sometimes they will promise to shoot you, beat you up, hurt your family, ruin your business – that sort of thing. It depends on how much of a threat to their plans they consider you to be.

These realities have a powerful affect on that small percentage of voters who find time to get involved in our elections. The attacks are code to the very dedicated supporters of the Power Structure in town; the word is put out on who to support and they vote accordingly.  They will protect their domain at all costs.  The attacks – again, some subtle, some much more aggressive – tell the Power Structure crowd how to vote; the other voters are left alienated and confused; they may decide not to vote out of disgust or may swing to the other side. Those of us involved in an election who bear the brunt of the tactics from this vicious club rooted in greed are left to scratch for the votes of who is left out there who know better and want things to go a different way.

For the casual observer, my opponent passed himself off as a long-time public servant who wanted back in office; a friendly, great-grandfatherly type with 12 years experience on the council who claims he can make the right decisions. He was on the wrong side of the Power Structure back in 2009 when he ran for mayor against Eric Bookmeyer, the darling of of the Globe and the Chamber; he lost 80% to 20%. This year, he was fully pledged to the Power Structure; he is a former co-worker of Bill Schickel, a former business parter with John Skipper. Most importantly, he supports the Renaissance project without nary a question asked. In his campaign, he offered no ideas and refused to go on the record on the Prestage plant issue (why did the Globe even pose this question?). He got the most votes in the November 7 election by 49 over me.

But – I made the runoff election for December 5. I was still standing and things started to go my way. It was clear as the dastardly truths about the Renaissance Project (and other major gaffes by elected officials) came to light (tax hike caused by Gatehouse hotelier, confidential fire chief memo leak and payoff) that my campaign was gaining momentum and his might have peaked. This reality became clear to my opponent and those who have great fear of my ability to speak the truth and my promise to include and represent the common citizens in the business of city hall. The fear of these cowards was (is) palpable and manifested itself most bluntly in the weeks leading up to the run-off election. I had called for the great John Lee – who once labeled himself a “man of action” – to resign after his total malfeasance that cost taxpayers tens-of-thousands of dollars in a payoff. For that, his wife and some of her compatriots launched disgusting social media diatribes and accusations against me. I understand he, also, had many choice words for me that got to voters. People like that were working hard to smear my name and influence the election outcome, which I lost by 92 votes.

The code to the dedicated supporters of the Power Structure was broadcast in these attacks and others. The Globe Gazette initially refused to sell me ads and published a story on the Ward 4 council election using a fake last name of “Buehner” under my photo, which was posted dead last on the list of candidates. As a “correction,” they later posted the large, thick words “WRONG NAME” over my face and correct last name. John Skipper sent me 6 questions by mistake, many of them geared toward disparaging me and my business. Those questions and my answers never made it to the Globe.  They never even sent legitimate questions to the candidates or even attempted an interview, let alone a debate.  The Power Structure knows how to manipulate local elections.

Not long after, the Globe began posting “opinions” from John Jazsewski. He wrote on November 17, “The devil and the forces of evil are always present attempting to divide us, hurt us and to bring us down. It is all of the good people who step up to serve God and one another that keep those forces of evil at bay.”

The code was set and being delivered.  Make no mistake – no opinion published in the news by a person running for office is not a campaign tactic. Jaszewski knew what he was doing in going negative.  And he was getting huge help by the Globe and the Power Structure.

In this election, I pointed out only two valid points in my opponent’s record:

1) He was proud that he spent taxpayer dollars to hire a consultant to teach him how to not waste time as an elected official.

2) He was a council member as the downtown Northbridge Project was implemented, which cost about $4 million and was a major failure that we are still paying for 16 years later.

Now, he will be overseeing a roughly $40 million Renaissance project, ten times the size of Northbridge. I called his leadership then a failure and warned of the future. I never questioned Jaszewski’s character in this election; heck, I thought the guy was sort of a decent person. He had endorsed my previous campaign and had invited me to his house. He wrote me an email and said how sorry he was that I lost the 2013 election to Janet Solberg. He wrote to me, “Congratulations on your effort to unseat Janet Solberg. I am sorry that it didn’t happen. With that future in mind, I would like to take you up on your offer to do a story about my business.”

Hmmph. He’s nice when he wants a free handout, but watch out otherwise. Now, as his opponent, he was using code words aimed at me like “devil,” “forces of evil,” (twice!) “divide us,” “hurt us,” and “bring us down.”

