MacKenzie Davis, Republican Candidate for Boone County Recorder, May 20, 2026

Our guest on our program today is Mackenzie Davis. She is a Republican candidate for Boone County Recorder and first thanks for taking time to come and visit. Absolutely glad to be here. Well tell us a little bit about yourself. First of all you do people do know you. I mean you're from Boone, born and raised? Born and raised, graduated Boone High School in 2010. I attended some college in Ames and then I moved to Colorado for an almost five year vacation. I like to call it where I got to experience a lot more of the world in a tourist town, managing a grocery store, little Roxy's Market. It was fantastic. I worked in a concert venue, a very small 430 people maximum. That's big enough. Yeah it was enough and then I did guided horseback riding and hunting trips for a couple of outfitters. All right. So I got to meet people from all over the world and it was great. That's one of the things about being a recorder. You got to have a lot of, a lot of the, again being willing to meet a lot of people and help them with a lot of things. Absolutely. So it came back and then what, married kids? Yeah I met my husband Tyler on, we were going for a girls float trip down the Des Moines River and here was a group of people that caught up with us and we all got together and oh crazy Jane my mom was picking us up from the river at the boat ramp and invited everyone over to my house saying McKinsey's gonna grill and I proceeded to light all of the food on fire. Well that would attract attention. Yeah and I think he said I'm gonna have to keep this one because she's gonna starve to death. She needs help. Yes so. Right now your job? I work for Boone County Engineers. Okay. I am the administrative assistant. I do payroll billings, take majority of the phone calls, I help with bids and. I'm not going to say anything about dealing with some of the personnel things over time. We know that's a whole other thing so we'll just let that go. Perfect. So working in the courthouse so you're familiar with the facility? Know what's going on? Yes very familiar. I started in the driver's license, lots of rules and regulations and getting in those cars with people to get them their license. That was not for me. Bless those girls for continuing to do that. So we went to the engineer's office so opportunity or you decided I'm going to put my name in here and just see we'll take a run at being being the county recorder. So about you know something about the office anyway about what it requires? Yes. Yep I am familiar with different licensures and you know ATVs, UTVs. Got all of that. The boats. Got DNR, the DNR aspect. Yes the DNR aspect. As far as record keeping lands again. Land records and all of that. Property mortgage. I know that there is a lot that that office does. The recorders are responsible for kind of the initial and then it gets sent off to the assessor's office and the auditor's office. So they are they're the starting point and they're kind of the face to begin with. So you're saying I don't know all the office but I can learn. I do not know all of the office. I am more than willing to learn and I'm happy to learn. Knowledge is power in my opinion. I have received a tremendous amount of support from other county recorders throughout Iowa that if I win in the primaries I have a lot of vacation that I'll have to burn over the next seven months and they are more than happy to let me learn a little bit from each other. Come and and teach me how it works. One of the one of the big things that's been happening within that office obviously has been a lot of updating on technology. Yes. So you feel tech savvy. I can pick it up. I can learn this. Very tech savvy. When I started in the engineer's office Chris she had just retired. Sure. She was not there to teach me her job. Tara my co-worker she could kind of get me started and logged in where I needed to be but other than that I have had to do a full dive, read manuals, ask questions and I've been able to advance the technology that we use. Okay. Maximize it. That's what you have to do. Yes. I know one of the things that people always look for is being able to have online access. We're getting to be that way. We carry our phones with us all the time and I want to be able to get in and do that. So those are some of the new things I think that are showing up in that office. We'd love to keep pushing that forward that kind of thing. Yes. I do believe that a lot of individuals love having online access not having to take time off of work to go to the courthouse and I understand that but we also have a community of people that are pretty old school. They don't want to do the online. They want that face to face. They want to come in. They want to look at the books. They want to search. They want to ask the questions and I want to be able to provide that. I know that over the years a lot of digital work was being done on there getting a lot of records updated and things like that. Still we do have you've got attorneys. You've got people like that. Obviously you've worked with a few of them but they like to have those land records and they like to get them in a timely fashion. They love timely fashion but from discussions they also like that paper copy. They don't necessarily all want the e-filings and that's okay. There has to be a balance. There has to be a give and take. We're here to serve the people, the public and their needs probably come before our own. Some of the state law again one of the things because one of the things that office does obviously birth certificates and especially now people need them if they did not get their real ID and if they didn't get their passports it's got to get those again. Those are the kinds of things they come in and half the time are going what do I do and where do I go? Yes and after working in the driver's license I can tell you I'm very experienced in sending individuals either to their respective counties if they were born too early and not quite made the cutoff yet or sending them to the recorders to fill out those really fine pieces of paper with all the information. And we'll help where we can but you have to do this. Yes and you know a big part is there are times where laws don't allow you to do certain things and in my opinion and experience as a customer if you can't do something the answer shouldn't be well we can't do that for you because people don't understand so giving them an explanation of like I know this is inconvenient but due to these laws that have been put in place we're not able to do this for you. We can try and help you and point you in the right direction but people shouldn't walk out feeling defeated in my opinion they should have an understanding of why you might be saying no we can't do that. There are those challenges that's the big thing it's a lot of public services. Yes it is that which you've had a lot of experience in doing grocery stores and other venues. Oh yes I gotta try to keep everybody as happy as you can. That's the goal. It's not easy when they come in to pay taxes. No but they don't pay in your office but everything really starts with the recorder's office like you said yes the documentation people have a land transfer they do that and it goes from there and it goes on again if that's it's gotta. You are absolutely correct and I want the community to feel heard to understand and to know that their documents are

