Marquette council fills vacancies, some call for special election

MARQUETTE - Marquette's City Council has appointed a new mayor and council member to fill vacancies following resignations last month, but residents say they have already collected the signatures needed to force a public vote on those terms.

On Tuesday, Marquette's council appointed Larry Breuer the city's new mayor and Steve Eagle was selected to fill a vacant council seat. Those vacancies were created last month when former Mayor Dave Schneider and council member Rinda Ferguson resigned following disagreement on the five-member council over a zoning violation.

Tracy Melver, former chair of the city's Board of Adjustment who also resigned last month, said 'within hours” of Tuesday's appointments, a petition circulated and had collected the 20 signatures needed - 15 percent of the number voters in the last election - to force a special election to fill those two seats.

Ferguson, who served six years on the council before resigning, said she felt the public should vote on those terms, which don't expire until the close of 2017.

'My thoughts on the process is there are two years left on both seats and I feel the community should have a say,” she said.

But that's not the only petition circulating in the small town tucked in Northeast Iowa along the Mississippi River.

Ferguson and Melver, a former two term member of the council, said a second document has begun to circulate - a petition of no confidence in sitting council members Cindy Halvorson, Pam Brodie-Fitzgerald and Eleanor Soulli that calls for their immediate resignation.

Both petitions and last month's resignations - which stem back to the council's decision to follow a court order to not pursue enforcement of a city zoning violation - have created a rift of sorts in the Clayton County town of less than 500 people.

'(The council) chose to ignore our ordinances and because of that we have a little town that's not happy,” Melver said. 'We wouldn't be where we're at if this present council, namely those three people, would have upheld the zoning ordinance in this town.”

Last month the council voted not to enforce a zoning violation in which an occupied mobile home was located in a new subdivision where zoning doesn't allow mobile home use.

However, Halvorson said the council's January decision - a 3-1 vote with Ferguson opposed and council member John Ries absent - followed a court order to not pursue enforcement on the violation.

Halvorson added the individual living in the mobile home is only doing so during the construction of a permanent residence, which should be completed by this fall.

'We know there's been a lot of controversy ... it's frustrating because we're doing what we feel is best for the town,” Halvorson said. 'We strictly did what the court told us to do.”

Ferguson argued the appropriate action would have been to pursue an appeal of the court ruling and not doing so sets a precedence for future issues.

'I just don't feel that in our community you can pick and choose who you apply the zoning to,” she said. 'They just don't seem to want to address their unwillingness to support the code of Marquette.”

To add to Marquette's turmoil, Marquette City Manager Dean Hilgerson will effectively resign April 9 and City Attorney James Garrett's resignation takes effect April 1. Both resignations were announced before the zoning vote and subsequent council resignations.