Robins mayor not seeking re-election; will run for Linn supervisor seat

Two-term Mayor Ian Cullis is not seeking re-election.

Instead, he's focusing on a run in 2014 for Linn County supervisor.

"You can't help notice that," Cullis, 65, said on Tuesday of the ongoing discord between the five-member Board of Supervisors and Auditor Joel Miller.

Cullis didn't take sides in the dispute.

Cullis defeated then-Robins Mayor Miller in November 2007 when Miller successfully ran for the full-time county auditor's job while seeking re-election to the part-time Robins mayoral post.

"I like Joel," Cullis said. "I go see him and talk to him."

At the same time, Cullis said his own past business training taught him that an auditor's central role should be to improve processes, identify duplication and create better relations among departments. Miller has tended to tell the supervisors and others what they are doing wrong, and that has built resentment, Cullis said.

"I'll get along with him," Cullis said. "I don't intend to go in there and butt heads with Joel Miller. I think my purpose would be to improve the processes and, when I show up for meetings, understand the agenda and promote the best interests of the county."

The five Linn supervisors run in supervisor districts, and Cullis lives in Supervisor John Harris' district.

"I consider him the best supervisor," Cullis said of Harris, and as a result, Cullis said he will move into a Cedar Rapids apartment to run against supervisor Lu Barron instead of Harris. Both Cullis and Barron are Democrats while Harris, a former mayor of Palo, is a Republican.

Cullis said he recently visited with Harris, who has had health problems, to ask about his health and to see if Harris intended to seek re-election in 2014. Harris said he did intend to run again.

Cullis has crossed paths with some members of the Board of Supervisors, in part, because he and some of them sit on the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).

He does not think the supervisor representatives on the MPO, including Barron, have supported the county's transportation needs very well, he said.

At Robins City Hall, Cullis said he will have accomplished most of what he wanted to do when his six-year term ends at the end of the year.

Robins council member Chuck Hinz is running unopposed for the mayor's position. Two other Robins council races are on the Nov. 5 ballot, and incumbents Donald Norton II and Brad Sevcik are running unopposed.