Big day for Linn candidate Podzimek, win or lose

CEDAR RAPIDS - Today is a big day for Tom Podzimek whether he wins the District 1 race for Linn County supervisor or not.

Podzimek and his partner of 10 years, Connie Lehman, are getting married at 5:30 p.m. today in the shop of Podzimek's Benchmark Construction Services Co., 907 17th St. NE.

'We always wanted to remember it as a great day,” Podzimek said of the idea to wed hours before he learns if he won the District 1 supervisor race.

It didn't take a wedding on Election Day to make Podzimek unique in the Linn supervisor race.

The former two-term Cedar Rapids City Council member is running as an independent in a partisan county race in which independents don't usually run, let alone factor, in the race.

Supervisor District 1 includes nearly all of northwest Cedar Rapids and parts of northeast and southeast Cedar Rapids. In this district, 40.7 percent of registered voters are Democrats, 22.4 are Republicans and 36.5 percent are independents.

'If we win, it's going to be a miracle like that other carpenter with the loaves and fishes,” Podzimek said. 'So I'm not particularly optimistic, but I'm not throwing in the towel either.”

He said his decision to enter the race at a late hour hasn't helped his chances of victory.

One noteworthy issue in Linn County government this year is whether or not the five-member Board of Supervisors, which grew from three members in 2009, should have remained 80-percent time or if they should have gone full-time with full-time pay in 2013.

Alone among the candidates in the District 1 and District 5 supervisor races on today's ballot, Podzimek said Linn County should move to part-time supervisors with a full-time professional county manager just like the city of Cedar Rapids did in 2005.

Podzimek was a part of Cedar Rapids' first part-time council when voters put it in place in 2006.