The final city race to be featured in the T-R is the mayor’s seat, which will be occupied by someone new as incumbent Joel Greer has opted to retire after serving two four-year terms. The candidates are both current city councilors: Mayor Pro-Tem Mike Ladehoff represents Ward 1 and has served two separate stints on the council, and Gary Thompson is serving his second term as an at-large city councilor after winning re-election in 2023. The first half of their answers to the T-R questionnaire are printed below, and the rest will be included in Tuesday’s paper.

Ladehoff

What is your personal, professional and educational background, and why are you running for mayor?

Mike Ladehoff: I have been married to my wife Kim for 44 years, have 1 adult son (Brett) and one adult daughter (Lexi) who is in her first year of college at MCC. I currently serve as the Ward 1 Councilor and have been the Mayor Pro-Tem for the past 4 years.

I have worked on the shop floor at Lennox for 24 1/2 years, 5 years at Phoenix E Waste Solutions and have spent the last 14 1/2 years at Emerson Process. My current position is as an assembler the Nuclear Valve Assembly Team on Governor Road. I plan to retire in mid-2026. I am also a 39 year member of UAW 893 in Marshalltown.

I graduated from BCL (now BCLUW) in 1978, and have attended several classes at MCC including machining mathematics, CNC operations, blueprint reading, Lean Manufacturing and measuring applications. I also graduated from the first Citizen’s Police Academy in Marshalltown.

Thompson

Gary Thompson: I grew up in Marshalltown, moved away later in life, however, my ex-wife and I came back to raise our children here. Marshalltown residents have always treated me well and I want to repay my gratitude first by serving on the City Council and hopefully serving as your mayor.

I have a varied work history that helps me be relatable to all. I’ve delivered TR newspapers, pumped gas, made and canned paint at Diamond-Vogel, worked at Rose Hill cemetery, served in the U.S. Army in Texas, Indiana, and Alaska, managed retirement communities in Iowa and Colorado, held several positions at Lennox from working on the shop floor to management, and I owned and operated two very successful UPS Store franchises in Marshalltown and Ames.

I graduated from MCC with an Associate of Arts degree and a Computer Science Certificate. I graduated from ISU with a Housing and the Near Environment Bachelor of Science degree, which is the study of the social aspects of housing within a community, and I have a minor in Environmental Studies.

What do you feel the mayor’s primary role should be? How would you both set agendas and priorities if elected, and how would you represent the city of Marshalltown?

Ladehoff: The Mayor’s role should be a combination of coach, cheerleader in the community and represent the City’s residents in local, regional and State affairs. Marshalltown’s Mayor works closely with the City Staff to bring items to the City Council for discussion and decisions. The Mayor, City Administrator and City Clerk set the agenda for the City Council.

Housekeeping items, non controversial items should be put on the Consent Agenda for one vote to pass all. Any City Councilor can request to have an item on the Consent Agenda taken off and discussed with a separate vote.

As Mayor, I will adhere to this policy. Other items such as Ordinances or Resolutions not on the consent agenda are discussed by the Councilors and voted on separately. New items up for debate are under the Discussion section of the agenda for the Councilors to debate and give the City Staff direction. It is vitally important for the Mayor, City Administrator and City Clerk to bring items to the Council in a timely manner. Transparency always!

Thompson: I would be a leader for all of the residents of Marshalltown, not just the few. I would focus on the message and not the messenger.

If elected, I would operate more as a consultant to the city administrator and department heads. I would use my vast experience to guide common sense solutions to problems and attempt to aid city staff members to always look for and fix the root cause of all problems.

I would hopefully bring prioritized items to the meeting agendas that benefit the 27,000 people that have chosen to make Marshalltown their home, raise families, work, shop here. I think we have forgotten to take care of the people, the taxpayers, that are paying our salaries.

The best improvement advice I ever received was don’t try to fix something by 100%. That task is too time consuming and too overwhelming. It is far better to fix 100 things by1% each. Common sense solutions are always the least expensive, the easiest to implement, and the return on investment is always greater.

In general, do you feel like Marshalltown is headed in the right direction, and if not, how would you propose reversing that course? Additionally, what are your thoughts on the city’s current budget situation, and how, if at all, would you propose changing course?

Ladehoff: Yes, I feel that the City is headed in the right direction! You can FEEL the momentum. It has taken 4 long years to get the ball rolling, let’s make sure to keep going.

