Community activist Oliver Weilein and local realtor Ross Nusser are facing off for the recently-vacated District C Iowa City City Council seat. Their competing visions for the city will be decided by the public in a March 4 special election showdown.
Ross Nusser’s homegrown campaign
Iowa City Northside resident Ross Nusser was already seated in a sea of coffee-drinking college students, sipping from his own white and brown to-go cup, when I walked in and greeted him with a handshake.
The Coffee Emporium on Linn Street is a brief jaunt from the Pedestrian Mall, where much of downtown Iowa City is centralized, but Nusser’s walk was much shorter. Living just across the street from the coffee shop, the property in which he sat was also one he worked to develop not even 10 years ago.
Nusser’s familiarity with the brick streets and buildings, the coffee shops, and the eclectic joints is not new, nor is his Northside connection. In fact, the fifth-generation Iowa City resident has deep ties with the city, a legacy he wants to continue to nurture.
“My combination of experience with government and nonprofits and my desire to serve my community, this is a natural extension,” Nusser said of his motivation to run in the upcoming District C special election in an interview with The Daily Iowan.
Nusser and local advocate Oliver Weilein are running for the now-vacant District C seat, serving an area that outlines the Manville Heights and Northside neighborhoods, as well as much of Shimek. That election, slated for March 4, will be open for all registered Iowa City voters.
Read more here.
Who’s afraid of Oliver Weilein?
Iowa City City Council candidate Oliver Weilein has just one apology for the social media rhetoric his opponent has called extremism.
Referring to a 2019 tweet in which he called ICE agents “pigs, evil fuc*ing traitors,” Weilein admitted the comparison was unfair. But not to the agents.
“I’m a vegan, so I would like to apologize to pigs,” Weilein said. “I volunteer at Iowa Farm Sanctuary, so a lot of the pigs are my homies.”
In addition to Iowa Farm Sanctuary, Weilein serves on the board of directors for Public Space One, is a founding member of the Iowa City Tenants Union, and regularly volunteers at the Emma Goldman Clinic.
Weilein also has a near-encyclopedic grasp of affordable housing models – armed with facts, statistics, and real-world examples to back slogans, like housing is a human right, that some might call lofty. Or even radical.
For Weilein, his political views are rooted in the simple belief that a better world is possible.
“People view competition and capitalism as human nature. It doesn’t have to be the case,” Weilein said. “Humans are capable of extreme good and extreme evil. It’s about how we structure society.”
Read more here.