At its formal meeting on Tuesday night, the Coralville City Council voted to cancel its contract with Flock Safety and remove the two Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras already installed on city property. There had been growing community opposition to the use of Flock’s ALPR cameras in Coralville since last July when the city’s […]
Coralville City Council
Posted inLetters
Letter to the editor: Why I cannot support Flock cameras in Coralville
By Hai Huynh, Coralville City Councilor Last year, the contract to purchase Flock’s automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) was signed as part of the City of Coralville’s budget process — before most people even knew it was happening, and before we had even talked about it as a council. When the police chief later returned […]
Posted inLetters
Letter to the editor: Connect the dots and join the resistance against Flock and the surveillance network
By Bryan Clark, Dawn Clark, Justin K Comer, Fenek Coney, Katie Dennis, Joseph Dutcher, Will Gunnerson, Leah Otting, Tara McGovern, Alannah Swenka, Ryan Swenka, Bailey Welchhance, Maggie Welchhance and Dan Wohlers When Ring advertised their new AI-powered Search Party function during the Super Bowl as a solution for finding lost dogs, people were rightfully concerned. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa City Council now accepting applications to fill its upcoming vacancy
Iowa City is now accepting applications for the upcoming vacancy on the city council that will happen when at-large member Janice Weiner steps down at the beginning of next year. Weiner submitted her resignation after winning election to the Iowa Senate in a landslide victory in this month’s general election. The resignation takes effect on […]
Posted inEastern Iowa
Coralville City Council appoints Keith Jones to fill its vacant seat
Keith Jones was sworn in as the newest member of the Coralville City Council on Tuesday night during the council’s regular meeting. Jones fills the vacancy left by the resignation of Jill Dodds on April 26. The retired banker was one of six candidates the city council interviewed for the opening during a special meeting […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Coralville taking applications to fill the vacant seat on its city council
The City of Coralville is now taking applications to fill the vacancy on the city council left by the resignation of Jill Dodds last month. The council voted 3-1 at its meeting on Tuesday to fill the vacancy by an appointment rather than hold a special election. During a discussion at the council’s May 10 […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Jill Dodds resigns from Coralville City Council following husband’s arrest for ‘a horrible crime he didn’t commit’
Coralville City Councilmember Jill Dodds resigned during Tuesday night’s council meeting, following what she called “false allegations” against her husband for “a horrible crime he didn’t commit.” Jeffrey Dodds was arrested on April 18 by Johnson County Sheriff’s deputies on two counts of second-degree sexual abuse. The Dodds own and operate Simple Abundance Child Care […]
Posted inCommunity/News
ACLU of Iowa warns Coralville its panhandling ordinance is unconstitutional, calls for its repeal
The ACLU of Iowa sent a letter to Coralville and three other cities on Tuesday, warning that their ordinances against panhandling are unconstitutional. As part of an ongoing review of such ordinances in Iowa, the state chapter of the ACLU determined Coralville, Dubuque, Davenport and Bettendorf have bans on panhandling that “violate free speech and […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘We need to leverage every resource possible’: Coralville City Councilmember Hai Huynh kicks off her reelection campaign
“I feel like we just did this yesterday,” Hai Huynh said at the kickoff event for her reelection campaign in Coralville’s Central Park on Monday evening. Huynh was elected to the Coralville City Council in the September 2020 special election to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of Tom Gill. Huynh won the four-way […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘I’m ready to get to work’: Hai Huynh elected to the Coralville City Council
In a special election with a higher voter turnout than last year’s regular city election, Coralville voters elected Hai Huynh to the city council last night. Huynh scored an impressive victory in the four-candidate race, receiving 52.5 percent of the votes cast. The second-place finisher was Barry Bedford with 35.5 percent of the vote. Bedford […]
Posted inCommunity/News
What you need to know ahead of Coralville’s Sept. 29 special election
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, a special election will be held in Coralville to fill a vacant seat on the city council. The vacancy was created when longtime Coralville City Councilmember Tom Gill resigned in late July, after coming under fire for comments made during a virtual meeting of the council focused in part on racial […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Coralville City Councilmember who called Black Lives Matter ‘criminals’ resigns
Longtime Coralville City Councilmember Tom Gill resigned on Friday, three days after making inflammatory statements about Black Lives Matter during a council meeting. “BLM, to a lot of people, is a great organization,” the five-term councilor said near the end of last Tuesday’s Zoom meeting, which was streamed publicly.
