Tiffany O’Donnell will bring new leadership in Cedar Rapids

At long last, the Cedar Rapids mayoral election is over.

Tiffany O’Donnell won decisively over Amara Andrews in Tuesday’s runoff election. O’Donnell is poised to set a positive strategic vision for Cedar Rapids, something outgoing Mayor Brad Hart never managed to do.

O’Donnell set some big and laudable goals during the campaign — accelerating flood protection, growing the local workforce and promoting development downtown.

The Gazette editorial board endorsed O’Donnell in the initial Nov. 2 election. We said O’Donnell is “someone who can bring competing factions together, both among the public and in the halls of government.” After a contentious election season, that’s more important than ever.

The big narrative from the 2021 Cedar Rapids election was red team versus blue team. Andrews openly ran as a Democrat and attempted to pigeonhole O’Donnell as a Republican in the nonpartisan race.

Andrews relied on out-of-state donations from fellow Democrats and ran a negative campaign against O’Donnell, making a concerted effort to portray her as a Trump loyalist. It was a divisive strategy that distracted from the local issues facing Cedar Rapidians and ultimately backfired.

O’Donnell is indeed a registered Republican but she did not court partisan support or position herself on one side the way Andrews did. She sometimes responded to Andrews’ criticisms but did not fixate on her opponent in news releases and ads. O'Donnell didn’t team up with the local party central committee to run a legally questionable mailing operation, as Andrews did. O’Donnell deserves credit for running a positive campaign.

Still, we couldn’t help but notice that O’Donnell’s campaign paid thousands to consulting firms associated with Republican politics. She ran on representing the “Party of Cedar Rapids,” so she ought to be wary of cozying up to partisan operatives.

O’Donnell set some big and laudable goals during the campaign — accelerating flood protection, growing the local workforce and promoting development downtown.

Some of Cedar Rapids’ best opportunities rely on buy-in from other levels of government. The city needs a strong advocate when it comes to divvying up federal money, like from the recently approved infrastructure package. O’Donnell also set her sights on landing a downtown casino, though there will be an uphill climb to earn state regulators’ approval.

There are other priorities that O’Donnell seemed to passively favor but didn’t champion as a candidate, such as the city’s climate action plan and the newly instated police review board. Those projects deserve stronger support from Cedar Rapids’ incoming mayor.

O’Donnell is not the one who tried to make the race about partisanship but it falls on her to show she can move Cedar Rapids forward in a nonpartisan manner.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com