Big decision, little talk likely at Iowa City mayor meeting

You might think City Council members would have a lot to discuss when picking who among them will be mayor.

You'd be wrong.

It's a safe bet that one of the shortest council meetings in 2010 will be the first one. The council meets at 8:30 a.m. Saturday to select the mayor and mayor pro tem. You could probably start some coffee, go to the meeting, and make it back home in plenty of time for a hot cup.

Click here to see a story about the process and how Matt Hayek is expected to be the next mayor.

Traditionaly, council members don't say much at the meeting except to make a motion to nominate someone for mayor and to record their votes. Check out the transcript from the meeting two years ago when Regenia Bailey was elected mayor:

IC Mayor Transcript

That portion of the meeting lasted just a couple of minutes.

Obviously, council members talk to each other  in advance of this meeting. But council member Mike Wright said people would be surprised how little politicking there is, something other council members echoed.

The idea may be to avoid embarrassing someone interested in being mayor but who doesn't have the support and having council members going into detail, publicly, why they back someone else. 

This sort of process isn't unheard of. Many school boards select the board president, and the Iowa City school board also has very little discussion on the pick. The Johnson County Board of Supervisors selects its own chair, although the board recently has rotated it among members.

They mayor of a city, however, is arguably more visible than the heads of a school board and county supervisors.

Jeff Schott, program director at the University of Iowa's Institute of Public Affairs, said there's often a public perception that a mayor elected by voters has more power than other council members, even if that's not the case. He also compared Iowa City's process with how many school board's select the board president.

“I've never heard anybody raise any concerns or accusations about how that's done,” he said.