The stakes of a Johnson County grudge ratcheted up last week, and now a colleague’s high-dollar city contract is in the crosshairs.
Documents show Johnson County Supervisor Royceann Porter is pressuring Iowa City officials to investigate, and even reconsider honoring, a contract with fellow Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz’s private consulting firm.
IPR News obtained a message Porter sent from her government email address last Thursday that was addressed to Iowa City leaders. The message called for a review of Fixmer-Oraiz’s work facilitating the city’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or TRC. In May, the Iowa City City Council approved a $402,700 proposal for four groups to facilitate the work of the TRC. One of them was Astig Planning, Fixmer-Oraiz’s consulting firm.
In the email to Iowa City officials, Porter accused Fixmer-Oraiz of disrupting and harming county board proceedings and raised questions about their judgment. Porter further accused Fixmer-Oraiz of a conflict of interest, saying being a county supervisor and a contracted facilitator with the city raises questions about their “personal biases.”
Porter wrote that it is her “sincere hope” the Iowa City City Council reconsiders “payments to this facilitator.”
Fixmer-Oraiz told IPR News that prior to contracting with Iowa City, they spoke with the county attorney about avoiding conflicts of interest.
“I understand she made those accusations, but I feel really solidly that there’s nothing there,” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “All of these accusations questioning my character, I find it absolutely baseless.”
Porter seemed to agree that the letter wasn’t about Fixmer-Oraiz. When asked about the letter’s contents on Monday morning, she said she might retract it because going after Fixmer-Oraiz "wasn’t the intent.”
“No, that letter is about the TRC. their commissioners. My intention was for them (Iowa City City Councilors) to look at what they’re doing,” Porter said. “This wasn’t about V Fixmer-Oraiz.”
Proclamations wax old vendettas
For over a year, Porter’s bad blood with former members of Iowa City’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been a perennial feature of Johnson County civics. In a dust-up last week, Porter got into a shouting match with a former and current member of the TRC that brought the meeting to a halt. But this is the first time hostilities have spilled into government contracting.
'MAKE IT MAKE SENSE' - A Johnson County Board of Supervisors work session erupted in a shouting match. Supervisor Royceann Porter still has an axe to grind over being called a slur in a podcast last year.
— Zachary Oren Smith (@ZacharyOS) October 5, 2023
A couple of things.https://t.co/86AsqdMHpP
Central to recent squabbles is one of county government’s most innocuous responsibilities: proclamations. They happen weekly, recognizing occasions big and small. A proclamation for Public Health Week. Another honoring the already federally-recognized MLK Day.
But until last week, there hadn’t been any proclamations for more than a month. On Aug. 30, Johnson County put proclamations on hiatus. Supervisor Fixmer-Oraiz called for a pause, saying the presentations had produced bad feelings in the community.
A month before that the Board of Supervisors presented a proclamation recognizing Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Awareness Day to the Great Plains Action Society’s Sikowis Nobiss, a longtime Indigenous activist.
Typically after a proclamation is read and presented, the board takes a photo following some remarks from the recipient. Nobiss spoke about the dangers facing Indigenous people in the U.S.
Porter took issue with Nobiss’ statement.
“It should be for all people,” she said. “Indigenous, whatever. It has to be reciprocated.”
Nobiss’ reaction was to skip the photo-op and leave the meeting. At the Aug. 30 meeting, Fixmer-Oraiz referred back to this moment as an example of proceedings hurting people’s feelings.
“I’m not really here to call people out. I’m trying to call people in,” Fixmer-Oraiz said during the meeting. “I’m not trying to say that it is just you, Royceann.”
But Porter disagreed and said other supervisors were prioritizing Nobiss over her.
Nobiss took to Facebook a few days after the meeting calling Porter a bully: “That’s how she gets her ‘work’ done.”
“She’s trying to pull me into an argument that went down between her and another commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission last year—(something) that I had absolutely nothing to do with,” Nobiss wrote.
It’s still 2022
In both the July and August meetings this year, Porter brought up an old fracas with former Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner Amel Ali.
When Porter led the TRC, Ali was on the commission. When Porter resigned in 2021, Ali became a TRC leader. All the while, members of the commission spoke about how the city council’s lack of support for the TRC bred a hostile environment among their ranks.
Things came to a head in June 2022. Ali guest starred on two now-deleted episodes of the Iowa political commentary podcast Rock Hard Caucus. In it, Ali voiced her frustration about working with older Black activists in Iowa. In addition to disparaging a few Black Iowa City leaders, she called Porter a slur, implying that she sells out other Black people in service of white people.
Both Ali and Porter identify as Black. In public, Porter will often draw a distinction between Black Americans as the descendants of enslaved people like her and the descendants of immigrants from African nations like Ali. Ali does not hold that distinction.
That August, Porter came to an Iowa City City Council meeting demanding Ali’s removal from the council-appointed TRC. She maintains that she was not using her authority as a county supervisor to pressure another local government, but she did make sure the crowd heard the office she held.
While the city council declined to act, the TRC itself suspended Ali later that month. And in the end, Ali resigned. But she didn’t disappear.
Fast-forward to last week, when Porter’s shouting led the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to cut to a recess, she was responding to comments earlier in the meeting from Nobiss, Ali and Marie Krebs, an indigenous activist and fellow TRC member. Porter told IPR News that she then went after Fixmer-Oraiz’s contract with the city because she believed they brought Nobiss and Ali to the proclamation update and then advocated to have them speak on the topic.
“Why would you invite two people who literally … defamed my character,” Porter said. “(They) literally invited these same people that’s attacking me on Facebook into our meeting which is fine that they come to our meeting but to ask that they can speak?”
Fixmer-Oriaz maintained that it’s not breaking the rules to let the public speak on an agenda item.
“I understand that Supervisor Porter may want to lash out, and I’m an easy target. However, I don’t place any stock in that. I think we are better and we can get to a better place,” Fixmer-Oriaz said. “I just think that we need to deal with the real harm that has happened.”
When asked whether she was in fact planning to retract her email to the Iowa City City Council, after saying she would, Porter said she was tired of explaining herself.
