SULLIVAN'S SALVOS
November 7, 2026
Sullivan’s Salvos 11/12/26
In this edition:
*RIP Glenn Siders
*Veterans Day
*United Way and Iowa Shares
*National Adoption Month
*Stop to End
*Election Results
*Consequential – Labor Issues
*Did You Know?
*RIP Glen Siders
I was sorry to hear of the passing of Glenn Siders. Glen worked for the City of Iowa City in Housing Inspections before moving over to Southgate Development, where he was very involved in the IC Area Homebuilders and the IC Area Chamber of Commerce.
Glenn and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he was a good person with a great sense of humor who cared about Johnson County. RIP, Glenn.
*Veterans Day
Happy Veterans Day on November 11. Thanks to all the men and women who have served our country. I appreciate your service, and wish you peace.
Veterans For Peace Chapter #161 is sponsoring an Armistice Day Observance to be held on Wednesday, November 11th at the Ped Mall stage in Iowa City. The event begins at 10:45 AM. Bells will be rung at 11:00 AM, as they rang around the world at the end of WWI in 1918 and on each November 11th for decades thereafter. Armistice Day is a day to promote PEACE and to remember the victims of war, both veterans and civilians.
The featured speaker for this year’s event will be Patrick Kearns, who will speak at both the outdoor Observance and the library event. Patrick is the president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE #2547), representing workers at the Iowa City Veterans Administration Health Care System.
Immediately following the outdoor observance, Veterans For Peace will host a free luncheon at the Iowa City Public Library. This is the sole Armistice Day observance in the State of Iowa.
*United Way and Iowa Shares
The calendar has turned to November, when many of us begin to think about charitable giving. Personally, I hope you will consider gifts to the United Way and Iowa Shares.
The United Way of Johnson and Washington Counties is in its’ 105th year. It consists of 32 partner organizations that serve thousands of local residents. Meanwhile, Iowa Shares is 26 years old, and consists of 21 social justice organizations.
We hope to increase charitable giving among county employees. It is easy to give you time and money. Please consider making a contribution today!
*National Adoption Month
November has been named National Adoption Month and November 20th National Adoption Day.
The need out there is tremendous. In Johnson County alone, there are between 100 and 150 kids in foster care every day. There are nowhere near enough foster and adoptive homes to meet the need.
As many of you know, Melissa and I are the parents of three adopted children. We also served as foster parents to 50+ children, stopping just a few years ago.
It has been a life full of tragedies and triumphs. It has not always been easy, but it has been indescribably fulfilling. Along with marrying my wife, it is the best decision I ever made.
If you or someone you know is interested in foster care and/or adoption, please let me know. I am always happy to speak with prospective parents.
*Stop to End
I bet I have typed “stop” into my phone 200 times this election cycle! Good Lord!
Don’t get me wrong; I want these candidates to win. I know that it takes money, and I do not blame them for asking. But Melissa and I tend to keep our donations pretty local.
All in all, this just demonstrates how badly we need campaign finance reform.
*Election Results
Let’s start at the top with the Federal races. The US House will be in Democratic hands. As of this writing, Democrats have at least 255 seats, with potentially another 10 in play. Democrats won at least 54 seats in the US Senate, with two still in play.
This is huge! Dems needed to get to at least 52 votes in the Senate, IMHO. At 50-50, VP Vance casts the deciding vote. At 51-49, one of the votes upon which you are counting is the unreliable John Fetterman. So 52 was a really important number! Dems blew past that, which keeps Trump from being able to replace Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito with 50-year-old versions of themselves.
In Iowa, Josh Turek is our Senator-Elect, and Christina Bohannan, Lindsay James, and Sarah Trone-Garriot are headed to DC as Members of Congress!
At the State level, I was unsure what to expect. It was clear that Rob Sand was going to win and become our next Governor. That happened, and I am thrilled! Rob is a great guy, and I have a lot of faith in him.
It was much harder to know what to expect with the other statewide races. In all my door knocking over all the years, I have never once had a voter bring up the offices of Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer, or Secretary of Agriculture. So the results being mixed does not shock me.
Hats off to my old pal Nate Willems, who will be taking over as Iowa’s Attorney General! What a great win! I am so very happy for him! Nate will be fabulous in this role!
