Dubuque Times

At the April 17th council meeting, city officials of Dubuque voted to fill the five vacancies across two of their major boards and commissions. They had four open seats in their Human Rights Commission and one open seat in their Parks and Recreation Board.

 While all of these were technically three-year terms, one of them was a vacated seat that would only extend to January 1, 2024. The remaining three seats were expired seats, meaning the commission member sat their entire term, and would expire January 1st, 2026. The departing members were Dixon, Durnin and Kurczek. This commission had ten applicants.

"So, the first thing I want to make sure I say is thank you very much to everyone who has applied for this," Mayor Brad Cavanaugh said. "It’s really important that we make sure that our boards and commissions are as full as they can possibly be so that we can, first of all, achieve a quorum, but then also be able to get the important work done that needs to be done. So, the fact that so many people have stepped up to volunteer for this, sincerely appreciate it."

City Attorney Crenna Brumwell explained that the Human Rights commission was subject to the gender-parity mechanism from the state code. This is a good faith effort to maintain a level of balance in the genders represented on the commission, given that applicants are all equally qualified. There is not a strict mandate or quota, Brumwell explained, but “for example, if there are two equally qualified applicants and you need there's balance in a disparity one way or the other for like gender balance purposes, my recommendation would be that you will appoint in a way that does a better job of balancing. But again, that's all things being equal in gender being the difference.”

The city council voted for Jake Kurczek, Enoc Sanchez and Matthew Zanger to take the seats for terms expiring in 2026 and voted in Lauren Link to take the term expiring in January 2024. All of these received the majority of votes in the first round, making them quick and easy decisions from the council.

The board also followed the same pattern for the seat open in the Parks and Rec board, with this term expiring June 30th, 2025. The seat had three total applicants, and the council appointed Jason Henkel with a majority vote on the first round with six council members favoring him over the other two candidates.