by BRIAN COOPER
TH executive editor

TH: Looking ahead, in terms of the city, what would you say is undone?
AM: I think it's going on right now. While we were at a city council meeting, the committee for the Envision project was looking at the 30 things we (as a community) came up with. Port of Dubuque. We need to do some things there. We still need to work on a broader appreciation of our citizens for our heritage buildings, our treasures that we just can't say, "Well, we've done enough." We have to weigh that. Should we really do it? Another thing I'm very concerned about is the library. I don't think Dubuque appreciates what a treasure we have in our library. And I don't think people understand really that one big building downtown is not adequate in a city even of our size. Even with 56,000 people, one library with no branches, I don't think is good. What else? Downtown revitalization. I think targeting the Washington neighborhood. This neighborhood has come back nicely. We still have some issues, but certainly... But I still like living here. But community-oriented police, the revitalization of the park, the fixing up of a number of the buildings, all of these things I think have helped. And I'd like to see that same process continued in the Washington Park neighborhood.

TH: A minute ago you mentioned the sexual orientation amendment to the human rights ordinance, and given the recent election and the position of the candidates - at least previously stated - it appears that the votes are there for that amendment to pass. Do you anticipate that coming up before the council in the near future?
AM: I have had people from the Human Rights Commission go both directions. I think that they are very sensitive to the fact that this is not universally accepted in the community and they don't want to appear like they're saying nyah, nyah, nyah. No one wants to do that. I don't want to do it at the second or third meeting, but I hope that they will do it soon and if everyone continues to hold the position that they held in the campaign. I think that there are two things about the campaign. It did become a larger issue than I think most of us were comfortable with. I know that when I ran back in '99, it became the issue in that campaign also. I remember how disappointed I was - not that the Telegraph Herald endorsed me, I was pleased to be endorsed - but they endorsed me because they liked the position I had taken on the ordinance. I thought, "Gee, I've been a council member for four years and I think I've done some really good things and the only thing they're mentioning is they like my position on it and they like why I've taken the position." TIF (tax increment financing) is really a big issue but most people don't understand it and don't really want to understand it because it is complicated. Bud Isenhart just loves (discussing) it and he's the state expert on it, but most people don't care to go into that much. Historic preservation? I thought that that would be a larger issue than it was, but it just kind of ended up that that was where people talked and that's both a good sign and a bad sign. I think it's too bad that that was the issue, but if everything else was going along pretty well, then maybe that's to be expected.

TH: What line of work was your father in?
AM: My father was a night superintendent in the steel mill. Acme Steel Co. in Riverdale, Ill.

TH: Your mother?
AM: My mother was a homemaker. It was a Depression marriage. They were married in 1931. They were married on Saturday, Nov. 7, 1931 and my mother finished work at 5 on Friday, Nov. 6, 1931, because every penny was needed, but she didn't work again until after my father died. She directed the choir and was a room mother. During the war she came every week and sold the war stamps at school. She was a cookie baker. All those complete, full-time moms. Since my dad worked nights, she was very much a full-time mom because he would leave for work at 4 in the afternoon and during the war wouldn't get home until maybe 18 hours later and worked seven days a week.

TH: How was it you made the cross-over from church-affiliated activities to the political world?
AM: The church people knew me because when I came to Dubuque, we came to Dubuque in August of 1979. The garbage was picked up two or three times a week, I think, and the streets were swept two or three times a week. There was a big staff at City Hall and there seemed to be plenty of money and everything was prosperous and going great. We lived up on Hill Street and this house became available and we bought the house and moved into it on Dec. 24, 1980. I think, six months later, the value of the house was cut in half. We probably spent more on the house than it was worth anyway, but we loved it. I was the only full-time lay woman in pastoral ministry at that time. I was the only person other than church secretaries who worked full-time in a church downtown. I became kind of the unofficial social worker for the downtown parishes. The priests supported me in doing that. I was able to, Sister Rita Claire and I used to spend a lot of our time really visiting poor people, trying to get them lined up with St. Vincent DePaul, but it was all very church-related. Then the next step was Dubuque Area Christians United, as it was then called. But I'd always been a church person and that just seemed like the place I was going to stay. I've always been interested in politics all my life, but I never thought of myself as being in an elected office or doing anything like that.

TH: Regarding a voter's comment that he didn't want a woman mayor. This was 2001, not 1901, right?
AM: 2001. But I think there's a lot of that. Iowa is still a state that has never had a woman governor. We are a state that has never sent a woman to Congress. We are a state who has had two women lieutenant governors, who I think are treated in kind of a general way and in a very condescending way by the media in Iowa. You know, "Lovely ladies but let's get real." I think that's an Iowa thing.

TH: Let me just poke at that a bit. Isn't that just sort of the lot of lieutenant governor? If you go back. I've gotten to know Bob Anderson, who was lieutenant governor. That was his impression, too.
AM: But I think the last two governors have really tried to change that. I knew Joy Corning because I was on several pretty significant statewide committees with her. She was a very able woman. I think that Terry Branstad gave her significant work. Certainly, Gov. Vilsack had treated Sally Peterson well - and she has had very significant jobs - but it's kind of minimized. That whole thing. You can't just say it's the state level. We have had some very able women run for Congress and yet Iowa is a state where women are very powerful in many, many ways. As you have noted, the Dubuque City Council will be the majority women beginning in January. I still wonder if that mantra from that good ole guy, "Don't want no woman for mayor." They want to have a suit sitting in that middle chair.

TH: I certainly appreciate your comments about our coverage. We also appreciate that when we call and ask your opinion, that we get it.
AM: I was a schoolteacher in Chicago. And in my parish, I sang in the choir and was on the parish board of education. I never had a story in the paper or had any contact with the media other than when I graduated from high school and college, and when I got engaged, and when I got married. Those were my four total news stories. So when I came to Dubuque, the first thing I found out is that I was news because I was the first lay woman to be full-time pastoral minister. So I was interviewed both by The Witness and by the Telegraph Herald. It went well. It was fine. I never expected it to be anything but fine. When I have a reporter call, I always assume it's going to be OK. And it always has been. No "gotcha!" No gross misquote; sometimes a little misquote or something wasn't quite in the context. I still regret the "Taj Mahal" remark (regarding the condominiums proposed at Eagle Point bluff). I'd asked Matt (Kittle), "Don't use that," but he said, "That's too good." He did use that. I kind of got hit for that, but that's kind of the fun of it. I'm always perfectly willing to do a story because I feel that, especially the young reporters when they're just starting out, if you make life miserable for them, make them wait until the meeting is over then you've had your lunch and they're sitting there with a deadline and they're trying to get... I just think that kind of game-playing is mean.