Building a More Representative City Cindy Kendall, Extension

1. #IowaLeague18 Building a More Representative City Cindy Kendall, Extension Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Office of State and Local Government Programs ckendall@iastate.edu 515-290-1811 Handouts and presentations are available through the event app and at www.iowaleague.org.

4. Representative Democracy • Glad to live in Iowa! • Challenges to building consensus • What is best for the community Versus personal desires Decisions must still fit within federal and state laws

5. Representative City • Who is active in your community? Do they represent the community or is it “the same o’ group of volunteers”? • Some times you have to go long – to look at the big picture. • What is the makeup of our community? • Comprehensive Plan • Capital Improvement Plans and Policies • Demographic and financial information: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/igfi/

6. Representative City • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the agency responsible for enforcing federal laws regarding discrimination or harassment against a job applicant or an employee in the United States. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

7. So how do we build a more representative community? • Do you have enough that volunteer? Why is that? • Are they asked to serve? How? • Who do you ask? Article in Cityscape

8. Count off Exercise

9. Are elected officials reflective of their constituents? Gender Education Socio-Economic traits Iowa League of Cities data

10. Iowa Code 69.16A Requires Gender balance • Public Boards • Commissions • Council established • What about odd numbered boards or commissions?

11. So how do we stack up? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

12. So how does our city stack up? What resources do you have to draw upon?

13. So how well do cities in Iowa comply/stack up to Iowa Code 69.16A for Gender balance ? • Kelly Winfrey, Coordinator of Research and Outreach, Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics conducted study nine boards and commissions. 152 cities participated, including county seats and communities with populations over 1,000 https://cattcenter.iastate.edu/research/gender-balance-project/

15. *County Seats

16. So how do cities in Iowa stack up? • Another project in the works • You may have gotten or may get a survey, it’s ok to respond. You will see that it is from me at iastate.edu • What are we going to do with the information? • See how inclusive our election process is • See if a correlation be made between Gender Balanced Board and Commission legislation and the development of leadership within our communities?

17. Web site Contact Information • HF550 – Contact Information for Elected Officials • Requires the publication on the Internet of contact information for elected public officials. Specifically, requires the governmental entity that the public official serves to designate contact information for the public official that will be posted on the governmental entity’s Web site if the entity has one. • A city that does not already have a Web site does not need to create one to post the contact information. Information may be either a phone number or e-mail address. • Amends Section 70A.40.

18. So how do we stack up? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

19. Questions? • Who owns the web site? • Who maintains the web site? • What other representatives are needed in your community? • What other techniques can a city use to increase representation? • Other ideas? Cindy Kendall, Program Coordinator Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Office of State and Local Government Programs ckendall@iastate.edu 515-290-1811