Oliver Weilein is an Iowa native running in the District C special election on March 4th. If you live in Iowa City, you are eligible to vote in this election. KRUI staff members Amanda Moy, Julia Wilson, Amman Hussan, and Rigby Templeman were able to interview Oliver live in-studio on February 19th to ask him about some of his policies and his campaign.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Amanda Moy: First of all, you know, you’ve been in Iowa City a long time. You’ve worked and volunteered at a lot of places, like Public Space One, the Emma Goldman Clinic, Iowa Farm Sanctuary, can you tell us a little bit of what you’ve learned from these experiences and how they’ve helped shape your ability to serve on city council?
Oliver Weilein: Yeah, definitely. I’m always someone that likes to keep busy, for one, so that’s why I do a lot of these things, and also it’s just things that I’m passionate and that I care about. One way or another these things deeply impact my life and I want to be a part of them. With the Emma Goldman Clinic, obviously, Emma Goldman herself was one of the first feminist authors and thought leaders that I read when I was a teenager, and so I have a personal connection for that reason with the Emma Goldman Clinic and I think it’s really cool that it’s named that, and I think that it also helps that I live across the street. You know, just looking and seeing people you know bugging and harassing people trying to go in there and get healthcare, it does not sit right with me. It makes me upset and so that’s why. I support everything Emma Goldman does, so that’s why I just want to go help out in that capacity where I can.
With the Iowa Farm Sanctuary, I am someone where I’ve been vegan for 12 years and I haven’t eaten meat since 8th grade when dissecting frogs freaked me out. So, it’s always been a priority for me, especially living in a place that’s kind of ground zero for bad factory farming like Iowa. I just think it’s beautiful that we have a place like that and connecting with the animals is really important to me, and I recommend people go volunteer there. It’s a depression cure a little bit, especially in the summer.
With Public Space One, I play music; I play in a couple bands and I remember being super young and when I still lived in Cedar Falls I would come here and go to shows at Public Space One when it was below the Subway. It’s come a long way since then, and it was really important to me growing as an artist and as a person, so I’m just really happy to serve on the board and do what I can.
Just doing all these things, it has allowed me to touch so many parts of the community and to understand what’s going right, what’s going wrong, and what can be improved. Specifically, it’s put me in contact with other working class people, and low income people, and people of traditionally marginalized groups. It’s given me a perspective on a lot of the inner workings of Iowa City, and not from the perspective of I’m like this super educated elite business owner, property owner, and yeah it’s just like I’m a member of the working class. I’m just like one of these people, and yeah I think in that way it’s really primed me to have a unique perspective on city council.
Amanda: I will say, I’ve also volunteered at Iowa Farm Sanctuary. It is absolutely something that will lift your mood. Especially in the summer.
Oliver: Do you have a favorite resident?
Amanda: That’s a good question. I think my favorite resident was Rudy.
Oliver: Rudy? I loved Rudy. I like Flower. I have a special connection with Flower. She’s a thousand-pound dairy cow who was born without eyes, and she’s blind, and she loves being pet, and she purrs when you pet her.
Julia Wilson: So, how do you plan to implement these environmental values, in regard to farming, while still supporting the local farmers around Iowa City?
Oliver: That’s a really good question. I think that coming at these issues centering around sustainability and climate, I don’t think it has to come at the cost of farmers or people making ends meet. I think that it’s a lot of nitty gritty policy stuff, but basically just from the mindset that these two things don’t have to work against each other. There’s lots of really cool organizations around here that I’m really excited to work with, that really look into local preservation, look into prairie restoration, and try to work alongside farmers while doing so, and trying to figure out more sustainable ways to go about these things. Even if I myself am not an expert, I know the people who are, and the people who really inspire me to do this work. I know people who not only lead some of these organizations or some of these movements, but people that are rank and file, people who go and do controlled burns of prairies and stuff like that. So, I’m someone who tries to get the entire picture from the “lowest worker” to the overarching picture.
Amanda: What do you think are the top three emergent issues that you plan to address while you’re on city council?
