Brett Mason announces run for Linn County supervisor seat

CEdAR RAPIDS — Former Linn County GOP Chair Brett Mason is running for Linn County Supervisor.

Mason, 63, is an entrepreneur and computer consultant and 17-year Linn County resident.

“The county is in need of leadership,” Mason said. “My interest is helping residents understand what they’re buying and what they’ve gotten from it and we have to be careful going forward as we may be heading into a recession.”

Mason served a term as a Linn County GOP co-chair in 2015 and 2016.

“We got the organization to donate $1,500 to every single GOP candidate, which means we did good fundraising,” Mason said. “I helped organize and got more people involved in the party.”

Mason is a Cedar Rapids resident with his wife, Debbie. The couple raised seven sons. He is originally from California but has spent time living in the Philippines as well.

Mason is running for District 2 as a Republican, which is home to northern Cedar Rapids and Hiawatha.

The district no longer has Robins and Monroe, which are now in District 3 after the maps were tweaked earlier this year. The seat is currently held by Democrat Ben Rogers, who announced in March he will seek a fifth term.

Mason said he’s running in part to be another voice to understand rural issues even though the rural areas of the county will be mostly divided between Districts 1 and 3 with the new map. He said he’s also running to make people aware about county government.

“I’ve been to Coggon and Ely. I’ve talked to farmers. They’re not in my district, but their voice matters,” Mason said. “I need to listen to my future constituents in the district, but also be there for every resident… I know people from Wellington Heights to Hiawatha to the farms that don’t know how county government works or what they do.”

Mason said he views the position as a part-time job that should be business-management focused. He said he wants to bring down spending as well while improve roads and build on the county’s mental health initiatives.

He also in favor of having five supervisors on the board.

“We need five. I was for five when it switched to three and I’m for five now,” he said. “It’s huge. If there’s five of us, we can talk … If there are big decisions being made with a lot of money, it ought to take at least three people to be convinced to do something.”

He added that if there were five supervisors, the salaries should decrease. County supervisors will make $124,967 in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

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