Mayoral Race – Election Discussion

I started off with the mayoral race in the primaries and am ending there for the election.  I think Walnut will approve  

Bill Gluba

Gluba’s issues are to End the Bickering, Economic Growth, Infrastructure Needs, Public Safety, Gaming Industry in Davenport, and Improving our Neighborhoods.  Bill’s current job is as a real estate agent.  He has had some success in politics in the past and is familiar with the political environment.

Strengths – Bill’s past political experience tells me he is likely to know what is expected of him, of how to reach a cooperative agreement and of how to conduct himself.  Two important attributes for a  mayor.  The current mayor has dealt with many tie votes and has consistently sided with one side.  Wouldn’t it have been better to try to reach a consensus?

Weaknesses - He is a realtor.  With all of the conspiracy theories of corruption with city deals and real esate/development, unless he is able to stay at arms length I could see some conflicts of interest arising.  And he really didn’t need to bring up Phil’s firing from the DPD at the last debate, although with as low as Phil’s supporters have gone, reaching as far as Bill’s sons myspace page, at least Phil’s firing could be relevant.

Phil Yerington

Phil’s issues are Strengthen Public Safety, Citizen Input on Spending, Stop TIF’s for Development, Accurate Home Assesments, Rein in the City Administrator, Lead the Search for New Jobs, etc.  There is more, you can go to his web page for more information. 

Strengths – Phil isn’t afraid to take the tough and unpopular view on issues.  He knows the issues in the police department andhas experience as mayor.

Weaknesses – Phil has a tumultuous past with the city.  From taking on the nation pushing us for a flood wall to being fired from the DPD for faxgate (which was, actually, quite ridiculous).   But all of his past seems to add up to a prediction of 2 more years of circus like antics at city hall.   He has NOT helped this by taking contributions from the landlords.  In fact, besides his family, he hasn’t had much financial support besides the landlords.

Summary

I was really disappointed to see Phil take from a group with such a negative history in our city politics.  And the actions of Phil’s supporters have lived up to expectations.  I like Phil, but I think voters will be afraid he will contribute to the circus atmosphere downtown and people have expressed they are sick of the landlords campaigning in our city.  Add to that Bill received 45% of the vote in the primary, I think it’s easy to say Bill is the winner.  I’ll point out I was wrong about Phil in the primary though.  He beat out Jamie Howard in spite of my prediction.  **shrug** – you can’t win them all!