Oliver: I really think that one of the things that convinced me to run… I’ve been probably what you can call a housing rights activist for like a decade in the Iowa City area. Whether that be a founding member of the Iowa City Tenants Union where we did things like help families fight eviction, got security deposits back, helped with immigrant families who were dealing with abusive landlords, worked with lots of students whose landlords just think that they’re dumb young people and they can take advantage of them, to doing more direct mutual aid work with the homeless population in Iowa City.
I think that housing is so central and intersects with so many different issues in our society: racism, transphobia, homophobia. Lots of these systems of oppression get so much of their power from housing insecurity and from economic insecurity so housing is huge, huge for me and I’m someone who believes deep down that housing is a human right. I think as a society that we should move away from viewing housing, which is something that is a basic need for everybody, as a commodity, but rather something we see as, well, you’re a human being and you deserve a home. Obviously, I know going in, I’m not going to be able to be like: I declare housing as a human right. But, I think there’s lots of tangible ways we can move in that direction.
Along with housing, a huge thing for me is also maintaining some type of financial independence as a city from the state and federal government. Making it to where we are not so afraid of repercussions from the state and federal government. There’s so much fear right now about, well, we can’t do this because maybe the state’s going to come take some funding away. I think that we can start laying a foundation for long-term solutions for making ourselves more independent. I’m a huge proponent of things like public banking. We have one public bank in the United States, and that’s the Bank of North Dakota. Look into public banking, how it is essential to the economy in so many different places around the world, and how it can be used as a tool to fund the things we need to fund and save ourselves so much money as a city. Obviously, wealthy bankers do not like it, and their shareholders, because this means they don’t make money. But, I think as a society, we need to do what we need to do for the community and for people, and not just always focus on making the richest people around us richer, and being in their grasp with their talons in us.
Those are probably two really, really big things for me. Transit is always up there. We are doing a really good job as a community when it comes to transit, with our fare-free public transit and our commitment to maintaining that. I’ve talked with so many homeless people, so many low-income people who say that has improved their lives significantly. Just keeping that.
I will say one more thing that might be the most important thing currently is protecting marginalized people in Iowa City. It is making sure we do not go into this administration, this federal administration and this state administration, with people who operate abject cruelty towards the most vulnerable people in our community. We need to not go into this relationship pre-compliant, or work as collaborators with them. I think that we can be smart and strategic with how we go about doing these things, protecting these communities, like our immigrants, like our trans community. That means that we go into it with the attitude that we will never give up, and we will not collaborate with fascism.
Amman Hassan: I have two questions. For transit, are you supporting the North Liberty rail, or the commuter rail proposal? Also, about the not collaborating with fascism, and the Iowa City autonomy, obviously we are kind of a blue dot in a sea of red. How much autonomy or wiggle room does Iowa City have to kind of ignore some of these resettlement orders or some of these acts against minority groups, immigrants in particular? How much wiggle room do we have to ignore those orders and address the issues as we see fit, or protect these groups as we see fit?
Oliver: For the transit, I don’t know all the ins and outs of what has happened, but I think that the county is having trouble finding bidders to create the rail, and I think that the project has been put on hold for now, if not scrapped, which is unfortunate because transit is huge for a multitude of reasons: for economic reasons, for climate reasons. I’m somebody who thinks that we need to move away from a car-centric society. Obviously rail, streetcars, biking infrastructure, all of these things, density, not relying on sprawl, there’re so many reasons why we need to go in this direction. So, it is upsetting to me that’s been put on hold, because as it comes to climate, we can’t afford to push these back all the time.
When it comes to what kind of autonomy or agency Iowa City has in the state, it is true that we live in a hostile state run by people who are cruel and do not have the best interest of the people in mind. They want to protect the wealthiest people in our state, and they want to keep oppressed people in their place. We need to not go into this thinking that these are people that can be reasoned with, like Kim Reynolds, that we need to try so hard to placate them and to beg, because no matter what we do it will never be enough for them. They will always keep coming after our people. They will always keep cutting our budget. They will always keep lowering property taxes. They will always keep doing all of these things that are detrimental to our community, and I think it is delusional to expect any different, no matter how much we give them. Going into it with the attitude that we need to come up with another way.
