Dems Heiden and Rettig Won the Johnson Co. Supervisors' Race

Surprisingly (to me), Democrat Pat Heiden got the most votes in the Johnson County (Iowa) Supervisors' race. Incumbent Democrat Janelle Rettig was a close second. Both Heiden and Rettig won their respective races. Republican Phil Hemingway came in a distant third and lost. I'm reluctant to crow about his loss because he is or was a friend and our mechanic, a very good and honest mechanic. Second, he lost the first time he ran for the Iowa City Community School District post and won the second time he ran. Don't count him out yet. He's still on the school board and has done very good work there standing up for what's right and standing up against corruption and the culture of retaliation there.

In many ways I would have loved to have seen him as a supervisor if he took on the undemocratic, bully-boy ways of Johnson County supervisor Rod Sullivan, who stages coup d'etats when he wants to chair a committee abandoned by another. Yet Phil lists Rod Sullivan as a friend on Facebook.

Hands down, Janelle Rettig was the most well informed debater in the debate I attended at Iowa City Hall with the three candidates on October 15th. She's also the only supervisor who voted against the ill considered vote to purchase the Schwab property, including expensive infrastructure like the Celebration Barn, which never passed building or fire codes, and which suffered a fire destroying the attractive fireplace in the barn because it didn't meet fire code. Buying the Schwab property so Dick Schwab could get out from under and move to Wisconsin is the kind of one-hand-washing-the-other deal that the Democrats controlling Johnson County excel at. Sure the Schwab property has woodland on it, but the defective infrastructure drove the price up to an unreasonable level. Taxpayers got taken for a ride.