Small towns go begging for mayors

After serving one term as mayor of Massena, Iowa, Mike Cormack is not running for re-election.

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone — he didn't run for the office in the first place.

“I'm not running for the position I didn't run for,” Cormack said with a laugh.

Cormack was elected two years ago through a write-in campaign, after no one in the town of 400 people volunteered to run for mayor.

“It was nice of folks to do that,” said Cormack. “And I tried to do my part for the community.”

But after two years, he doesn't want to do it again.

He tried to give the community ample notice. He sent a letter to the local paper announcing his plans to step down, in hopes that somebody would decide to run.

But once again, Massena is without a mayoral candidate this fall.

It's a problem seen in small towns all over Iowa. From Blanchard, population 60, to Silver City, population 268, finding volunteer mayors has become a trial.

In Nebraska, most small-town mayors are appointed by village boards. But they also feel the pressure of finding volunteer leadership.

“It is a problem getting people to serve and to run,” said Gary Krumland, legal counsel for the Nebraska League of Municipalities.

Last October, no one filed for three open seats on the Village Board in Memphis, Neb. Voters in Elmwood, Neb., had fewer candidates to choose from than open seats.

For Massena Mayor Cormack, it's an issue of time. A teacher, athletic director and Lions Club member, he already has time-consuming community obligations.

Cormack has an edge over many small-town residents — he works where he lives. But most people commute to work in larger communities, eating up much of their time.

“I just don't have time to do what I feel is a good job for the people,” said Mayor Julie Edwards of Cumberland, Iowa. She commutes to work in Atlantic.

Edwards just finished her first term as mayor, but she is not running for re-election. No one is on the mayoral ballot.

She's heard that people might write her in. If that happens, she said, she is likely to accept out of a sense of civic duty.

If a write-in winner refuses the position, it's offered to the person with the second-largest number of write-in votes, said Cass County Auditor Dale Sunderman. If no write-in candidates are willing, the City Council can appoint a mayor to serve until the general election in 2010.

“Nobody really wants to take the hassle,” Sunderman said.

Edwards doesn't mind the “hassle” of the job, but she understands why people aren't interested.

“You take a good deal of complaints from people,” she said. “I think people just don't want to be bothered.”

Krumland has heard from town officials that the complaints have become less civil than they used to be.

“It's a major commitment of time and energy,” Krumland said. “Any more, it seems to be that you don't get a lot of credit for serving, but somebody's going to harshly criticize you for the decisions you make.”

Emmett Dofner, mayor of McClelland, Iowa, population 125, has been elected as a write-in candidate every two years for the last 22 years.

“I keep telling them they need to get somebody younger, somebody with new ideas, but they just keep writing me in,” said Dofner, 65.

Besides presiding over the City Council, making sure the park is mowed and the snow is plowed, Dofner takes telephone calls from citizens, collects fees and rents out the town hall, which his wife cleans.

He plans to retire. His next term as mayor — assuming he wins the write-in vote again — will be his last.

Until then, he's trying to line up a younger resident to take over, someone who truly wants to serve.

“We do these things because we like living here,” said Dofner. “That's the reason I keep hanging on.”

Contact the writer:

444-1310, elizabeth.ahlin@owh.com

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