I think that if we really put our mind to these things and make them a priority, we can really do something. I look at examples like in 2020, when our mayor Bruce Teague and the city wanted to implement a mask mandate, and Kim Reynolds was like, “No, I’m writing it in law that cities cannot do a mask mandate.” We were able to get around that with just clever wording, something about mandating masks for persons and not facilities. Something like that. We can always put our minds to something and there are so many smart people, and so many organizations of smart people who know the law, who it’s their mission to do these types of things. The city councilors and the mayor at the time, they did a great job with that. I think if we apply that same determination, and willingness, and priority to protecting migrants and protecting trans people, and protecting our LGBT community, and our low income people, I think there’s always something that we can do.
Like I said, that doesn’t mean that we do something reckless or not strategic or not smart. A lot of people have criticized me saying oh, he’s just gonna like… No, I’ve never said that. What does differentiate me from my opponent is that I am willing to say that I do not support ICE, and I will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to protect the immigrant community. At the end of the day, if everything has been, if all the things have been tried, if there is absolutely nothing else we can do as a city, I’m not willing to sell one person for a dollar amount. That seems to be what a lot of people who were criticizing me were saying, “Well at the end of the day, we are just going to have to sell out some of our neighbors to fascism.” I think going into this new administration with that attitude is crazy. It is what has gotten us into this position in the first place.
Rigby Templeman: So, the budget of the city has always been an issue. How do you plan to deal with the conflict between having that limited money to spend, but wanting to build permanent supportive housing and make existing housing more affordable?
Oliver: It’s been a huge part of my campaign, talking about how I think we can fund a lot of the things I’m talking about, and directions I think we can go. I think that capitalists love to say that you have to spend money to make money, and I think that the same holds true for cities. We can spend money to build a foundation that in the long run saves us money, and even give us money as a city. A lot of the things I’m talking about, you don’t even need to spend a lot of money to create a public bank, and then that has been proven to make things easier for cities to get loans, to get good loans, and to fund the things we need to fund without having to make private banks happen. I grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and I thought it was normal my whole life that we had a public utility company, that was city owned and operated, community utilities company. Then I moved to Iowa City when I was 18 and I was like, why do I have like three bills instead of one? Also why is it this private stuff? Then I learned.
Amman: Is the power plant that operates the University of Iowa privatized?
Oliver: I believe so. I guess I can’t speak surely, but I think so. Anway, in public utilities, in Decorah, they have something on the ballot in March, where they are going to vote yes or no to establish a public utility company. It is something that not only makes it easier for us to democratize our energy, and be able to more directly as community members make decisions about where we want our energy to come from, and our sustainability, but the profits that we make go back into the community, not into a private company’s hands. That’s another revenue source that I’m willing to explore. Like I said, a public utility company is a long term plan, but we need to start having these conversations and set a foundation.
When it comes to housing, housing if done right, other models in cities around the world have proven that public housing can not only be a self-sustaining utility, but it can be one that makes the city revenue. I look at the city of Vienna, it is truly a model that we can learn from. They have a 100+ year, huge history of public housing. 25% of the housing in Vienna is owned and operated directly by the city and they get 200 million dollars in revenue from the rents collected. 80% of the population qualifies for that public housing. That’s why it’s so effective and that’s why it has such good results, and that’s why you get revenue, because you have people of different incomes. It’s not just for the lowest income people. As a utility, it balances rent. That’s why it’s cheaper to rent an apartment in downtown Vienna, the capital city of Austria, than it is in Iowa City, and that’s kind of a crazy statistic. That’s what the last numbers that I looked at were. So, these are all things that, it might be an upfront investment, but in the long run it gives us more revenue streams and it can really make a dent I believe.
Rigby: So, speaking of housing, your opponent Ross Nusser also states on his website that affordable housing is a top priority for him. How do you think you two differ in approach to that?
Oliver: I’m not saying that he doesn’t actually, legitimately want to have affordable housing. Nothing like that. What I do think is that he is someone who has a background in real estate, and with property management, and with being a real estate developer, and being a landlord who has Airbnb’s, and I think that just naturally shapes your worldview in terms of what is possible when it comes to affordable housing. In different forms, when I’ve been talking about how other cities around the world are looking into public housing, he responds to it by talking about things like permanent supportive housing, so I just don’t think he knows or has heard about a lot of these things, which doesn’t make him dumb, he’s just been not exposed to the things that I’ve been exposed to, and hasn’t read things that I have or learned things that I have, doesn’t have the same lived experience.
