Waterloo Times

The Waterloo city council recently discussed how to fill in a vacancy for the 4th ward chair.

There is currently a vacancy on the Waterloo city council for Ward 4 as council member Jerome Amos was elected last November to the Iowa House of Representatives to represent District 62, as reported by The Courier. His appointment to the house mandated his resignation from the council and was effective Jan. 4th. In December, the mayor had made a decision that the council would fill the vacancy by appointment rather than special election, though one council member did push for that at the December meeting.

At the Jan. 3 city council meeting, the motion was made to amend that decision based on sentiments heard by residents of the 4th ward, though their petition for it was yet uncertified. Hawkeye community college is holding a special election for a bond referendum on March 7, so the council could also put something on that ballot with the time that they have. There was some concern about the cost of hosting an election and the lack of a ward 4 representative until the election in March. Councilman Rob Nichols assured everyone that both he and councilman Dave Boesen are at large representatives and will help out in the fourth ward until then.

When Waterloo mayor Quentin Hart opened the topic up to public comment, a resident came up to the podium in support of a special election but was concerned about the delay until then. The resident called for moving up the date of a special election to a much sooner date as to not suppress the vote of ward 4. The mayor assured him that they were not suppressing any votes and were holding an election in order to hear the voices of the fourth ward residents. The resident eventually had to be escorted out by a policeman. Other residents came to speak on their support of the March 7 election but asked the council to appoint another representative in the meantime for the fourth ward. 

"So just really, in conclusion, before we vote on this, I just want to say one thing about this democratic process is you can start out going one way and because the process allows so, you can end up going in a different direction," Waterloo mayor Quentin Hart said at the meeting. "I think we have an incredible opportunity in a special election to be able to put someone in an office: the will of the people and I think they'd have to do it twice. So, you've got to turn around and run in November again. If you get someone in there in the short term and you don't like the leadership that person is giving, you get a very quick short turnaround time to elect another person."