THE LITTLE HAWK Iowa City, IA
Vol. 76
Friday, September 28, 2018
Issue 1
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Reaching new heights New construction of rental properties in Iowa City opens up old homes to families–and controversy By Lottie Gidal
P ABOVE: TJ Murphy ‘19 fills out a voter registration form PHOTO BY OLIVIA LUSALA
Ready, set, vote City High students worked with members of local organization NextGen, including a City alumna, to register voters in classrooms, the library, and around the school By Ellis Chen
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ith clipboards in hand, volunteers Naomi Meurice ‘19 and Lottie Gidal ‘19 sought voting-eligible students to register. The duo spent their Monday morning circulating the library to make sure that they had covered each student. “I want to get as many people possible registered to vote, particularly high school students. There are a lot of high school students that aren’t registered that could be and could vote,” Meurice said. “There’s also a huge college population here and they can all vote in Iowa as long as they don’t vote in another state.” As the November election looms, the two have worked with NextGen, an organization focused on bolstering the youth vote. Although originally focused on preventing climate change through voter mobilization, NextGen has expanded to a wider scope of issues commonly supported by youth, from immigration to health care reform. “Young people haven’t always vot-
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ed [in] as high of rates as their older ages of 18 and 34 voting. Despite this, counterparts. A lot of campaigns and members of the organization remain organizations, as optimistic about a result, haven’t the youth vote. figured that focus“I want people “I WANT TO GET AS MANY ing on investing to know that votPEOPLE REGISTERED TO ing is power, alin young people VOTE, PARTICULARLY is worth it. [They though it might believe] it’s a lost HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. seem like a small cause because thing. People say, THERE ARE A LOT OF HIGH ‘Oh, I’m one perthey’re not going to vote anyway,” SCHOOL STUDENTS THAT son, it’s only one Emmet Sandberg, but that one AREN’T REGISTERED AND vote,’ Iowa City’s Nextvote could change COULD BE AND COULD Gen organizer, things,” NextGen said. “We’re really media fellow VOTE.” focused on meetShayna Jaskolka ing young people ‘18 said. “[There NAOMI MEURICE ‘19 where they’re at, are] all these sinhearing out in gle people who the issues that say, ‘My one vote they care about, and then working to may not matter,’ but it does when you get them out to vote, which is such an add them all up. So teaching people important thing.” the importance of actually going out NextGen could be fighting an and voting and having your voice be uphill battle, however. According to heard is one of my biggest goals.” the Census Bureau, the last midterm Jaskolka spent the summer volelection cycle experienced low voterunteering and doing door-to-door turnout among young people, with canvassing to register youth voters. just 23.1 percent of people between the Additionally, Jaskolka and other vol-
unteers distributed “Pledge to Vote” cards, which remind people who have already registered to vote in the midterm elections. “I think NextGen is super important for young people because a lot of them are very passionate and fired up about politics right now,” Jaskolka said. So far, NextGen has attempted to boost the youth vote and replicate progressive victories in other states by registering hundreds of voters, including around 1600 of the students coming to the University of Iowa campus for the first time. “We just saw a primary election in Florida and [Andrew Gillum] is a NextGen-endorsed candidate who very few people thought could win. He ended up winning largely because of unprecedented levels of youth voter turnout around the colleges and universities that we were organizing in,” Sandberg said. “So we know that what we’re doing works. We saw it in Virginia in 2017, where we’ve dramatically changed the landscape of politics in the states, and that’s what we’re trying to do here and all over the country come November.”
Rowing
National Merit
The Iowa River is one of the most pollutted in the country, but Mae Crooks ‘19 doesn’t care. For two hours every day, she is gliding on top, taking in the feel of the water beneath her oars. A16
Four City High students will advance to become semi-finalists for the National Merit Scholarship competition in 2018. Liza Sarsfield, Lillian Prybil, Jack Bacon, and Quinn Kopelman are among 16,000 students nationwide to achieve this honor. A4
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roposals are underway to build yet another building over 10 stories in the downtown, following the Chauncey. These structures have created controversy among citizens, who debate over issues ranging from rent control, to affordable housing, to pure aesthetics. The four-building, 15-story Pentacrest Garden Complex plans to house upwards of 800 new living units downtown. The plans were proposed at a community City Council meeting where residents were invited to share their views. Resident Emily Legel described the complex as a key step towards preventing college students from driving families out of single-family homes being used as rentals. Over the course of the past year, the city has taken steps to diversify the ages of homeowners in some of Iowa City’s longstanding neighborhoods. A cap was placed on the number of rental permits available in what the city has qualified as “historic neighborhoods.” However, this was in direct contradiction to a state law passed just over a year ago. Iowa City had previously disallowed more than three unrelated people living in a house together without a rental permit, but House File 134 banned this practice. The move was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a statement from Rita Bettis, the legal director. “City restrictions can no longer severely harm moderate-income homeowners who rely on sharing their homes with unrelated renters to meet their monthly mortgage payments,” Bettis said. “They have operated as highly restrictive planning devices that sweep too broadly in an attempt to solve student rental problems in predominantly single-family neighborhoods.” Some of these problems include disruption for neighbors and a lack of upkeep in historic homes being used as rentals. continued on A7
Table Talk: When is the N-word ok?
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