A Very Sincere Thank You!

Mayor Louise From presided over her final meeting as mayor tonight and I'd like to say she was sent out in style. Completely unknown to her, various Iowa elected officials and a notable celebrity were asked to submit a letter of thanks to Louise. These were read at the meeting. She received congratulations and thanks from both U.S. Senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, and our U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack. She also received recognition from Governor Branstad, and our state senator, Joe Bolkcom. Our Iowa House rep, Mary Mascher, came in person to thank Louise also. The highlight of the presentation was a letter from Kirk Ferentz, who spoke of how University Heights was his first home in Iowa, and thanking Louise for her service.
Louise was elected to five terms as Mayor, for a total of 10 years. Prior to that she served six terms on council for 12 years. In total she served the City of University Heights for 22 years from January of 1994 through December of 2015. While I don't know Louise's exact age I'm pretty confident in thinking that she has served University Heights for at least one-third of her life.

I have greatly enjoyed working with Louise, and have great admiration for her abilities and the accomplishments she has made for the betterment of our city. I hope that if you see her in the coming days and weeks, that you'll tell her thank you too.

11/10/15 City Council Meeting Webstream

I should remember to post these regularly, because our friends at City Cable Channel 4 do a great job of making available a webstream of all regular City Council meetings. You can also watch a rebroadcast on Channel 4 every Thursday night at 9:00 PM.

November 10 City Council Meeting

November Council Meeting Update

Dear U-Heights residents, City Council held their regular November meeting Tuesday night, below are some highlights. For more information please look at the full agenda and attachments.   LEAF VACUUMING November 19 will be the final leaf vacuum date. Please rake leaves only to the curb. Often Johnson County refuse comes by to pick up leaves early as they travel through town. Even if they pick up early they will still pick up on the scheduled date too.   One University Place Council heard an update regarding progress on One University Place. Council also heard public input and made a decision regarding ravine restoration. Council and public were in agreement regarding 3/1 grading plan  and tree planting. Jeff Maxwell will work with EVE and Confluence Landscape architects to bring a planting plan to council. Fire Protection Mayor From reported that negotiations are nearly complete to switch city fire coverage to Iowa City at the start of the next fiscal year on July 1, 2016. Fire protection from Iowa City will be at the same rate as our current coverage from Coralville. Community Visioning 2016 Councilor Virginia Miller announced University Heights has been awarded a Trees Forever Community Visioning program Grant. The steering committee will send representatives to training in Ames later this month. Tree Pruning Class Trees Forever will have a Tree Pruning class on Sat. Dec. 5th We are planning to hold this at the City office. One hour of class time and then one hour of field work on Melrose and Sunset. We need to know how many people will be attending so we know whether to move it to the University Club. RSVP to Hannah Howard at HHoward@treesforever.org. Upcoming Events Leaf Vacuuming Nov. 19 Tree Pruning Class Dec. 5 City Council Regular Meeting Dec. 15, 7 PM Horn School Library Leaf Vacuuming Nov. 19

Follow University Heights on Twitter Consider contributing to the University Heights Community Fund I also write a blog covering U-H and other timely topics, with my opinions expressed UHForward.blogspot.com Join the community at Nextdoor University Heights! As always it is a pleasure to serve as your city councilor. -Mike

Unofficial Election Results

Here are unofficial numbers from the Johnson County Auditor:

	Early	Nov. 3	Total
Mayor
Louise From	50	155	205
Wally Heitman (write in)			211
Council
Carla Aldrich	49	145	194
Stepheny Gahn	44	141	185
Mike Haverkamp	50	175	225
Jim Lane	50	160	210
Dotti Maher	103	167	270
Silvia Quezada	102	184	286
Shahzad Ali (write in)			203
Rick Hopson (write in)			195
Jerry Zimmerman (write in)			204

The auditor did not break down early and Nov. 3 votes for the write in candidates. There will be an administrative recount due to the 1 vote difference for the 5th seat on council.

Here is a link to the Press Citizen's story:

Heitman ousts From as U.Heights Mayor

I am once again so very grateful to the citizens of this community for their faith in me, and I will continue to work for you in the next term.

