Reader says Mohrfeld's public service needs scrutiny

Editor:
Matt Mohrfeld signed the Fort Madison marina lease as both mayor and president of Southeast Iowa Aquatic Restoration Group, the nonprofit holding the 25-year, $1-a-year lease on the city-owned marina. His nephew Michael Mohrfeld sits on that nonprofit’s board and, with Wade Knoke, operates the hospitality center on the site. Michael’s company, Green Oak Development, was the general contractor on the building. Whether that arrangement violated Iowa Code 362.5 is a question for the professionals — the city’s attorney reviewed the leases and found no prohibited conflict, and the council approved them in open session. But the city attorney is hired by the city council, the same body that approved the lease, so that review came from inside the institution with every incentive to find no conflict. A mayor signing both sides of a lease, with his nephew on the nonprofit’s board and his nephew’s company as the contractor, creates an appearance of conflict that was never independently tested. Mohrfeld is now a candidate for Iowa House District 100. Voters deserve to know how he handled public money and public trust when he was mayor. The structural facts are on the public record. The appearance of conflict is my reading of them — and that’s the part worth asking about.