Victoria Szopinski has spent most of her adult life

as a part of Ames. She completed her undergraduate degree in

business at Iowa State, and while she moved to many places after

graduation, she always had a room at her parents’ house to come and

stay for awhile.

Szopinski moved to stay in Ames in 2000. After

working as the director of conference services at the Catt Center,

she now takes care of her son and is an avid volunteer in the city

of Ames.

When asked why she wants to run for city council,

Szopinski said she always has had a strong political interest, and

this election season happens to be the right time.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,

and it was a good time,” she said. “It’s always more advantageous

to run when the former chair[man, Riad Mahayni,] is incumbent.”

On the relationship between Iowa State and the Ames

community, Szopinski believes in selling Ames as one entity, thus

their relationship is extremely important.

“There’s a long history of collaborative undertaking

between the university and the city,” she said, emphasizing this is

something that she would like to continue.

Working together, she hopes that the city and the

university can help build up “flat space” for added room to house

conferences and events.

“The city is currently in negotiation with the

university to look at how we can build some additional flat space,”

she said. “Conferences are going elsewhere because we have a

limited use of Hilton. Hilton is the only place we have in the city

that has big floor space. And when you bring in conferences and

conventions you need that big floor space to do displays or large

events where you can have everybody in the same room. Athletics is

using it most of the time so the availability is diminished.”

She feels that, because her background as director of

conference services, she has expertise in bringing groups in by

showcasing all of the wonderful things about Ames. An example being

when she helped sign a three year contract with Odyssey of the

Mind, a competition for students, which brought in almost $40

million in revenue.

As far as issues affecting the city as a whole,

Szopinski said that “CyRide is certainly a concern with the rise in

rates and the frequency of routes. I’m understanding that people

living out in the apartments or on 16th Street only have the bus

coming out there a few times a day. … The health of CyRide is

important to students.”

Szopinski also is concerned with increasing the tax

base for the city by adding additional retail space to the area and

finding a solution to the problem of loosing consumers’ shopping

dollars to other communities.

She would also like to see improvements in Campustown

to help make a more “vibrant” area that gives more incentive for

businesses to come to Ames. She would like to see a “wider variety

of shopping choices” such as a bookstore or a funky women’s

clothing shop.

“It’s in the universities interest to have a more

vibrant Campustown because it’s part of the draw,” she said.

Szopinski also has a passion for sustainability and

the environment and would like to see students getting involved in

bringing new ideas to the council.

“There are a number of initiatives that the city

council can bring to the forefront. I think students, in general,

should be concerned with how the city that there university is

located in is run,” she said. “I particularly have a passion for

sustainability and environmental concerns. … Students should be

concerned with how we generate our electricity, what we’re doing to

keep the city clean, etc.

She stressed that student involvement in government

can help some of these sustainability projects move forward.

“Students have a lot of new ideas that people like

myself haven’t had the opportunity to be exposed to. … Bring it

to city council. Part of the reason for [the city council] is that

people can bring their concerns and ask, ‘Why is this happening?’

Everyone has that responsibility to bring concerns and ideas of how

to make things better.”

One of Szopinski’s main goals as a city council

representative would be to ask many questions.

“That is part of what this job is about. … How are

other cities pulling it off? How did they manage to keep and

attract businesses?” she said.

Increasing the tax revenue by increased shopping

districts is another thing she is concerned with. Szopinski truly

feels that there is a dire need to help with social and human

services, clean energy and improving the overall life style of the

citizens of Ames. She feels that this can be done by increasing the

draw for businesses and events to come to the area. She feels that

above all else the goal is to sustain and improve.

“[Ames] has a lot to offer. … It is a community

that works in a lot of ways. But everything can always be

improved,” she said.