Column: Appointed or annointed? There should be no doubt

There's no question in my mind that recently appointed Johnson County supervisor Janelle Rettig is qualified for the job.

She's worked on city, county and state boards and commissions, for a state representative and U.S. Congressman. She has been an effective advocate for issues she believes in. She gets work done.

Even if there was some objective way to weed out the single-best person to fill late Supervisor Larry Meyers' sadly vacant seat, Rettig easily could be that person. That's true even considering the heavy-hitters who also tossed their hats into the ring, including Iowa City Council member Mike O-Donnell, past supervisor Mike Lehman and others.

So the cloud over Rettig's appointment isn't because she's not the right woman for the job - it's because of how she got it.

County Auditor Tom Slockett, Recorder Kim Painter and Treasurer Tom Kriz used their legal right to appoint a supervisor rather than hold a special election. But in taking it, they set themselves up for cries of scheme, scam and shame.

Sixteen people submitted applications to fill Meyers' vacant seat. After interviewing eight, Slockett and Painter chose Rettig, who had already started campaigning for the 2010 supervisors race.

Slockett and Painter should have known and cared that their earlier public support for Rettig's candidacy would give opponents the ammunition to say she was anointed, not appointed. That handily rhyming battle cry has helped force the election anyway.

Even in the smoke-filled room of political appointments, it looks unusually cozy when the two who chose Rettig actually had already chosen her months before. Critics were right to wonder if other would-be supervisors really got a fair shake.

Well, now they will. Petitioners delivered signatures to the auditor's office late Friday. Auditor's staff planned to verify them the same day. An election could be held in December.

Let's hope that the ground hasn't tilted too far the other way, tainting Rettig's candidacy with the stink of insider politics.

When Rettig announced she was running for supervisor, she said she wanted to promote good, accountable government, community diversity and environmental responsibility.

“I think that it's time for me to move to a position of working on the issues from the inside,” she told a Gazette reporter way back in June.

I don't think this is exactly what she had in mind.

Jennifer Hemmingsen's column appears on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Contact the writer at (319) 339-3154 or jennifer.hemmingsen@gazcomm.com