The precedent-setting recall of Iola councilmen Ken Rowe and Kendall Callahan was not connected to the strong conservative vote that toppled more moderate Republicans across the state. In my opinion, they reflected a rejection of the manner in which city administrator Judy Brigham was dismissed within days of her retirement after long years of service to the city, coupled with what appeared to be an effort to do city business outside called meetings of the council.
And because the recalls were purely local in nature and not partisan they give the council an opportunity to shrink itself to five.
The past few months show that too many cooks do, indeed, spoil the broth. Iola’s council meetings have been more contentious and less productive than were the commission meetings of the past, when decisions were made by the two commissioners and the mayor and moved the city quietly forward.
That decades-old pattern was abandoned in favor of an eight-person council and a mayor with the goal of broadening the representation on the governing body. While that objective may have been achieved, it was at the expense of increasing the opportunity for disagreements to surface and create barriers to action.
Iola was wise to see that a three-person commission had flaws: a strong commissioner could dominate the other two; an absence of one because of business or illness turned the city over to the other two and action was stymied if they disagreed.
Three was not enough; eight, we now can see, is too many. So let’s try five.
Five councilmen, all elected at large so that every voter had a voice in picking every member of the governing body, would be enough so that the absence of one at a meeting wouldn’t be critical and would also make it far less likely that any one member would dominate.
Iola may never have a better opportunity to tailor its city government to a better fit.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
