As of Tuesday, 11 candidates had filed for the eight positions on the new Iola City Council and one candidate for mayor. The council will be made up of two councilmen or women from each of the city’s four wards and a mayor who only votes to break a tie, who will be elected citywide.
Also on Tuesday, only one candidate had filed for Ward 3’s two seats. The other wards had two or more candidates for each of their two seats.
The deadline for filing is noon Jan. 26.
This isn’t so much a call for volunteers to run as it is a plea to those eager to see Iola prosper to form a committee, decide who would do a super job for the community and persuade them to run. For the truth is that those who would do the best job are busy people who aren’t looking for another assignment. They are, in other words, not likely to volunteer. They need to be asked, to be assured they would have support and told that their service would be appreciated.
This observation is not a criticism of those who have filed because they want to serve.
Many of them may have been encouraged by friends and neighbors or have personal reasons, such as having friends or relatives with personal connections to the city, for filing. It is, rather, a rather obvious comment on the way things work in any community, large or small.
Those likely to be the best members of our city’s new council fit this profile: they are energetic, they are successful in their fields and are working full time now, they have strong experience in a business or a profession, they are accustomed to working long hours and accomplishing much, they have a record of working well with other people and being accepted as a leader among their peers, they really like living here.
You know one or more of those natural leaders. Call together a couple of friends who know them, too, and go together to ask them to give some of their time and their talents to Iola to make the community a better place to live. Tomorrow would be a good time to do it. Unless tonight seems better.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