Swell guy.

Also at about this time, I reported first (forcing the Globe Gazette to then follow suit) that Bill Schickel may have misappropriated the city of funds that were to be used to pave streets. A city council member said the funds disappeared under his watch as mayor (and Jaszewski, too, as council member?) The city has no records of what happened to these funds (maybe the state does). It seems very convenient that when certain people in positions of power are possibly involved in what could be questionable (criminal?) activity, the paper trail vanishes or becomes murky.

Maybe I should have reported on my opponents’s past in more detail. I didn’t want to be negative; in fact, I told some advising me to do so that I would not. For example, I did not report that Jaszewski was known to fall asleep in council meetings during his previous terms. I did not report that Jaszewski worked out a deal as councilman that had the City pay him up to $275.00 per meeting to video record the meetings he was serving in. City hall reluctantly admitted this to be true – but has NO RECORD of the payments except for the checks. Jaszewski was terminated in 2012 from recording the council meetings after technical issues (sloppy?) with his work. In fact, he was rejected by the council in favor of a different company that wanted substantially more pay for the same job. Jaszewski might be the only man in Mason City history to fall asleep during TWO jobs while being paid by taxpayers.  In recent weeks, he has shown up to council meetings with his circa-1980’s recording equipment using a magnifying glass to look at the buttons.  He also opposed our city’s highly-successful city-run ambulance service before he was berated into a vote in favor of the program.

As I previously mentioned, Jaszewski’s campaign was stalling, and those afraid of the outcome going my way appeared to rally and were willing to pursue the outcome they wanted at any cost. The social media attacks amplified. Phone calls were made to voters from a high-ranking downtown person of influence making baseless, false allegations against me. A flyer from the Jaszewski campaign was circulated, essentially calling me a liar who shouldn’t be trusted. A Jaszewski sign appeared in Bill Schickel’s front yard. An opinion was published in the Globe Gazette by Bill Schickel’s attorney wife in support of Jazsewski. It’s my guess that Bill Schickel and his wife, John Lee and his wife, certain violent Chamber employees, the Globe Gazette and others are scared to death of me and petrified of being shown up (exposed as inept frauds who cry at the drop of a hat) in council meetings. What they fail to realize is, I don’t need to be on the council to do that. They will do that for themselves and are skilled at demonstrating that regularly.

Then, in the hours leading up to the December 5 election, the lowest blow was dealt by the cowards who run this town and want it to stay that way. A fallacious flyer was circulated to Ward 4 voters – it was not signed, no one took credit. Written anonymously in the first-person (likely by an attorney who likes to support Jazsewski), sleazily mixing fact and opinion with lies by omission, it listed several court cases that are public record under my name. I was called violent and untrustworthy by the so-far anonymous authors. I will answer these accusations. First, I have been presented with numerous opportunities to engage in physical combat by attackers – like the time Robin Anderson and a Globe Gazette reporter attacked me.  There have been other times, too.  I always decline to return fire.  Most importantly, I have never, ever been charged with a crime nor committed a crime. You can be certain that if I was, the Globe’s John Skipper – a very jealous, bored, and unsuccessful man who is intertwined with the Power Structure – would most certainly have used that against me time and again. I was, however, the victim nearly 20 years ago in a domestic incident.  The result was a judge awarded me custody of my 1-year-old son.  I raised him alone ever since.  The flyer also tried to smear me and confuse voters by slanting civil court actions and traffic tickets into something else.  Some of these were from nearly 20 years ago.  I think Jazsewski was right about the “forces of evil.”  You can meet them twice a month on Tuesday nights at the library.

That flyer and the numerous other assaults against me most-certainly influenced the election. In a straight-up contest with debates and in-depth discussion focusing on real issues facing Mason City, where the voters can see the contestants side-by-side and evaluate, I would offer the outcome might be different.  The election is over and I recognize the results and what took place in the campaign. I recognize who was involved. I have quickly moved on to focus on my family and my business and myself. I do thank the good people of Ward 4 for all the outstanding conversations, friendliness and warmth as I knocked on their doors. I learned a lot and know the actual problems they face. I’m still here for them. I also thank, again, the wonderful endorsements of many who I admire. They know me, they know what I stand for, they know my potential. To everyone else, just stay tuned here at NIT. It is clear now as much as ever, NIT is needed here, and back to work I am going. And you can be sure I will deliver news you won’t want to miss.