Opinion : Letter to the Editor: It Just Never Seems to Be the Right Time for Equality

Women are a majority of Iowa's population in 90 of 99 counties and volunteer more than men do. Iowa law* clearly states that no person shall be appointed or reappointed to a gender-imbalanced board if that appointment maintains gender imbalance. Despite these facts, women remain underrepresented on boards and commissions in our state. Women are especially underrepresented on boards having a significant impact on the economic well-being of citizens.

Women remain underrepresented because "it just isn't a good time" to appoint them, and if our attitudes don't change, it never will be.

It "isn't the right time" was the reasoning used last night by Mayor Bud Maynard when he sought to reappoint someone with 23 years of service on the utility board to another six-year term. The mayor and council never discussed the applications of two women who applied for the position before moving to reappoint Mike Elwick. One of those women was Amy Edison.

Amy and her husband moved to Vinton from Omaha to be closer to family and to raise their three children in a small town. Amy volunteers at the school and is on the library board - a position she would give up to serve on the utility board. Amy's husband is an actuary for Zurich Financial and telecommutes. For 16 years before choosing to focus on raising their children, Amy was also an actuary who was employed by Physicians Mutual and later, Zurich Financial.

The department of Mathematics at Purdue University describes the role of an actuary as, "……a business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs. Actuaries may work for insurance companies, consulting firms, government, employee benefits departments of large corporations, hospitals, banks, and investment firms, or, more generally, in businesses that need to manage financial risk. A career as an Actuary is better described as a business career with a mathematical basis than as a technical mathematical career."

As we enter a time of increasingly volatile flooding and must carefully analyze the future risk to our community, especially the risk to our utility infrastructure, Amy's experience would be especially valuable. Mayor Maynard and council members Nate Edwards, Ron Hessenius, and Brian Paar not only ignored Iowa law by voting to reappoint Elwick, they ignored Vinton's future as well. I am thankful that council members Tami Stark and Nathan Hesson voted to follow Iowa law and voted for our future.

*Iowa Code section 69.16A

1. All appointive boards, commissions, committees, and councils of the state established by the Code, if not otherwise provided by law, shall be gender balanced. No person shall be appointed or reappointed to any board, commission, committee, or council established by the Code if that appointment or reappointment would cause the number of members of the board, commission, committee, or council of one gender to be greater than one-half the membership of the board, commission, committee, or council plus one if the board, commission, committee, or council is composed of an odd number of members. If the board, commission, committee, or council is composed of an even number of members, not more than one-half of the membership shall be of one gender. If there are multiple appointing authorities for a board, commission, committee, or council, they shall consult each other to avoid a violation of this section.

Kurt Karr