So, when people generally in the United States think about affordable housing, they think about tax credits to developers and landlords, which let’s say you’re a developer and you want to build an apartment complex in the city. The city will say okay, you can build this, but 10% of the units have to be what’s considered affordable, and it actually has a definition, affordable, and that is 30% of your income or less goes to rent and other housing costs. Even that, I don’t know if it follows that model exactly, because a lot of the “affordable” units that we see from these tax credits are not very affordable, and also they’re not permanent. We have increased the longevity of them, from 5-10 years to 15-20 I believe, but it’s just kind of kicking the problem down the road to deal with later. Giving money to the wealthiest among us, thinking that it is going to trickle down onto the rest of us, it is actually just trickle down economics.
Rigby: And that worked great.
Oliver: And that worked great! It’s just trickle down economics that’s kind of painted as this progressive thing. It’s not like I don’t think in this environment that we never do something like that. I think it can help ease symptoms of the problem, but at the same time we need to be looking at the overall, root causes of these problems, and the solution is not to continue to give money to the wealthiest people among us. It doesn’t work, we know it doesn’t work in the long run. We need to think of more structural change to how deep down we view housing.
Amanda: Speaking of your competitors, instead of accepting campaign donations, you’re directing people to donate funds to the Emma Goldman Clinic, Shelter House, Iowa Trans Mutual Aid, and the Prairielands Freedom Fund. What steered you to make this decision? Do you think that this will hinder you from winning the overall election, especially because Ross is using donations to campaign for himself?
Oliver: A huge barrier to me even coming to the decision to run was that, for one, I don’t like making things about myself. I have very intense criticisms of electoral politics a lot and their effectiveness, and one of those main criticisms is that so much of electoral politics is lighting millions and billions of dollars on fire and losing. Or, you win and you get minimal to no results. So, I think going into this as a special election, I thought that I would not have to spend as much money as I would in a general election, I thought that I already, due to a lot of the community work that I do, have kind of like face and name recognition around town, so there was a lot of that work already done for me.
But, deep down it’s just, I think that grassroots organizing and things that are not just electoral politics, I think those are more important than just electing the right people. I do think that strategically, getting local government officials on your side or electing the right people, I think it can really, really help working people directly in their communities and it can strengthen movements. So, a lot of the people in town that would donate to me, I feel like they’re low income people, they’re activists, they’re people who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears in these organizations on the ground that do so much good in our community, and I didn’t want to take their money.
So, I’ve been spending a lot of my own money. A lot of people have been begging me, like please let me give you money, and so if I accept money from somebody I personally vet them. I have a conversation with them and I say is this something that you can afford, and please be honest with me. If they convince me that yes that is the case, my next question is, is this a substitution to doing something else in the community? If they say no, I will continue to do stuff for the community and put finances into the community, then I’ll accept that money. I just didn’t want to take money from the general public. I fear that I would get a lot of money, and then be tempted to spend it needlessly, if that makes sense.
Honestly, I don’t think that this is really hindering me. I think at the time of the primary, I had spent $700, and $534 of it was on yard signs, and the rest of it was on the website and printing, and I still won the election with 69% of the vote. My opponent spent over $3,000 which is public record. I think that goes to show that money can only go so far in things like this.
Julia: Despite the spending ratio between you and your competitor, I’ve seen your signs in just about every business, house, and window in town. I’ve seen your name on a sign all over my social media. How is it that you’re getting people so worked up, so excited about this election?
Oliver: I don’t think it’s necessarily just me, it’s about the values of the campaign, it’s about the knowledge that we just elected a TV show rapist as president for a second time. Am I allowed to say that on the radio? I’m sorry.
KRUI: Yes.
Oliver: The status quo failed again to combat this right wing authoritarianism. People are fed up and they know that we can’t keep going in that direction that the Democratic party, and the elites of the Democratic party, the higher ups of the Democratic party have tried and failed. They ran a right-wing campaign that was xenophobic, that abandoned trans people, that campaigned with Dick Cheney who’s a war criminal, they shamelessly participated in wholesale genocide and slaughter abroad, and they lost.
