William Smith
Community Editor
With no other contested local races on the ballot for the June 7 primary, Burlington residents Matt Rinker and TJ Widbin took center stage at a political forum hosted by the Greater Burlington Partnership Tuesday morning, May 31.
Rinker and Widbin are vying for the Republican nomination for the 99th district in the Iowa House of Representatives, which was recently redistricted and is now represented by Democrat Dennis Cohoon. The winner of the primary will take on Cohoon in the regular election.
Rinker has been on the Burlington City Council for the past five years and ran for state senate in 2020. He touted his experience in local politics as a distinct advantage.
“I am a husband, a father, a business owner, a veteran. I’m a city councilman, and I have an extensive history of volunteering in this community,” he said.
“This area really has one voice in Des Moines. It is extremely important that voice have the knowledge, experience, and be powerful in a caucus.”
Though Widbin has no political experience, he does have extensive business experience. That experience started when he opened Lost Bear Coffee locations in 2016 and 2017, and more recently, Good Restaurant + Lounge.
“I think I have the tools” he said. “I think I have the personality.”
Tim Lundgren acted as the moderator at the forum, asking each candidate the same question in a series of queries. His first question centered around growing the workforce in the Burlington area. He asked Widbin to respond first.
“We have an aged workforce base,” Widbin said. “We need to bring in more youth, and in order to do that, I think we have to make Iowa an attractive place for families. I think you have to make Iowa an attractive place for businesses and entrepreneuring.”
The way to do that, Widbin said, is to the lower income tax. He said the current Republican led legislation already has a good start on that.
“I think what you’re going to see over the next three to five years are tech companies that are looking to get out of high cost areas,” Widbin said.
Rinker put the onus for job growth on two things — creating more affordable housing through incentives, and increasing education funding.
“Over the last 10 years, and most of that has come in the last five years since I’ve been on city council, we’ve seen $125 million in investments in residential housing downtown,” Rinker said.
Widbin also wants to focus on downtown and would like to move residents from renters to homeowners.
“I think there need to be state programs that can help people transition from rental to home ownership. Whether that is a first-time tax credit for buying a home, or a capital improvement, or some kind of tax breaks for people making improvements on their home,” Widbin said.
Rinker and Widbin said one of the major disagreements they have with their own party is how underfunded education in Iowa is.
“Right now, we spend $2,238 per person in Iowa on education. We spent $2,093 per person on welfare programs. Education needs to be much more than that,” Rinker said.
Widbin said he is also not a fan of Gov. Kim Reynold’s school voucher proposal, which died last week due to lack of support. The proposal would have diverted $55 million from state public school funding for 10,000 private school scholarships.
“In theory, there could be some benefits there. But as it is in its current form, it’s something I’m not for, and I think could hurt schools in general,” Widbin said.
The candidates also disagree with the restructuring of mental health services seven years ago under former Gov. Terry Branstad. That restructuring centered around closing two mental health institutes in Iowa.
“You are saving money at the state level, but you’re passing the responsibilities on to a local level. You’re not saving money. You’re also passing on the costs,” Rinker said. “You’re just spreading out the pressures.”
While answering a question from The Burlington Beacon about how to address those who slip through the cracks and end up homeless with no mental health treatment, Rinker and Widbin also agreed that a mental health counselor should be stationed in every school.
“When I made the (Facebook) post that I was running for this office, I had mental health in mind, mostly due to struggles that I had that I had never experienced before that gave me a whole new perspective,” Widbin said.
“I think mental health has been massively underfunded, and we are seeing the effects of that now.”
Widbin believes increasing funding and making homes more affordable will impact not only homelessness but also mental health.
“In a perfect world, of course, we would have funding for a great big homeless shelter, but that’s probably a three-to-five-year plan down the road,” Widbin said. “But I think if we get proactive on the mental health side of schools, we’ll start to see the benefit of that trickle down.”
Both candidates would like to grow tourism in the area and agree that the riverfront is an economic driver for Burlington and the surrounding area. Rinker said he and his fellow council members have already made strides in improving tourism, citing the six Burlington dockings for Viking Cruises.
“In the last five years on city council, I’ve promoted more than $25 million in initiatives to support tourism. A lot of it is on the riverfront today. I think that riverfront is the most valuable property we have in Burlington,” Rinker said.
Widbin said downtown Burlington attracts tourism.
“The more we can drive businesses to downtown, it’s only going to bring in and incentivize more people to come down here. The growth that we’ve seen in the last few years makes people want to come downtown,” he said.