As of this writing, Taylor Wettach holds a slim lead in the race for State Auditor, and John Norwood is trailing narrowly for State Treasurer. Republicans Mike Naig and Paul Pate were reelected as Secretaries of Ag and State, respectively.
Locally, Democrats won every office, as expected.
Other issues on the ballot included the Constitutional Amendment (a lifelong gift to the wealthiest Iowans). Unfortunately, that passed. Iowans really screwed themselves here. It might take 50-100 years to fix this policy problem. I hope Legislators begin thinking of creative ways around this terrible decision.
Kirkwood had a bond issue on the ballot that passed, while the Jail and Sheriff’s Office bond issue failed.
Turnout was fantastic in Johnson County – a record in a Gubernatorial year.
Finally, as always, thank you to all the people who make the election happen. From the hundreds of Precinct Workers to the temporary staff, to the regular Auditor’s Office employees – Thank you!
*Consequential – Labor Issues
One area in which I was able to accomplish some very good things as a County Supervisor was in the area of working with organized labor.
This came naturally to me. I come from a labor family. My grandfather was a union carpenter, and my grandmother a union meatpacker. My father spent over 30 years with Laborer’s Local 43 in Cedar Rapids, including 12 years as Secretary and 20 years as Business Agent. My brother was a Business Agent for Teamsters 238.
Personally, I was a 30-year member of AFT 716 in Iowa City. For the past 2 years I have been a card-carrying member of Laborer’s Local 43. I have also served for over two decades as a delegate to the Iowa City Federation of Labor. During that time, I rarely missed a meeting. I still rarely miss meetings of City Fed.
So what did I get accomplished? We have already discussed the Minimum wage increase and Community ID. Those were big. And they would not have happened without a couple Supervisors who trusted Labor and vice versa. But there is more.
Johnson County was a statewide leader in the use of Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). A PLA allows the building owner (in these cases, the County) to negotiate project-wide labor standards with a General Contractor. We did this on our Ambulance and Medical Examiner Building and SEATS and Secondary Roads Buildings, and both were hugely successful. So successful, in fact, that the Iowa Legislature prohibited the practice.
Following the Legislative ban on PLAs, we moved to pre-bid certification. This simply meant that before bidding on a Johnson County project, a contractor had to send in a signed pledge to follow all Iowa laws, including wage and hour laws, safety laws, and more. Seems pretty basic, doesn’t it? Well, wealthy GOP donors did not like Johnson County forcing them to follow the law. So the Iowa Legislature prohibited the practice.
Now what? We moved from pre-bid certifications to post-bid certifications. Instead of requiring all bidders to fill out such a form, we require just the low bidder to do so. If they refuse, we can go to the next lowest bidder. I have no doubt that the Iowa Legislature will prohibit the practice unless we elect Governor Sand and he vetoes it.
There are other efforts of which I am proud. When Chapter 20 was repealed, it allowed State and Local governments to *only* negotiate on wages. But it did not *require* local governments to only negotiate wages. Every year, I have made a strong, vocal case for Johnson County to always bargain all topics. And we have. And we get better results because we do.
I am particularly proud of an idea I had just before Republicans in the Iowa Legislature gutted Chapter 20. Seeing the writing on the wall, I contacted the unions that contracted with Johnson County (at the time that was just AFSCME and PPME). I suggested that we extend all our contracts 5 years. My hope was that this would A) preserve what labor had, and B) give us a chance to win the Governorship.
Word of this suggestion got to the State Fed, and the idea spread like wildfire! Withing a week, labor-friendly cities, counties, and school districts across Iowa were doing 5-year extensions. We did not take back the Governor’s Office in that attempt, but we bought some valuable time for a lot of workers. I am proud of that.
Finally, it may seem like a small thing, but we started an Employee Appreciation Day that was (and is) held near Labor Day each year. The County simply provides a thank-you lunch to all our employees. It is not a big thing, but it does matter.
*DID YOU KNOW? Iowa's union density falls below the national average of 10%, ranking 28th among U.S. states. (Source: Wikipedia.)
Anyone interested in learning more about County government should take a look at the County website-
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---Rod
posted by Rod Sullivan @ 11:28 AM
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