Ward 2 Rep. Tim Gartin has changed his decision and will be on the ballot for reelection in November after telling the Daily in January that he would fulfill his prior campaign promise of self-imposing a term limit.
The reversal, Gartin said, was made Tuesday after a conversation with his wife and following his unsuccessful attempts to recruit a candidate for Ward 2.
“I would talk to people, and they’d say, ‘Tim, the reality is, we just don’t want to be you,’” Gartin said. “The prospect of having someone who’s brand new, who may not have the experience to deal with the hard issues, has been weighing on me.”
Gartin encouraged people interested in running for Ames City Council to look into it more and said it “will be sad if everyone runs unopposed” because “it’s healthy for democracy to have a vigorous debate over the future of the community.”
“[My wife and I] felt like for the good of the community, I need to run again, and I wish this wasn’t the case, I had other things I had planned on doing,” Gartin said. “But sometimes you have to do things that don’t make a lot of sense, personally, but makes sense for the greater good.”
Since 2013, Gartin has run unopposed in Ward 2 and has been elected to one two-year term and two four-year terms receiving more than 84% of the vote in each election.
In another four-year term, Gartin said he will be a “sounding board for common sense” on issues caused by what he characterized as the Iowa Legislature eroding home rule and making “strong changes” to how Iowa cities budget.
“This city council has never had to make hard budget decisions, we’ve always had ample funds,” Gartin said. “There’s going to be new challenges in the next couple of years and I don’t think the legislature is done messing around with the way cities do their budgets.”
Additionally, Gartin said he would continue to “respectfully dissent” on some issues that most of the council disagrees with him on.
“Even if I’m in the minority, I think there’s value in having a voice that asks questions to help us get to a better decision,” Gartin said. “So it’s always fun when you’re on the winning vote but sometimes good governance is achieved by the minority asking hard questions to help refine the proposal.”
The other two city council members up for reelection in November, At-Large Rep. Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen and Ward 4 Rep. Rachel Junck, have not made public announcements about their reelection decisions.
