Our first ever town vs. gown city election is already producing misleading information from official sources, as witnessed by today's Press-Citizen:
City clerk Marian Karr said the most recent elected city councilors who were enrolled as UI students were Steven Kanner from 2000-03 and David Perret from 1976-1983.
Registrars at both the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College report that Kanner was never a student, either during his campaign or council tenure.
Kanner was 39 when elected in 1999 and was sworn in a week after his 40th birthday. Hardly the profile one thinks of when one thinks of "student." (Perret was 26 when first elected in 1975.)
The "mistake" seems like a dog-whistle for the townies: Kanner, who won by only two votes in 1999, was widely portrayed as an uncooperative gadfly during his one term. (Disclaimer: I voted for him and helped on the campaign a bit.) Calling Kanner a "student" seems like an effort to tar 2009 student candidates Jared Bazzell, Jeff Shipley and Dan Tallon with a guilt by association brush. Why not just put up Dickens and Mims yard signs at City Hall?
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