ELECTION DAY

POLLING SITE

ST. ANDREW CHURCH 

1300 MELROSE AVE.

POLLS OPEN 7 am TO 8 pm

Early voting statistics from Johnson County Auditor 
Turnout Updates from JC Auditor at 9, 11, 3, 6 TODAY
 

EARLY VOTING

TOTAL BALLOTS REQUESTED by city

University Heights 148

TOTAL BALLOTS RETURNED by city

University Heights 148

Election Day Turnout

9:00-- 40

11:00-- 74

Who I am Supporting in Tuesday's Election

Besides voting for myself, here is who  I will be voting for:

City Council
Jim Lane- Jim is completing his second 2 year term on council, he has served as finance chair for the past 4 years. His experience as a financial planner has paid off in how he has managed city assets in order to maximize returns, he has also made awareness of city budgets and budget planning much easier for the rest of council to follow. Jim's experience as a plant manager for Proctor and Gamble as well as his education as an engineer has been invaluable as the city has worked through the planning stages of the One University Place project. Construction Updates

Carla Aldrich- Carla was appointed to council in June 2014 to fill the seat of Zadok Nampala. She has served as co-chair of the Community Protection Committee. Carla's contributions and insight served the city well in the hiring of our Police Chief last year. Carla has also initiated our Community Watch program, a quarterly meeting of all interested citizens on community protection topics of interest. At the Kickoff Meeting in April, there was a surprise incident where participants suddenly were placed in situation where their "eye witness" recollections were tested. The July meeting featured tips on how to prevent identity theft, and the September meeting featured Iowa City Schools Equity director Kingsley Botchway speaking on cultural competence. Community Protection

Stepheny Gahn- Stepheny has served on the Zoning Commission for the past year. She was active in the amending of our building ordinance. Stepheny has also been a frequent attendee at council meetings, and has worked hard to make herself aware of the many issues that the council faces.

Mayor
Louise From- Louise has been an effective and tireless ambassador for our city. While she does not have a vote, she runs council meetings. Louise spends an incredible amount of time working with neighboring elected officials as well as staff to ensure that U-Heights' interested are represented. Mayor's Report

Ballot Initiative
YES I strongly favor adopting staggered four year terms for council. Being a small community with each council member expected to manage a department of city business (Finance, Building/Zoning/Sanitation, Streets and Sidewalks, Community Protection, eGovernment) it is hard to have continuity and stability when you must run for your seat every other year.

I would hope you would also consider these well qualified people and this reasonable ballot measure.

A Letter From Jim Lane

Friends, 

I have been out of town on business this past week, and have been absent when a slate of candidates made  

their appearance. I have been in contact with fellow residents while I have been away, and it appears that there are two points of concerns.

One is about the ravine, and some trees that had to be removed to accommodate the new transformer.  Here is a link to Construction Report #1 posted on the city’s website on Oct. 22^nd. This report contains City Engineer Josiah Bilskemper’s October report documenting the process by which minor changes were made due to aerial imaging inaccuracies and more rubble in the ravine than previously identified.

The other area of concern deals with accusations of a conflict of interest regarding the Council members and One University Place.  Please allow me to explain this issue, since there is no time for a candidate’s forum, which would have allowed this to have been brought to the forefront.

Silvia was interested in exploring the question of whether any council members were receiving any compensation from the developer in exchange for their approval of the Maxwell project. Mike Haverkamp, Virginia Miller, Carla Aldrich and I repeatedly stated that we had not received any compensation for our vote.

  

Silvia then brought forth a resolution and statement that she wanted council members to sign. This resolution and statement did not match Silvia’s stated inquiry.  In addition, it included language dealing with relatives which was never vetted by our City Attorney.  So Silvia was instructed, and she agreed,  to correct and revise the statement and resolution and bring it to the Special Meeting on July 28th. She did not do this.

She did bring a statement to the August 11^th meeting but it was not completely revised and she did not make the recommended corrections.  Instead she brought a similar version from the one she had presented at the July 14^th meeting.  Council did not pass the resolution or sign the statements because this similar one also did not match Silvia’s inquiry, and it did not fulfill the agreement she made with Council.

In addition, as part of the discussion regarding this conflict of interest statement, our city lawyer, Steve Ballard suggested that signing such a document was redundant.  Each of us took an oath of office when we were sworn in as councilors, and such an oath was in fact the same as signing a conflict of interest statement. 

Silvia failed to follow through on her own resolution.  But rather than continuing to work on the wording of the resolution for Council’s approval, she has decided to spin it into a sign of council’s lack of transparency.  And so here we are today with Silvia touting council’s failure to sign her conflict of interest statement as a sign of council’s corruption, rather than Silvia’s failure to follow through on a task.

As we close in on Election Day no doubt other possible misconceptions will arise.  Please feel free to contact me at jimlane@yahoo.com or 319-621-3111; Mike mikehaverkamp1960@gmail.com , 319-430-0864; or Carla 319-621-7852 if you have any questions.  We would be more than happy to clarify things. 

It is my pleasure to honorably serve the citizens of U-Heights. 

-Jim Lane