T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY - From left to right, State Center Mayor Craig Pfantz, Le Grand Mayor Pro Tem Judy Cecak, Le Grand Mayor Jodi Abrahams, Albion Mayor Pat Hemming, Albion City Councilman Chris Eirikson, Melbourne Mayor Cynthia “Boo” Mansager, Liscomb Mayor Dynette Mosher and Gilman Mayor Les Meyers pose for a photo at the Le Grand Community Center on Saturday morning. The mayors of Marshall County’s small communities have been meeting informally on a periodic basis for about a year now to discuss issues they are facing and how to address them.

LE GRAND — With their limited budgets, staff and resources, the leaders of Marshall County’s small communities outside of Marshalltown face many of the same challenges in dealing with their day-to-day business. As a result, about a year ago, Albion Mayor Pat Hemming first organized an informal meeting of the minds — first on a monthly basis, and now every other month to ensure that attendance stays steady.

“As problems arise, it’s kind of nice to discuss them amongst other mayors of similar sized cities,” State Center Mayor Craig Pfantz said.

On Saturday morning, a total of seven mayors, a mayor pro tem and an Albion city councilman gathered at the Le Grand Community Center to run through a host of items, with plans to continue meeting at rotating sites for the rest of 2025. The topics of conversation during the event, which ran a little over an hour, ranged from law enforcement — outside of Marshalltown, only State Center has its own police department within the county — to property tax rates with reforms looming at the Statehouse to employee salary increases to nuisance abatement to the countywide 911 Commission to situations where an unruly council member is censured for his or her actions.

Le Grand Mayor Jodi Abrahams said their biggest problem on the law enforcement front has been underage ATV drivers, and Melbourne Mayor Cynthia “Boo” Mansager referenced an issue with vandalism in her community. Some of the communities have used cameras on public property to help capture criminal activity and submit it to the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).

On the nuisance matter, different cities have different approaches: in some cases, the mayor or council is directly responsible for declaring a property a nuisance, while State Center uses a nuisance officer who also serves as a reserve police officer and is accompanied by an on-duty police officer for citations. Pfantz noted the difficulty of addressing the subject, especially in small communities where most people know each other and “Iowa Nice” is the prevailing ethos.

“I like the (shared) nuisance officer idea myself, but who goes with her? That’s the problem. Does the mayor go with that person, or if you have a police department, it’s ideal. We can’t get the sheriff’s department to buy into that,” Hemming said after the meeting.

Acquiring farmland and attracting developers to build new housing is another huge challenge, but Pfantz, whose community is the second largest in the county with about 1,400 residents, did note that they’ve had some success in developing and selling lots and touted the use of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as an incentive toward doing so.

After they had adjourned, some members of the group discussed its origins, their goals and how they hope the meetings will continue to evolve in the future.

“I just called (and) said we were meeting. Come with ideas, you know, things that are happening in your town. Maybe we can brainstorm on how each town is doing it,” Hemming said. “We have a lot of the same problems and no money. That’s it.”

Even within the group, though, Abrahams said there are differences between places like State Center, Le Grand and Melbourne with populations of 700 and up and the smaller ones with just a few hundred people. In Albion (pop. 441 as of 2023), which employs a city clerk and a “town man” or public works director, they are required to complete testing 365 days a year, so if the town man wants to take a weekend off, covering it can be a struggle.

Pfantz commented that State Center has a city employee who helps with testing in smaller surrounding towns like Clemons and suggested reaching out for assistance when needed. He also worried about the state legislature dictating the property tax levy rates that cities, counties and school districts can set.

“It’s a huge problem. We would be cutting services. We’d be cutting some people, probably,” Pfantz said.

The next meeting will be hosted in Albion on Saturday, March 15, and Melbourne will host the May gathering.

“It would be nice if we could find some common solutions and not reinvent the wheel, and I think there’s some camaraderie in knowing who people are. You go to a meeting and you see somebody, but it’s nice to be able to make a relationship as opposed to seeing a name in the paper,” Mansager said.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.