Currently the City’s budget is solid, but changes at the State level has made budgeting very challenging. We had to move over one million dollars in local option sales tax over to the General Fund to balance the city’s budget (we balance the budget every year.)

The State is treating all cities the same. They are NOT. Each city has a different makeup of commercial, industrial, retail and educational properties that greatly affects the tax base in each city. What makes some cities “tick” might not be as important to another. The State Government taking away Home Rule has hurt cities statewide.

Thompson: Marshalltown has always been headed in the right direction. Sometimes we just find ourselves on the wrong road. We have great people with wonderful intelligence in town. We need to bring more voices to the table to better chart our course for the future. We need to get the downtown area rebuilt and once again and make it the heart of our great town.

My ideas for balancing the budget are very simple. Four councilors have to agree that the issue is that important. That power exists within the councilors the taxpayers elect.

Do you feel that the city is currently appropriately staffed with approximately 150 to 160 total employees, and would you advocate for hiring additional staff in any particular departments if elected?

Ladehoff: Currently, no City Department is fully staffed due to budget constraints. If staffing is added above budgeted amounts, new funds must be found to support the added employee(s). In my 11 years total on City Council, I can confidently say that today we have the strongest, most talented team I have ever seen in our City Departments. Top to bottom.

We ask a lot of our 160 member team and they deliver! Our city provides the same services that we provided 25 years ago with almost 200 employees. This is why public/private partnerships are so important for us to move forward in Marshalltown. Our City staff and employees simply cannot do it all.

Thompson: I would like to see the outsourced positions come back inhouse and I believe the city administrator shares that belief. I also see a benefit to hiring a few additional employees, however, we have to justify the work output in relation to the cost to the taxpayers. I am open to all ideas.

Goals for growth have been discussed several times in recent years, but Marshalltown’s population has essentially held steady at about 27,500 residents. Do you believe the council and the city’s current strategies to attract new residents and businesses are working, and if not, how would you recommend changing them?

Ladehoff: Yes, I believe that Marshalltown needs to grow. Industries and companies in Marshalltown are expanding needing more workers, companies that may move to Marshalltown will be needing more workers in the future. Companies and businesses that the people in Marshalltown want to have here need a certain number of residents to consider Marshalltown as a future home. It also grows our tax base helping our General Fund. In Iowa, the population growth is at an almost paltry 1.2 percent. In 2023 and 2024, 92 percent of that growth came from immigrants. Due to the current immigration climate in the United States, I expect Iowa’s growth to almost halt altogether soon. Babies born in Iowa have been dropping by 16 percent year over year. In order to grow, we need to create a town that is welcoming and attractive to newcomers. There are 4 different groups we need to look at.

Students graduating. Create the type of town that after getting out for a bit, they consider Marshalltown as a great place to return to and settle down to and raise a family. Go round the world, but come back again. I read that somewhere.

What population Iowa has is migrating from rural areas and small towns to larger population cities for amenities and jobs. Make Marshalltown a city to consider by being welcoming, unique, fun and interesting. People now move to cities first for amenities then a job. Arts and culture plays a big part in recruitment.

Because Marshalltown is diverse (and we like it that way) and becoming fun and dynamic, we can assist companies and industries attract young professionals in their recruitment of new employees. No one wants to take a job and then move to a town frozen in the 1970’s.

Continue to be welcoming to immigrants. I recently ran into a couple of people at the IDMV. I could tell they were in construction because of the sheetrock mud and paint on their clothes. As we talked, I found out they came to Marshalltown from the New Orleans area. They came for the jobs available here in town, and they love it here and plan to stay. This is the same for the Ukrainian families that Marshalltown welcomed 3 years ago.

Thompson: Obviously, the current strategies are not working to the intended extent possible. The conversation we should be having is that we have lost 9,000 residents. Luckily those 9,000 resident losses have been backfilled by the wonderful immigrant population that has chosen to make Marshalltown home.

Studies prove time and time again that people move to a community for three main reasons: jobs, family, and retirement. So, for Marshalltown to grow we need to focus on jobs first.

I believe we need to concentrate on increasing the customer base of the businesses that are already here. If 2,000 existing businesses in Marshall County could increase their output making it necessary to hire one more employee each then the growth of Marshalltown could be as much as 5,000 new residents, using a family average size of 2.5.

Part 2 will be published in tomorrow’s T-R.