Gazette Daily News Briefing, October 30
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for October 30, 2023.
It will be sunny Monday with a high near 39 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area, according to the National Weather Service. On Monday evening there will be increasing cloud cover, with a low of around 27 degrees. The wind will pick up Monday evening to 25 mph, portending a cold and possibly snowy Tuesday morning.
As Nov. 7 elections approach, many Iowa cities will have more open spots on the ballot than candidates to fill them.
Recent local election cycles in Iowa seem to have seen an uptick in open council seats on the ballot, said Mickey Shields, director of membership services for the Iowa League of Cities. He said the main drivers of fewer people stepping up to run for local office seem to be a mix: Longtime council members are looking to fully retire, political polarization is fueling heightened negativity toward city officeholders, and population loss is creating a smaller base of potential candidates.
More recently, Shields said League members have shared there’s more negativity circulating public service that goes beyond the scrutiny that working as a public official entails, worsened by social media or a disputed set of facts on a community issue.
“I always go back to talk to folks, especially people who stopped being a council member, it's kind of like, ‘Why volunteer to get yelled at?’” Shields said.
In the Corridor, publicly available candidate listings with the county auditors’ offices show there are five city councils in Linn County and three in Johnson County without enough candidates running to fill open seats, despite being Iowa’s second and fourth most populous counties, respectively.
Some Iowa communities don’t have anyone filed to run for office. Clayton County, for example, shows at least three communities — Elkport, Osterdock and Saint Olaf — have entirely blank ballots, and several more don’t have enough candidates.
Cedar Rapids students are showing a return to pre-pandemic learning levels on the Iowa School Report Card, with three schools categorized as “high performing” — the second highest rating schools can achieve.
Historically underserved groups of students also are also showing improvement, with Black students, students learning English as a second language and students with Individualized Education Plans (special education) increasing by 5 or more percentage points in math proficiency and 2 percentage points in English and language arts.
Students in Cedar Rapids schools’ learning English as a second language also outperformed their peers in the state by 8 percentage points.
Among many other improvements, the district’s four-year graduation rate rose to 80.3 percent.
This is a “significant milestone,” and the district has made “remarkable progress” on the report card, according to a news release from the district. Elementary and middle schools’ math proficiency rates have returned to pre-pandemic levels, with English language arts only a few percentage points away.
Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls despite staking everything on winning in Iowa..
According to reporting from the Associated Press, Pence becomes the first major candidate to leave a race that has been dominated by his former boss-turned-rival, Donald Trump.
The report also notes that the decision will save Pence from the embarrassment of failing to qualify for the third Republican primary debate, on Nov. 8 in Miami. A debate that Trump, once again, is planning to skip in favor of holding his own event nearby.
