This year, I advocated to our area state legislators not to pass HF 683, a bill regarding emergency response districts and fire departments. I want to make clear that my effort had nothing to do with my position on public safety; instead, it had everything to do with the fundamental civic principle of Local Control of Local Government.
The language in HF 683 would have made a law stating that:
“A city in which an institution of higher education governed by the state board of regents is located shall establish, house, equip, staff, uniform, and maintain a full-time, professional fire department that is separate from the city’s police department.”
Yes, I want to see police and fire separated, and the PS-22 Plan does this. But this is a decision to be made by your local elected representatives -- the seven Cedar Falls residents who serve on the City Council. It is NOT a decision to be dictated to us by the State.
The people of Iowa enshrined the principle of local control in the Iowa Constitution through the 1968 Home Rule Amendment. It reads:
Sec. 38A. Municipal home rule. Municipal corporations are granted home rule power and authority, not inconsistent with the laws of the general assembly, to determine their local affairs and government, except that they shall not have power to levy any tax unless expressly authorized by the general assembly. (Iowa Constitution)
Let’s use a hypothetical here. If the state legislature decided to require cities with a state university to install roundabouts for safety, would you be for or against it? Would your opinion be based on the merits of roundabouts? Or would your opinion be based on whether or not the state had a compelling interest in dictating how the city designs its intersection? For me, the principle is clear: I will always come down on the side of local government deciding its own local issues. Every time.
Do you want to see a change in the direction of city government? Then the right answer is to vote for city candidates who share your views. The wrong answer is to give away local control by seeking state or federal intervention on a clearly local matter. The irony is that this proposed law would have meant that people of Cedar Falls would no longer be ‘in charge’. Legislators from elsewhere in Iowa, who you do not vote for, would be in charge.
Fortunately, the State Senate rightly determined not to pass the bill, and I look forward to instead working with our own locally accountable City Council in this next term to separate police and fire.
Please resist all efforts to turn local government control over to Des Moines or Washington, D.C. We, as the people of Cedar Falls, must preserve the right to determine our own local affairs -- and as mayor, I’ll continue to advocate for local control of local government on your behalf.
Thanks, as always, for reading to the end and for doing the work to be an informed and engaged resident.