Hinson visits Charles City for first time as its U.S. House representative

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

U.S. Rep Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa District 2) visited Charles City for the first time as the new congressional district’s representative for a meeting with economic development stakeholders on Wednesday, Jan. 18.

As the new congressional session begins, Hinson will be a member of the appropriations committee, though she has not yet received her subcommittee assignments.

While partisan bills will find difficulty gaining traction in the divided Congress, Hinson says there are areas of overlap between her and her Democratic counterparts, such as standing up to China and reducing the national debt.

“There are clearly issues where we can find consensus,” said Hinson. “I’ve developed good relationships on both sides of the aisle.”

Meeting with a number of community and business leaders in the Public Library’s Zastrow Room, Hinson heard about the most pressing issues affecting Charles City.

First and foremost were the city’s housing shortage and the challenges of finding developers and building new infrastructure.

“With the cost of construction, people can’t afford to build a house and sell it,” said Mayor Dean Andrews. “People can’t afford to buy that house because it costs too much to build it.”

“We’d like to add a few hundred jobs and we’d prefer not to bus people from Waterloo and Mason City,” said Pure Prairie Farms CEO Brian Roelofs. “We’d like to have them here.”

With a shortage housing at every level, the city has all but exhausted its ability to incentivize development or subsidize utility infrastructure at a level that meets the demand, leaders said.

As far as federal solutions for housing go, expansion or more flexibility on USDA tax credits was suggested, though Hinson said that idea could receive pushback in Washington.

“In perfect transparency, new tax credit programs this year might be a tough sell,” said Hinson. “People are very concerned about spending and tax credits are spending.”

Child care was another major topic of discussion, with Lisa Garden, president of TLC: The Learning Center’ board of directors, explaining the need for reliable child care in the community and the difficulty finding enough staff to support it.

Garden detailed the move into their new location at the former middle school building, increasing their potential capacity to 175 kids. But while that has enabled them to reduce some costs, they still struggle to maintain staff at the wages they can offer.

“We can’t fill that 175 until we fill more staffing positions,” said Garden.

Hinson suggested that regulatory reduction could ease some of the financial burden and advocated for a regulatory review to separate which rules have legitimate purpose and which ones are over cumbersome and she said she has been working on legislation to that end.

“What are the things that are actually designed for safety vs. what are the things that just sound good,” said Hanson. “I think we should be looking at it from the regulatory side.”

Outside of addressing local concerns, Hinson will also be part of crafting the upcoming Farm Bill, with a special focus on ensuring the continuation of crop insurance, particularly in the wake of extreme weather events such as the 2020 derecho.

“Ensuring that our food supply is stable long term is of critical national security importance,” said Hinson.

The farm bill will also be key for other matters, such as conservation programs and food assistance, both of which Hinson supports.

“That’s an issue I personally care about,” said Hinson. “Making sure that those programs are there for people who need them is also important.”

Hinson served her first term in Congress representing Iowa’s District 1, the northeast corner of the state. She was re-elected in November to serve a second term, this time representing Iowa District 2 after districts were redrawn following the 2020 U.S. Census.

District 2 is still the northeast corner of the state, but has been enlarged westward to now include Floyd, Chickasaw, Cerro Gordo and Butler counties, which previously were part of the large northwest District 4.