Public service worth celebrating

Font Size:

By The Quad-City Times Editorial Board | Friday, April 04, 2008 |

The woman who held elected office in the Quad-Cities longer than any other should have been celebrating with friends and supporters when she retired from public service. She should have been at the head table, laughing at the toasts and stories, and telling a few of her own.

Certainly stories will abound when mourners gather for Karen Fitzsimmons’ visitation today. There will be some laughs, too. But the celebration of her public service remains muted by the somber surprise of her death. Fitzsimmons struggled three months with serious respiratory illness, but even last week many friends were hopeful she’d pull through.

She died Wednesday after just enough time in hospice to gather friends and co-workers for tearful goodbyes.

But a funeral is not a celebration. Her career is public service worth celebrating.

Crashing the ‘old boys club’

It wasn’t just gender that rankled the old boys’ network when Fitzsimmons upset a veteran incumbent to win countywide election in 1976. She was 27, younger than state Rep. Elesha Gayman, whose youthful victory in 2006 stunned observers.

This young, single mom kept smiling as she collided head on with some of those old boys. In her first term, she turned down a pay raise and made those who accepted theirs squirm a little. She gave her auditor’s staff a half-day off on Christmas Eve, earning some scorn from other department heads and a grievance from the union she’d actively supported.

In her second term, the old boys barked again when she allowed an employee to bring an infant son to work. Then there were the voter registration cards in Spanish, and her public criticism of nepotism in county and city offices.

The flaps came and went, but Fitzsimmons flourished, winning re-election again and again and again. Those big margins underscored the authority she carried with the Democratic Party, here, statewide and nationally.

So much more endures than those memories.

Fitzsimmons was among the leaders who brought professionalism to a county government regarded at that time with even less respect than municipal government held last year.

Her leadership helped create the post of county administrator, a job now held by Ray Wierson, whom Fitzsimmons recruited.

An advocate for openness

Her leadership also gave county residents transparent, fair elections with modern equipment that worked. She was the first in the Quad-Cities to make election information immediately available on the Web, not just election night, but year-round. Scott County led our community and Iowa with Web-accessible public records. If you want to see what Scott County might be like without Karen Fitzsimmons, just look across the river at Rock Island County.

Though a zealous Democrat, her advocacy for taxpayers knew no party. In a signed column in this newspaper, she criticized then-Secretary of State Chet Culver’s approach to voting reform, saying Scott County’s electronic voting machines were better than those Culver sought with tens of millions of federal dollars. Today, Iowa is spending another $5 million to replace the touchscreens Culver bought and Fitzsimmons warned against. As for the perfectly good electronic voting machines Culver condemned, Fitzsimmons sold them to a Wisconsin County where they remain in service today.

Her influence endures along with poignant memories of her charm, wit and laugh.

Karen Fitzsimmons’ public service merits celebration, even in sadness.