At large: Jarrett Mitchell

There are two primary issues that motivate me to run for City Council. I am concerned with both sustainability and discouraging governmental favoritism of corporate interests over local business.

Sustainability through cycling and urban farming is becoming exponentially more popular regardless of the City Council's stance on these issues. Will the City Council be proactive in changing zoning and animal ordinances to allow citizens to legally provide for themselves and the community, or will they continue to obstruct and compartmentalize our lives?

Urban chickens and urban farming are symbiotic. Ordinances in countless other communities have proved that only the most responsible citizens take advantage of the legal right to own chickens. They will be the ones who recognize how important our proximity to our food source is. Sustainability proliferates through tangible experience; let us not make this experience illegal.

Many people have expressed the notion that the City Council is too focused on the development of downtown Iowa City, and I would have to agree. There are other parts of our city with a greater need for economic improvement, and yet the emphasis stays on a zone with a built-in consumer base with disposable income. Business will always take a risk in downtown Iowa City because of the University of Iowa.

When I heard that the City Council was entertaining the idea of giving tax breaks to retailers such as Urban Outfitters or Anthropology, I was shocked.

Why would our city government give preference to corporate interests over local business, when the out-of-town businesses would export their profits as fast as they could import their products from overseas?

If we want to turn our downtown into Coral Ridge Mall South, then we will soon find ourselves with little cultural capital with which to separate ourselves from the homogeneity that envelopes so much of our country.

I feel that it is time for city council to turn its view away from downtown and begin to focus on the community as a whole. We all know that our city is much more than downtown and the priorities of the council should reflect that.

We can ill afford to ignore issues of sustainability. Many other communities in Iowa have raced past us in supporting cycling and urban farming. I believe that it is time that the Iowa City Council live up to the ideals of our community and the ideals that the rest of the state perceives us having.

If you desire a real voice for sustainability, small business and intellectual diversity within our city council, I ask you to cast a vote for me.

Jarrett Mitchell is the owner of Wake Up Iowa City and has more information at www.jarrettmitchell.org. Comments: jarrettmitchell4iowacity@gmail.com