They made all of those moral concessions with the justification that we have to beat Donald Trump. And they were going after a demographic of Republicans that don’t want to vote for Trump. That doesn’t exist in the numbers that you need to win. I think people around the country, and in Iowa City, are just realizing that you need a message that is not the status quo, that is for working people, that is unapologetically pro-working class, a populist economic message, and you need to stand with oppressed people, and unflinchingly do so. I think that this is the reason why people really support my campaign. It’s not just about me, it’s about that message.
Amanda: Looking at the city’s 2023-2028 strategic plan, I know we’ve talked a little bit about the environment in previous questions, but the City of Iowa City states that it wants to focus on maintaining and improving a lot of the outdoor spaces and the Iowa River. A lot of people in the city are concerned about environmental pollution and especially the water quality of the city, especially given the fact that Iowa has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the US, and the fastest rising cancer rate. Do you have any plans to address this?
Oliver: Specific plans, it is hard to say exactly the approach, because there’s so many different angles that you can look at this particular problem from, and it’s hard to say exactly what authority the city does and does not have. I’ve been talking with a lot of lawyers about these things, and the lawyers don’t even agree with each other sometimes about what they think is possible and what they don’t think is possible for the city to do.
What I would love to see is… I guess I’ll just start with the story of how in the 90’s, the city of Bogotá, Columbia, they had so much poverty, they had so much pollution, they had so much litter, they had so much car infrastructure, just smog, everything. They got a new mayor, I can’t remember his name right now, and he got into power, and he was like, “I want to make the city happier.” That was his message. The way he went about doing that was scrapping the multi-million dollar idea of a highway to go through the town and using all of that money to expand on green spaces, build parks, build hundreds of miles of bike infrastructure, build hiking trails, invest in infrastructure that isn’t car based. They even did something where he was like, “Alright guys, one day I declare that you will not drive a car, unless you absolutely have to.” I don’t remember the exact stipulations, but the vast majority of people did not drive a car for one day, and it was so popular that it’s now a city wide holiday yearly, and I believe it’s still going on.
Instantly, they saw people utilizing common space, public space, in ways that they were not used to doing. The smog thinned dramatically in one day. The green spaces that were built were utilized in ways that they hadn’t seen before. People just went out in the community and they enjoyed their community spaces in ways that they hadn’t seen. That, mixed with the investment in green spaces, the investment in moving away from fossil fuels, in pedestrian and bike infrastructure, that type of thing, it really made a huge positive impact on the city. I cannot wait to learn and read more about how they went about doing these things, and the nitty gritty on how these things were implemented, and the exact ways that they went about doing this because I’m very passionate about not only making the city more accessible and more public and more democratic, but making it a beautiful place, and making it one where you’re not afraid to get in the water.
Rigby: You’ve said you are a gun owner who dislikes gun culture. One quote that stuck with me is, “We sadly live in a country with many more guns than people, and with our current leaders, it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I think we can avoid harm by strengthening our community networks and engaging in this type of gun violence intervention.”
This view is pretty different from the left’s usual take on gun control, and pretty different from what I’ve grown up being taught. Could you expand on your thoughts about gun control a little bit?
Oliver: There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that, and it’s also something that I’ve addressed on my website, about how I hate the NRA too. People, with whatever agenda that they have, have gone through 10-plus years of my social media history and posted things that they consider to be bad. A few of those things were a 6-year old picture of me holding a gun, and a couple recent pictures of me just at the shooting range.
So, a little bit of background of my journey to becoming a gun owner, if you will. I’m someone who has been very public facing in my activism and the type of activism that I’ve done. I was in the streets when Michael Brown was murdered, I was at Standing Rock with Indigenous People in North Dakota when they were fighting the pipeline going through, I was at Mississippi Stand when we were fighting the pipeline in Iowa, I was at Donald Trump’s inauguration and I got arrested there protesting his first inauguration. I was in Minneapolis for Philando Castile, I was at Tamir Rice protests, I was in Minneapolis during the George Floyd uprisings.
