Floyd County supervisor-elect Hawbaker turns down the position

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Residents of a third of Floyd County will have to wait a while longer before they find out who their new county supervisor will be.

In last week’s election, Jeff Hawbaker of Floyd was the winner in a three-way race to represent District 3, which includes the northern tier of Floyd County townships plus Rockford township.

But on Thursday, Hawbaker submitted a message to the county auditor’s office declining the position. The note reads:

“To whom it may concern, Due to the current state of our economy, my plans to retire from my day job in 2023 are not an option at this current time. With a limited amount of time available to take off from my employer, I am declining the nomination as a Floyd county supervisor due to the fact that I will not be able to fulfill this position on a fulltime basis. I feel it is unfair to impose additional workload on the other supervisors and also unfair to not be able to represent the taxpayers of Floyd county on a part time schedule.” Signed by Jeff Hawbaker.

Two people could be interested in the position – Jim Lundberg, a Democrat who finished 159 votes behind Republican Hawbaker in the election, and Linda Tjaden, a current supervisor who lives in District 3 and whose current four-year term was cut in half by creating supervisor districts, but who didn’t run for re-election because she said she didn’t want another full four-year term.

Both of them told the Press Thursday they needed more information on the process to replace Hawbaker, and hadn’t yet decided if they were interested in applying.

County Auditor Gloria Carr, who is also commissioner of elections for the county, said this is something she hasn’t experienced in her 18 years on the job, and she was scrambling Thursday to find out exactly what the procedure is now, consulting the Iowa Code and the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office.

According to Iowa Code, she said, if there is a vacancy in the supervisors office, it is up to a county board consisting of the county auditor, the county recorder and the county treasurer to appoint a supervisor to hold office until the next general election. They can pick anyone who lives in the supervisor district and who is eligible to hold the office, and who asks to be considered for the position.

Or that three-person board can call for a special election to elect a supervisor to fill the rest of the term. Even then they would appoint someone to fill the position for a short time before the special election.

And even if they appoint someone, the residents of the district can petition for a special election.

Carr said she would be getting together with County Recorder Amy Assink and County Treasurer Frank Rottinghaus to come up with the public notice that must be published announcing the vacancy and telling interested people what they must do to have their names considered for the position. That meeting will be held today (Friday) at 4:30 p.m. in the courthouse Assembly Room.

Coincidentally, the political makeup of those three positions is as varied as is possible, with Assink a Republican, Rottinghaus a Democratic and Carr consistently running as No Party.

But Rottinghaus didn’t run for re-election. His position was won by Jessie Lynn Holm, who is currently the deputy in the Recorder’s Office, and who ran as a Republican.

The current supervisors’ terms run through Jan. 1, 2023, so the District 3 position won’t become officially vacant until Jan. 2. That means it will be Holm, not Rottinghaus, who will help decide who the next supervisor will be, Carr said.

Even if that board appoints a supervisor, people who live in District 3 can petition for a special election within 14 days of the appointment date. Iowa Code lays out the requirements for the petition – signatures from eligible voters representing at least 10% of the number of people who voted in the last election for president or governor, divided by three since there are three supervisor districts.

Based on the number of votes cast for governor in Floyd County last week, at least 192 valid signatures from District 3 would be required on a petition to call for a special election.

Contacted Thursday, Lundberg, a Democrat, said he was disappointed that Hawbaker had turned down the position.

“After the election I kind of resigned myself to the fact that I didn’t get elected, and I trust the system. I’m not an election denier. I faced the fact that I didn’t win and I was OK with that. I was ready to move on with my life. I contacted Jeff and congratulated him on the win,” he said.

“Up until today – it’s been a little over a week – I’ve resigned myself to the fact that, OK, my life’s moving on and this will not be part of my life. And I was OK with that. Now I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said, adding, “Once I find out more I’ll let you know.”

Linda Tjaden was re-elected to her latest term as a supervisor in 2020, and would have served until 2024, when she said she would retire from the position. But when Floyd County voters decided last year to divide the county into supervisor districts, it meant every district was up for election this year. If Tjaden had chosen to run and had won it would have been for another four-year term, until 2026.

She said if a random draw had chosen District 3 as the district that would only have an initial two-year term, in order that in future elections only part of the supervisor board would be elected at any one time, she would have run for that two-year term in hopes of finishing her tenure when she planned. But the two-year term was drawn for District 1.

Like Lundberg, Tjaden said she was still trying to get more information on the process of replacing Hawbaker before deciding if she’s interested in being considered for the appointment, which would only be until the next general election when the position would be filled by the voters.

Tjaden said Hawbaker had told her before the election he didn’t want to win.

“So then I’m like, ‘Well then why did you run?’” she said. “That was really frustrating to me, because I thought, ‘You’ve already shown what you feel the importance of that position is, and shame on you.’”