Few women represented in area city governments

Chaffee hasn't had a female mayor since the 1970s, when Sally Wehmeyer held the town's top elected post.

After the April election, Chaffee could have a female mayor again. Two of the four candidates who have filed to run for mayor in Chaffee are women -- Hope Huey and Loretta Mohorc.

Mohorc is a sitting member of the city council, one of only two women on the eight-person council along with Debbie Eichhorn. When Mohorc won election to the council last year, her motivation to run for office was partially motivated by her gender and the lack of women sitting on the town's governing body at the time.

"I think that I wanted to bring another woman's perspective to the council," Mohorc said of her run a year ago. "Frankly, I think that all cities are being shortchanged if they don't have a woman's input."

Chaffee is only one of several local towns in which few women fill elected positions in city government. And while several women have filed for mayor and council seats in those towns, their election would still leave females in a small minority.

Cape Girardeau's council comes closest to having equal numbers of men and women -- three of its eight members are female. Four women served on the council prior to Evelyn Boardman's recent retirement.

In Scott City, no women sit on the city's eight-member city council. The last to do so was Cindy Urhahn, who stepped down after she was appointed city clerk in 2004. She had served on the city council for nine years.

At that time there were two other women on the council, as well. But no women have served on the council since 2004.

In her position as clerk, Urhahn keeps the records of election filings. She said she never sees many women filing for election, but then again, she doesn't see many people in general filing for election.

"The pitiful thing is, not too many men file either," said Urhahn, who says she's always had an interest in government and the democratic process.

Two women candidates had filed for election to council seats early on -- Leann Wilthong and Lori Murrell -- but Murrell recently removed her name from the April ballot, leaving no one running for a council seat in Scott City's Ward 1. Four council seats will be up for election in Scott City this April.

Scott City's current lack of female representation in elected government is unusual, said longtime council member Norman Brant. Brant has served on the council on and off for the past few decades, and says there are usually one or two female members on the council at any given time.

The city has also had women mayors, most recently Shirley Young, served as mayor from 1990 to 1992 after serving on the city council for seven years.

If Wilthong were to win in April, she would be one woman on a council of men, much like Oran's Brenda Cook. Cook is alderwoman for Ward 3, and she's the only woman to have filed for election this year in races for four of Oran's eight board of aldermen seats.

"We've had more women on the board of education than we ever have on the board of aldermen," Cook said. "Usually there's only one woman on the board of aldermen at any time."

Cook thinks that women can bring something different to a city's governing body: a more diplomatic approach to public business. And she wishes more women would join her on the board of aldermen.

"There are lot of women here in town that would make good aldermen," Cook said. "But you have to be a little bit outspoken, and a lot of people think they just couldn't do that."

However, Cook says she doesn't feel like a loner on the board of aldermen because the seven men she sits with treat her as an equal.

In Jackson, alderwoman Barbara Lohr hopes to become the city's first woman mayor. She's one of two women on the city's board of aldermen -- Valeria Tuschhoff has served several terms as alderwoman in Ward 3.

Lohr doesn't want to emphasize her gender in her election bid. She thinks a candidate's sex isn't as important as his or her qualifications for office.

"I'm going to be elected mayor because I am the most competent, the most open-minded, and I have good leadership skills," said Lohr, an alderwoman of five years who sat on the city's planning and zoning commission for 11 years before her election. "I think those are the reasons why I should be elected.

"I don't want a lot of emphasis put on the fact that I'm a woman. The emphasis should be on my qualifications, and I think women and men will look at the qualifications and make the decision on who to vote for."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182