Because of this public facing history of activism, and being arrested in D.C. during Donald Trump’s inauguration, I was heavily doxxed by extremely violent right wing nationalists, neo-nazis that had posted not only my address, but my partner’s address, and my family’s addresses, where they work, and sometimes what their phone numbers were. I think I was like 23 or 24 at the time, my partner and I, it was just something where we didn’t know what to do. These are the types of people where when political violence happens, 99% of the time it’s violent white supremacism right wing people. They commit the murders the vast majority of the time and they’re the people that I know that are capable of extreme violence, and have made direct threats to me and my family.
When I say that I have weapons, or I bought weapons for self defense, I don’t mean in the NRA talking point of ugh, what if someone walks in and steals my TV. If someone walked into my house to steal my TV I would let them have it. I think that lives matter more than property, and I think a lot of these NRA types, when they talk about self-defense, it’s actually just kind of murder fantasies about them wanting to be in a position where they can use their firearm. It’s the absolute opposite for me. Even if it was a neo-nazi, it would be the most devastating thing probably in my life if I had to use a firearm in self-defense.
Even with animals. I go back country hiking in bear country pretty frequently, so I have a handgun that is an absolute last resort if I’m being currently mauled by a bear, and I have all these other items. Pepper spray, bear spray is way more effective and all these other mitigations are way more effective, but if it comes down to it, I would rather shoot a bear than be eaten by one. Even if I had to shoot a bear, it would be devastating to me. Like I said, I’m a vegan.
So, my reason for owning firearms, my philosophy surrounding firearms is so different than your average right wing person. It’s also put me in a place kind of like you mentioned in your question, a very unique person to where a lot of people where they’re in similar situations, like particularly with marginalized people, people who have faced similar threats. They’re like black, they’re trans, they’re part of the queer community, they are women who have stalkers. A lot of them don’t feel comfortable going to a racist organization like the NRA and asking for their help. So, if someone makes the hard decision to purchase firearms for self-defense for legitimate threats, and they feel comfortable coming to me and asking me, “Can you help me be safe when I’m going through this?” I will always do whatever I can for free. I have multiple times. I’m not telling people to buy firearms. I always tell them the risks involved, and make sure they really think this through because it is true that if you have a gun in your house, statistically you’re at much higher risk of gun violence, specifically marginalized people, specifically women. But, if they make that decision, I will be there to make it as safe as possible.
I even bought a safe that’s way bigger than I need, it’s like huge. My partner Juliet hates it because it takes up so much of our living room, and so they’ve tried to “yassify” my gun safe, make it look pretty. So many people have reached out to me because they’re like, “Hey, I have guns, but I have family coming over and I don’t have a proper place to store this.,” or, “I am currently expecting a child and I want a proper place to store this gun before I get rid of it,” or, “I really need my gun to not be in my house because my mental health is so terrible.” Usually, individualistic American gun culture does not have that community minded approach to gun safety, where people feel safe as a community to reach out and have these public resources that they can use. Countless times I’ve stored peoples’ guns in my gun safe for that reason. That’s the reason why the leader of the chapter of the Moms Demand Action endorsed me, it’s because of my commitment to gun safety in that way.
Amman: On Ross Nusser’s website he says that historical preservation is one of his most important values and at his last campaign event, he and his supporters were repeating similar things. The Iowa City Historical Preservation council is big into zoning and controlling what can and can’t be built in the city. Do you view that commission and its concerns about historical preservation as compatible with your affordable housing plans, or do you view them as NIMBY dog whistle?
Oliver: I guess it depends on who is saying it and their reasons for saying it. I’m someone who doesn’t think we need to be at odds at all. I think that we can maintain the character of a neighborhood, we can preserve important cultural things and buildings in our communities while at the same time adding density without having to tear down or heavily modify these places. I really like Friends of Historical Preservation because they’re really big on sustainability. If they have to demolish a historical site, they have a program, I’m blanking on the name right now [The Salvage Barn], but it’s for old historical buildings that have been torn down and they take the parts and the things from the historical building and store them there so if people who have a historical house or historical building, they need to repair it, they can recycle those things.
I think that it does not have to combat affordable housing. I don’t think it has to combat sustainability efforts. I think that they can work hand in hand. I really think that we should dispel the myth that you can’t have historical preservation while also building housing and adding density. I think we can bring the community together and really find a common ground on what type of architecture we want to use, and the scale of projects. There’s currently one being talked about now, it’s the rezoning of a place on North Governor street. They want to build what’s called the Goosetown apartments, and there’s lots of conversation going on there. A lot of people might think of zoning and this type of thing as boring, but I’m someone who has read lots of books about how zoning and city planning greatly affect cities, and how they are very political things that really play an important role. So, I don’t view these things as boring. A lot of people would. It’s fascinating how cool zoning can be.
