We’ll be spending much of the weekend cleaning and cooking because it’s time for a party. Sunday night, Ed Fallon, a longtime member of the Iowa House, candidate for governor in 2006, and founder of I'M for Iowa (www.imforiowa.org) will be here with his accordion (he’s an Iowa State Fair prize-winner) to help kick off the Wright for City Council campaign in style!

I’m for Iowa is dedicated to developing a broad movement committed to progressive reform in state and local politics. One of their goals is to help local candidates get elected and to support them in office. I’m one of those local candidates and I’m so pleased and honored that Ed’s coming to give me a hand.

Please make it a point to stop by Sunday evening between 6:30 and 8 PM at our house, 225 N. Lucas St. in Iowa City. Donations will be gladly accepted, but don’t let that keep you away – come on by! For more information call 358-9344. See you Sunday night.

PS: Our dogs, Tank & Molly, and the cats won’t be able to attend the party -- it interferes with their weekly Scrabble game.

As long as I could remember, my mom opened her mail with a switchblade knife. I never thought this was odd, and never really thought about it at all. My mom was a cop in Detroit. She joined the force in 1941, generally working vice, so maybe my tolerance for the unusual is higher than most. While visiting her a number of years back I watched as Mom began to open the mail. It suddenly struck me that very few 85-year-old women opened their mail with a switchblade, so I asked. Turns out she’d arrested a prostitute in about 1945, found the pearl-handled switchblade in the woman’s stocking, thought it was pretty, and pocketed it. Ethical issues aside (my “You stole it???!!” got a defensive reaction – with the hindsight of 55 years she knew she shouldn’t have) it is a pretty knife. Mom is gone now, as I’m guessing is the prostitute, and the knife is one of those freaky mementos that many families have.

The point? Having grown up with a switchblade-wielding, prize-winning sharpshooter police officer for a mom is a little different, and it’s also given me some valuable perspectives. The police have a special place in my heart, and I’ve always been keenly aware of issues affecting them. One issue confronting our department here in Iowa City is a lack of staff. Our police force is badly short of officers; we have 71. Champaign, IL with a nearly identical population, has 94. Waterloo, Iowa, slightly larger than Iowa City, has 80 patrol officers. Coralville, one-thid the population of Iowa City, has 29 officers.

This isn’t good for Iowa City’s businesses and residents. Not only do we have fewer officers on the street than we need, it means there are police-sponsored programs that we simply can’t staff, such as Neighborhood Watch. If elected to the City Council I promise to do all I can to convince my fellow councilors that this is an important need and one we need to address sooner, rather than later.

My partner and I are both animal lovers. We have a small menagerie. Our cats range from the creaky, 18 year-old Mr. Higgins to six-week-old Hetty, a stray we found living in our garage a week ago. We have two dogs as well: Molly the Princess, a beautiful and astonishingly smart Australian Shepherd , and our other baby, Tank, a huge loveable German Shepherd mix. All our pets, save little Hetty the stray, were adopted from shelters. The quality they add to our lives can't be measured.

Right now our local shelter needs everyone's help. Nearly 60 dogs and an even larger number of cats need homes. Moreover, the materials needs of housing them are huge. If you want to and are able to adopt, please think about doing so now. And whether you can adopt or not, please go to www.icanimalcenter.org and review the list of what's needed. This is the time to lend a hand to these folks and these animals. Thanks.

So what about the proposed extended outdoor seating on the Ped Mall in front of (and at the behest of) The Saloon? This is on the College St. section of the Mall, just east of Clinton St. The seating would be on top of the large limestone planter in front of The Saloon and Donnelly’s Pub. It’s in the public right-of-way. Do you think it would set a precedent – will it open up the Ped Mall to private concerns? Is this is OK or not a good idea? How would you want your City Council to react to such a proposal? Is it an issue at all? I’m really curious as to what people think on this one. Thanks!