Latham wins Mason City council at-large seat, Masson re-elected to Third Ward seat

MASON CITY — Tim Latham won a seat on Mason City’s City Council on Tuesday, filling the at-large seat vacated by the death of Tom Thoma earlier this year. Latham received 68% of the votes cast in the race to beat Kevin Easley and Leon Robertson.

Latham lost his last election, the 2022 Republican primary against fellow Cerro Gordo County Supervisors Chris Watts after both men were thrown into the same district after redistricting.  Latham thanked the Mason City voters for having confidence in him to serve the two-year term.  “I tell you what that feels pretty darn good after that for whatever reason, but I’ve lived here a long time, I’ve been involved in the community for years, and I guess I just feel like this is to tell me to go get things done.”

Latham feels among the issues that the council needs to be addressed is moving forward on finishing up the River City Renaissance project as well as housing needs in the community.  “I really believe that we need to sit down and take a hard look at housing, and when I say that I mean single-family housing. If they want to build more apartments fine, but if we don’t build some single-family homes, we’re not going to get people to come here to Mason City to work and live. As you know, we need that to invite more industry into our community, so those are important factors.”

Latham won with 2627 votes, with Easley getting 861 and Robertson 355. 

=== Joshua Masson won re-election to his Third Ward council seat, getting 67% of the vote in a win over challenger Ryan Schupick. Masson thanks the voters for their vote of confidence in the job he’s been doing.  “I think it shows that the voters think I’m doing a good job, and I look forward to continuing to do a good job in serving my constituents in the city of Mason City.”

Masson says he looks forward to the city continuing to make progress during his next term.  “Well I think sometimes it’s difficult when some of these projects take a long time, it’s kind of hard to show progress sometimes, and things kind of look like they are stalling, but I think in this next couple of years here, you’re going to really start to see some really huge things that have been in the works for many years and we’ll be able to finally see some of the results of all the hard work for many, many people over a couple of years here.”

Masson hopes the final piece of progress can be made with the hotel and mall renovation connected to the River City Renaissance project.  “I know we keep saying it’s really close, but there’s that last milestone, there’s so many little details that’ve got to be buttoned up. All the stuff that gets kicked down the road, well now we’re down to the end of the road. Things will happen and I think it will be a great amenity for Mason City, and I hope to see a good year with that next year.”

Masson beat Schupick by almost 400 votes, 780-382.

== At-large councilman Paul Adams and First Ward councilman John Lee ran unopposed in their bids for re-election. 

== In the Mason City Park Board race, incumbents Jay Lala and Troy Levenhagen won re-election on the three-person ballot. Lala had 2690 votes with Levenhagen winning with 1889 ballots. Scot Wilson finished third with 1431.