Challenger Banowetz mixes it up in Linn County supervisor race

CEDAR RAPIDS - Mark Banowetz says he is not running against incumbent Linn County Supervisor John Harris in the Republican primary on June 3. Instead, he's running for the District 5 supervisor seat because he thinks he can do a good job, he says.

Nonetheless, Banowetz on Friday stepped out and drew a clear distinction between himself and Harris, saying he disagreed with Harris and others on the Board of Supervisors and their decision to give county employees paid-time off work in June to attend a diversity training session on Islam at the historic Mother Mosque of America in Cedar Rapids.

Banowetz also said he didn't like that the county's diversity training initiative sponsored an earlier program on India and Hinduism.

A Christian, Banowetz said he did not agree with those concerned that there should be a separation of church and state.

Instead, he feared that county would not offer training sessions about Christianity even as it is with Islam and India and Hinduism.

He said he wondered if Harris and other supervisors would be willing to erect a Nativity scene during the Christmas season and invite county employees to take paid time off to view it and listen to a lecture on Christianity.

'If we're going to do that with these different religions, we should go ahead and offer (lessons) on Christianity as well,” Banowetz said. 'But we get someone complaining (about Christianity), and we roll over and play dead on it right away.”

He pointed the complaint in recent weeks that prompted the Cedar Rapids Fire Department to remove a Christian image and Biblical verse from the bucket of the department's 100-foot ladder truck.

Banowetz, a former Ely City Council member who owns a coffee shop and bakery and a shed-building company in Ely, said he also objects to the county paying county employees via paid time off to attend a lecture on Islam.

'Does that mean that the county should pay for anybody in the whole county to take time off if they want to go hear about Islam?” he said. 'Maybe we could give them a rebate on their taxes.

'I guess I'd have trouble coming up to you (as a taxpayer) and saying we need 25 bucks from you because we want to send this guy to hear about Islam or Hinduism,” Banowetz said.

He noted that Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden earlier this week questioned the county training session, too.

Vander Sanden, though, pointed to the First Amendment requirements on separation of church and state when he questioned the county's decision to invite county employees to receive paid time off to attend the lecture titled 'Intro to Islam, including information about Ramadan, and Muslim History in Iowa.”

'… I can't state unequivocally that this is outside the bounds of the First Amendment,” Vander Sanden said. 'But it certainly is in that murky area. And I believe that the average person might look at this and consider it to be an improper use of taxpayer money.”

Supervisor Harris on Friday dismissed opponent Banowetz's concerns, saying the county's training initiative was about understanding diversity and diverse cultures, not about religion.

'Some are confusing our providing of diversity opportunities as a study of religion,” Harris said. 'It is not. We are offering an opportunity to understand the diverse cultures which up our population.”

Harris said Linn County has a multitude of cultures, including Latin American and Czech to name two, for which the county will offer diversity training sessions.

'I do not expect there to be as big an outcry when we offer this training as we have had with our opportunity to understand Islamic culture,” he said.

Supervisor Ben Rogers on Friday agreed with Harris, saying Banowetz was 'confusing a diversity opportunity with a study and promotion of a religion.”

Rogers said Banowetz's suggestion that the county build a Nativity scene at Christmas would have First Amendment problems related to separation of church and state.

Rogers also said Linn County employees receive paid time off for Christmas and Christmas Eve.

'County government is not closed for any other religious holidays for any other religious group,” he said.

Earlier this week, Rogers said County Attorney Vander Sanden's concerns were more about the 'optics” of the June sessions on Islam and Muslim history, and Rogers said the one-hour session on June 3 and a repeat, one-hour session on June 4 would go on.