Prichard, Wilhelm fight tirelessly for our schools

By Jason Walker, Charles City

Unfortunately this year our local state level political races have developed a very negative tone as a couple of our local incumbent officials, Rep. Todd Prichard and Sen. Mary Jo Wilhelm, have been mercilessly attacked by their opponents.

Daily, my mailbox is filled with propaganda claiming Rep. Prichard and Sen. Wilhelm have done a great disservice to their constituents.

This week a mailer I received (paid for by the Republican Party of Iowa) attacked Rep. Prichard for his vote on a particular piece of legislation.

Of course his opponent cherry-picked a small piece of a much larger piece of legislation and spun it as though Rep. Prichard is no friend to our local school districts.

Several television ads depicting Sen. Wilhelm’s opponent Waylon Brown have also questioned her commitment to our students. As I watched Mr. Brown’s commercial, it showed him in a school hallway with kids crowded around as though he was listening to what they had to say. As I watched several other Republican commercials, I noticed each candidate was shown in the same hallway and with the same kids. The truth is all the Republican candidates went to Des Moines to shoot the commercial. Couldn’t Mr. Brown at least have found some students in his own district to pretend to listen to?

As an elected School Board member for the Charles City CSD and having made several trips to the state Capitol to lobby in support of our school district, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Republican Party of Iowa is no friend of education in this state. Routinely the Republicans have chosen to give property and sales tax breaks to large corporate businesses instead of increasing funding to Iowa’s school districts. Locally this has lead to significant cuts to our school district’s budget causing a number of teaching positions to be eliminated, coaching positions eliminated, pool closing, etc.

Rep. Prichard and Sen. Wilhelm have fought tirelessly on behalf of our community and our school district. They have welcomed and hosted the Charles City School Board at the Capitol and made sure that our message was distributed to all legislators. They annually attend a board meeting to hear about the issues we face and how they can help. They have also shown unwavering support for raising school spending 4 to 6 percent when the Republicans are pushing for a zero to 2 percent increase. Finally they have worked to protect our public schools from being crippled by several Republican ideologies.

Send a message to their opponents that their Washington style attack ads are not welcome in North Iowa. Tell them that strong public education, which has been remarkably absent from the presidential race debates, is critical to rural Iowa remaining a vibrant and wonderful place to raise a family. Show them that you support candidates with a proven track record of making education a top priority by joining me in voting to re-elect Rep. Todd Prichard and Sen. Mary Jo Wilhelm.

Jason Walker is a resident of Charles City and member of the Charles City School Board.