DONNELLSON – A last-minute forum sponsored by Lee County Farm Bureau shed a little more light into the candidacies of two seeking to replace Martin Graber as the 100th District House representative.
The Lee County Republicans nominated 23-year-old Blaine Watkins for the seat, while Lee County Democrats put forth 2024 state senate candidate Nannette Griffin.
Griffin lost to incumbent Jeff Reichman in the general election.
Griffin is owner of Griffin Muffler and Brake Center in Fort Madison. Watkins grew up in Donnellson and went to Central Lee High School. He has been a page and legislative aid for Joe Mitchell and Reichman for the past five years and is running for the first time.
Griffin focused much of her time in the hour-long forum in front of slightly more than 100 people at the Pilot Grove Savings Bank Community Room in Donnellson, on the underfunding of public education in Iowa.
She said if the state continues to underfund public education, it’s eventually going to hit property taxpayers. She pointed to Keokuk, who next year, could be eligible for a budget guarantee by the state. That happens when enrollment drops, and due to state funding per student formulas, the district is facing less revenue in the coming year than the previous year. When the state certifies a district is eligible for a budget guarantee, it allows the district to levy to make up the lost funds.
“Without that right now, it’s a possibility that Keokuk school district will be put on a budget guarantee and the school board will have the option of increasing your property taxes and we all don’t want that,” Griffin said. “Let’s fund the schools property so we don’t have to pay higher taxes.”
She also addressed voucher programs saying she didn’t disagree with vouchers because she went to both private and public schools growing up in an adopted family. Griffin said the private schools that are now getting public funds should be required to accept all students and be transparent with school system activities.
“If they’re going to do vouchers, just make it a level playing field, accept everybody and be transparent in how they’re going to use our money,” she said.
Watkins said one of the three issues facing the district is an enhancement of school choice, saying choice improves the education systems as a whole.
“Absolutely, it does. I’ve talked to the education chair in the senate, and he talked about the benefits of having it. Empowering parents does not weaken our schools,” Watkins said.
“Parents deserve a say in what their children are taught. I’ve experienced that sometimes in college and high school where someone has an opinion that doesn’t need shared. It’s not a good thing. Schools should be unbiased and should be for the kids and, if parents feel their kids aren’t getting the education they deserve, they should be able to make a change. That’s what breeds excellence. Competition breeds excellence.”
He said there are a couple other issues facing Lee County, including making it affordable to move into or back to the county and advocating properly for farmers and the public in general with solar and wind projects on the horizon.
“We have to make change to drive some of these inflationary prices down through spending cuts and making sure what we’re spending our money on is a major priority,” Watkins said.
“I’ve also heard we have a situation here with the school systems wanting to expand and bring people into the community. We have to make sure we can advertise southeast Iowa properly and being able to give people the ability to choose the school they want.”
He said he wans to make sure proper guidelines are in place to protect communities and farmers when people lobby the area.
The two were questioned about infringement on private property, specifically eminent domain.
“Right now we don’t have enough guarantees for that not to happen. We do need to have laws against eminent domain for private companies making a profit. We need to work on that code so we have more protection for the landowner,” Griffin said.
Watkins said he couldn’t speak directly to the code, but he said perceptions are that people have been upset and felt like they are being taken advantage of.
“We want to make sure that anybody that has farm ground can get up and say, ‘I want to do this’, or ‘I don’t want to do this’,” Watkins said. “The last thing we need is a top down telling us what to do and make you put this on your property. A lot of the problem is people saying we’re going to invest in your county, but the farmer’s going to pay the tax or lose part of their ground. We could make it a little stronger.”
Griffin said home rule should dictate most of the regulations regarding setbacks for utility infrastructure.
“I believe in home rule. We elect our local supervisors and local politicians to take care of us. We put our trust in them and it’s not one size fits all. Lee County has different needs than Polk County so we should trust the people we’ve elected to make the best decisions for us,” Griffin said.
Watkins said the state has a “massive” role to play.
“We don’t want to see projects go through that people don’t like. At the end of the day, the state will have a say on it and there’s gonna people in Polk County and people in Lee County that will have different opinions and they will all come to the forefront,” he said.
Watkins then turned to inflation and said the state needs to get rid of things people aren’t using or not utilized the way they were intended. He said he’s hearing concern about getting rid of essential services.
“That’s not going to happen. We’re not going to get rid of essential services. But we want to make sure we're looking at everything to make sure it’s being done properly and, if not, get some relief to taxpayers,” he said.
Griffin said reducing property taxes will have an impact on essential services. She said supervisors are facing those issues and no one wants to pay more than they need to. She said the money has to come from someplace like franchise fees, which were just rejected by Burlington voters.
“That would’ve been more of a fair taxing on utilities to everyone that uses that than just putting the burden on homeowners. But Lee County knows what Lee County needs and that’s what we should be working on.”
She said the state’s budget surplus could be because we aren’t funding what we should be, but said she would have to investigate the causes of the surplus more.
Watkins said that fund isn’t a rainy day fund. He said the state had a downturn during the pandemic and now is looked to as a state that handled it the right way. He said the state needs that cushion and the state is ranked high in being able to take care of another downturn.
“I think the way we’re managing it is very good,” he said.
The special election takes place Tuesday with voting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at voting centers across the county. You can find those centers on the Lee County website at www.leecountyiowa.gov.
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