Amman: On the topic of zoning, do you have a plan for that open downtown lot they’re talking about right now.
Oliver: Personally, I don’t have a plan. Obviously there are priorities of things. I don’t know exactly the stipulations or the costs involved, so I don’t know enough details to know what’s possible there, but I do know that the city has made a recommendation. There’s a few bids from different developers, and the city has made a recommendation to choose between one of the two. I’ve read both of the proposals, but I feel that I would need more context, and I would need to meet more with the city councilors and learn more about the process of how we got to this point to make an informed decision. I think it needs to be something that is very beneficial to the community and adds to our housing stock, I will say that.
Amanda: You’ve touched a little bit on the culture of community mindedness. A lot of times when it comes to politics, people feel like their voice isn’t heard. If you end up being elected, how do you plan to make yourself available to your constituents?
Oliver: I have my phone number on my website, and lots of people just cold call me, and I love that. I really want it to be known that I’m somebody who will meet with virtually anybody, and views everybody’s input in Iowa City as important. Not only just for me but I want people to feel that in general. I believe in the words of Henri Lefebvre or David Harvey, that people have a right to the city. I think that can start with more transparency with what the city is doing and the willingness of people to meet with anybody, the willingness of councilors to meet with anybody, so no one feels left out.
Rigby: What are your plans and intentions of non-enforcement for specific state and federal laws that target certain community members, such as anti-trans laws or the ICE executive orders?
Oliver: In terms of anti-trans laws, there’s the TAC, the Trans Action Committee, and I’ve met with lots of people who are in that committee. I’ve met with lots of different transgender individuals with different backgrounds in Iowa City constantly about this type of thing. What I will say is that there are ideas that the Iowa ACLU will like, and think that there’s a good chance of being successful. Also, organizations like One Iowa, that’s an advocacy group for LGBTQ rights in Iowa. I remember phone banking for them when I was in like 7th grade. That was when gay marriage was being passed in Iowa. Remember when we had a state government where that was possible? That’s crazy. I don’t know if you all remember, I’m kind of old. Like I was saying before about how we can get creative with our wording, we can get creative with how our role as the city council can direct our city attorney in a way of how he interprets law. That’s kind of vague but that is a direction that a lot of these organizations like.
When it comes to ICE, I think the city should do everything that it can in smart and strategic ways, like I was talking about with the mask mandate, we need to explore all options and work with lawyers and really try to explore how other communities are handling this. I don’t think it should be overlooked how much grassroots community organizing plays a role in protecting people in the community, and I think as a city, we can do so much in terms of providing education and resources to these grassroots organizations to effectively protect people. Tom Homan, he’s the director of ICE that Trump appointed, he went on I think CNN and was whining about how the people of Chicago know their rights too much and it’s making it hard for them to arrest people. So, he gets on TV and proves that if people, not only migrants know their rights, and if people in Iowa City know their rights, you do not have to talk to ICE, you do not have to talk to the police. Actually, I want Iowa City to have a culture where if ICE comes in here, they’re gonna get the door slammed in their face, and they know that we are a city that looks after each other and has solidarity with our neighbors, and we’re not gonna sell each other out. Those are directions I would love to go.
Rigby: Thank you for talking with us today, Oliver. Where can people can reach out to you if they have questions or concerns?
Oliver: My website is https://www.oliverforiowacity.com/
You can read more about everything on there: how to vote, where to vote, when to vote, and at the bottom of the website, my phone number is on there. I love getting calls and texts. I haven’t gotten any weird ones yet. My email is on there. I get a lot of emails and I respond as quickly as I can. I kind of understand why people have secretaries now, because it’s extremely hard to keep up with all this, but I make it a point on principle to try my absolute best to respond to everybody and to meet with everybody in good faith. Absolutely reach out to me.
You can reach Oliver at oweilein@gmail.com or (319) 269-5189
Note: We do not speak on behalf of the University of Iowa or the Board of Regents.
