By Anelia K. Dimitrova
Kelly Dunn, the plain talking, vocal at-large councilwoman on the Cedar Falls City Council, is seeking reelection. She is running unopposed.
If you’ve ever watched her speak during council meetings – and speak she does – you’d never wonder where she stands on issues: she says it exactly as she sees it.
A nurse with a family of three kids and a supportive husband, she’s been doing the job for the past five years with common sense and candor that have earned her the respect of her fellow councilors, city staff and even her opponents.
“I’m not set in my ways,” she said. “I’m willing to listen and to learn.”
How Dunn got on the council
In Cedar Falls, city government is structured like this: the mayoral term is for two years and there are seven council persons, who serve staggered, four-year terms.
Five of the councilors represent the constituents in their respective wards and the two who serve in the at-large roles, including Dunn, represent voters across all of Cedar Falls.
This is Dunn’s third run for office and the first time she is running unopposed.
The first time she threw her hat into the ring in 2020, Dunn was the fifth candidate in a special election to fill the remainder of the term of then council member Rob Green, who decided to run for mayor.
At that time, Dunn stepped into the public spotlight at the last minute, gathering the required signatures for getting listed on the ballot in just a few days. That special election for the at-large seat ended up in a run-off, which she won.
During the campaign, she worked 12-hour overnight shifts at the hospital because of the pandemic, on top of her family and campaign duties.
“It was such a contentious time,” she said, recalling the climate in the country and in front of the council. “Even here, in little Cedar Falls, my husband voiced concern. I don’t want to say, for the physical safety of our children, but for maybe emotional safety or mental health.”
Then, she won, surprising even herself.
“To be honest, when I did win, I don’t think anybody expected me to win,” she said. “I never thought I would win.”
But there was no time for a big celebration or extended prep to help guide her on how to serve on the council.
In short order, she was in the council chair, trying to figure out how to do the job.
Meanwhile, the world had come to a standstill because of the global pandemic.
The learning curve that is usually afforded a new council person became steeper for Dunn in that time of uncertainty.
But when the seat came up for the next regular election, Dunn decided to keep going, despite the challenges.
This time, again, she won a contested race, against one of the candidates who ran in the earlier special election.
The Nov. 4 election this fall marks her third run for office and her second for a full term.
Having learned how to do the job from the ground up and in tumultuous times, Dunn, 47, said she knows what’s at stake in representing the people.
“It’s an honor to be voted in, but it is service,” she said. “It’s like when you’re a parent and you really never stop thinking about your child, even when they’re not with you. And I think serving in this position is kind of like that, that even when I try to get away, it’s always in my brain.”
What it takes to do the job
Having grown up on a farm in Buchanan County, Dunn moved to Cedar Falls in 1996 to attend the University of Northern Iowa and then transferred to Hawkeye Community College where she studied practical nursing. That has been her profession ever since.
The hands-on approach and the compassion which are prerequisites for nursing come through Dunn’s work as a council woman.
She says she enjoys the collegiality and the trust in the council chambers.
“It’s nice to sit with folks who, even though we may not agree, I believe that the majority of folks that I sit with want the best for our community,” she said. “That’s wavered a little bit a couple of times, but when I think about it, I do still think that’s true.”
Yet, she is not one to gloss over the challenges that confront council members even in a town like Cedar Falls where, for the most part, civility is part of the process.
“There’s been a couple of times in the last couple years where I just didn’t know if I’d keep going, but then I do think that one of the things that I’ve got going for me now is I have been doing it for five years,” she said.
She said the job is demanding and her husband, Chris, a pipefitter and a member of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 125 out of Cedar Rapids, supports her in her dedication to civic duty.
“He listens to me and my kids are proud of me,” she says. “But also, they do know that I’m not at home as much as I would be otherwise. So definitely, when I say it’s a service, it’s your whole family’s serving.”
What she wants to see done if reelected
Dunn said state and federal priorities frame the parameters within which local government functions, so setting the national scene aside, she wants to stay focused on what can be accomplished with the help of locally controlled authority.
One of her priorities is keeping city services, like emergency services, the library and the Hearst Center, funded despite the cuts in the budget that came as a result of the 2023 property tax reform.
“I believe it’s $875,000 that went away from our library levy and out of our budget. That’s now coming from our general fund,” she said. “That’s a significant chunk of change.”
Dunn said she wants to see some developments that have been simmering for a long time, like College Hill, move forward.
“That’s been a battle since before I was in council and we’ve defunded it a few times and I feel like there’s really good energy right now up here,” she said. “I would like to hopefully work through that, if I’m reelected in the next four years to actually get some work done as far as what the city can do.”
She said the council has not done as much as she had hoped in this term. She praised the work of city staff who work at the direction of the council, and the mayor, but sometimes find themselves caught in the politics of an issue.
“I want to make sure that our staff, we aren’t putting too much on their plate when we know right now, we’re really lean. We have the leanest staff per capita in the whole state,” she said. “I want us to be a healthy elected body. So that we can be healthy first for our staff because to me, the people who work every day doing the work of the city, if they’re not the most important part, they’re very high up there. And we don’t sometimes, in my opinion, give them a lot of respect by our actions. So I’m hoping that it continues to get better.”
She added that tackling such issues as the intersection on Highway 58 and Greenhill Road, would be another one of her goals.
It is now on the DOT’s shortlist and expected to be started in the next five to seven years, but she is worried that the current economic reality may delay the project even further.
“It is one of the most dangerous intersections in the whole state,” she emphasized.
Dunn said she loves the fact that citizens in town have a strong tradition of volunteering, but sometimes the fruits of that labor can be put to a better use by the council.
“We ask for a lot of people’s time – to serve on commissions or to take surveys. But then we take what we get from that feedback and we just throw it aside, and we don’t do anything with it,” she said. “And I think to myself, what does that say to our community members, we asked you for your input, we asked you for your time, but we really don’t respect any of it.”
Dunn said she is proud of the resilience plan, which the city adopted in 2024, which spells strategies for sustainable survival ranging from economic challenges to weather emergencies.
“It was never adopted at first, and then this council, the current council that sits, did come together,” she said.
Why she is running now
Dunn says her work on the council is not done.
Other issues she hopes to drive to the fore are projects like College Square Mall and how the city can make it easier for childcare providers to be successful, among others.
A believer in term limits, she says it takes a special person to put themselves in service to their community in elected office. As an example of that she pointed to the many races in the Nov. 4 election, where no candidate is listed on the ballot.
“People think that there’s some kind of deep pool of people that are just lining up to do these important jobs,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s true. You have to be comfortable putting yourself out there, which can be kind of scary. And also, you just have to make the commitment to do the work.”
Dunn said when citizens reach out to her, she listens to their concerns with an open mind.
“They like my honesty and my bluntness,” she said. “I think people are sick of BS. And they also appreciate that I don’t always know which way I’m going to vote.”
She said that discussions during the meeting and hearing others’ perspectives have, on several occasions, changed her mind.
“I don’t make decisions to get votes,” she said.