IC Mayor Makes Catty Remark About Rockne Cole

Caption: From left to right, Jim Conzemius, my husband; Rockne Cole, attorney and Iowa City Council candidate, Douglas Narveson, local political activist, who proudly wore his custom-made Move to Amend T-shirt, but wouldn’t stop chewing the remains of his potluck dinner while I was taking multiple photos (yay, all-you-can-eat food!). Event: Citizens for Community Improvement gathering; guest speaker, Bill Stowe, CEO and General Manager of Des Moines Water Works.

I was really annoyed when Mayor Matt Hayek made a catty remark about city council candidate and fellow attorney Rockne Cole in a city council meeting during the council meeting before last. Mayor Matt sat on his high horse and decided that he was in a position to judge which of the critics of the Shadow (the $14.1 TIF-assisted Chauncey building) is sincere and which is a “game player.”

According to the mayor, Rockne Cole is a “game player; first, he filed a lawsuit and now he’s running for the city council.”

“The Trinity Church pastor and congregation are sincere in their criticisms,” Mayor Hayek opined.

And Cole is not?

Who died and made Matt Hayek king for a day? Why does he get to decide who is sincere and who is “playing games”?

Here’s hoping Rockne Cole wins in the next city council election. We already know Matt Hayek isn’t running again, and I think that’s a good thing, given his anti-environment, anti-Sensitive Areas Ordinance, anti-historical building preservation, pro-business and TIFs-for-millionaires proclivities.

We need to vote out every Iowa City councilor, starting with Susan Mims, who runs on the “whatever business wants and to hell with our other constituents, historic building preservation, and the environment” platform. That’s the road to taking away what is unique about Iowa City and making Iowa City more like Coralville, which is in debt up to its eyeballs thanks to giving away TIFs to millionaire developers.

I chatted with Rockne Cole this morning (6/9) at Phil’s Repair when I brought in my car for an oil change, tire rotation, and new brake pads. According to Rockne, last night City Councilor Susan Mims dismissed his factual comment about the increase in poverty in Iowa City as “ludicrous” in so far as it relates to the city council’s actions in giving a $14.1 million Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to millionaire developer Marc Moen, after the city council turned down bids from other contractors to build a more energy-efficient building with no TIF asked for or needed. Some of those other buildings would also have made room for New Pioneer Coop, which employs over 100 people and is now located in a flood plain, and the Bicycle Library, a bicycle rental and sale store. The Chauncey is making space for bowling and the thee-AY-tah, as one of the would-be elite, sadly deranged characters in Betty MacDonald’s “The Egg and I” (from which Ma and Pa Kettle sprang into TV life) put it.

You realize, of course, that the purpose of Tax Incremental Financing is to give a leg up to those who would cure urban blight and build affordable housing, not to help the rich build elite housing for the rich. TIFs used in this way are an obscene use of taxpayer money. It’s no coincidence 99% of new economic gains in the U.S. goes to the top 1% of the richest of the rich. We’ve got the best government money can buy at the national, state, and city levels.

As nasty as the playing field has become in the city council race, let’s remember what peaceful activist Mahatma Gandhi said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”