Mayor Candidate Red Oak IA "Mass Extermination...A solution to mental health and drug abuse?"

[xocetaceans]

4. And now he has withdrawn from the mayoral race ....

UPDATE: Haidsiak withdraws from Red Oak mayor's race
Ethan Hewett, Mike Peterson

UPDATE: Friday, October 17th, 2025 1:39 P.M.

(Red Oak) -- After making controversial statements at a community forum, a Red Oak mayoral candidate has pulled out of the race.

In a statement emailed to KMA News Friday afternoon, John Haidsiak announces he is no longer a candidate for mayor--though it's too late to take his name off of the November 4th city-school election ballot. Haidsiak announced his decision in the wake of comments made at a recent Mayor's Youth Advisory Council invitation-only conversation with both mayoral and city council candidates. During the event, one of the final questions asked of the candidates was how they would plan to deal with the "poverty and drug use in the community." In what appears to be the full unedited audio of the forum anonymously sent to KMA News and other local media outlets, Haidsiak's response included a reference to mass extermination.

"It's a cruel fact, but people who've went through drug abuses, teenagers and young people, when they have children, they do two things--they get them involved, and they steal from 'em," said Haidsiak. "They've got that habit so bad that that kid will go without before I go without. And it just escalates the problem to where there's no reasonable fix-it solution other than mass extermination."

Haidsiak also compared the problem to a "neighborhood full of rabid cats."


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https://www.kmaland.com/news/update-haidsiak-withdraws-from-red-oak-mayors-race/article_4831a410-d057-4868-ae8f-de9f5562448b.html