going to be handled with accuracy efficiency and care okay essentially. Just do that and other things that now what you know about recorders and of course you're learning a lot about being a recorder. I am learning a lot about campaigning and the recorder it's dive in. You do you do have people that are familiar with the office that you can rely on to help you step step through things. Absolutely between the recorders that have offered that if I went in the primaries they're more than welcome they're very welcoming and I would use my vacation time and go learn with them. I know some individuals that there's been talk that the current staff may not want to stay that is their choice. Sure I would never just go in and fire everybody because that seems pretty senseless and rude but I've had some people reach out that if they do decide to leave they would like to come and help. They would like to come and work with me which is great because they have already worked in that office. So they've been there. So they know a lot of what that office is supposed to do and they I'm like that's great. I will keep that in mind. We don't know exactly what's all going to happen. First of all we have to go through the primaries. So campaigning going around just are you getting to meet a lot of people or re-meet reacquaint yourself with a lot of people. Meeting new people reacquainting I do I do work full time so I like to go out at least once a week in the mornings and go chit chat with folks. I'll stop in over my lunch to different businesses and then after work and weekends it's feet on the pavement. So again you know the DNR aspect which is just one small part and but it is for most people they like to come in and get there or they like to get that note and reminding them you better get your snowmobile redot.

And again like we know most a lot of it is shifting online and stuff like that. I know we're starting to see some applications for a lot of things now different parts of the courthouse make use of permitting online a lot more. Planning and development in particular they've got a lot of it in there but there are things I know we've started to see some I think added in the recorder's office or is there. You know I use the same permitting system for entrances and trip permits in the engineer's office. I have not seen any but that doesn't mean they're not there. Just you haven't looked for that. I haven't no no because when I'm at work I'm focusing on what I'm there to do. All right that's true and that's a busy office and busier too we know it gets that way construction season always gets that way. So we've got other things there's some other things about the office you'd like to see. I mean obviously the new technology that's been going on continue that expand on that whatever might be available. I don't know because this is something you're going to be learning as well. Yes so we've we work with Fiddler in our office as well for section corners. So you're familiar somewhat with what it does. Yes yep somewhat. My biggest disappointment is that for every other office it's not efficient. Everything is a work around and the manual labor has been shifted to the other departments which isn't really effective but we are the county did sign with a new vendor and we are switching. It's not fully built yet for Iowa. They have software in other states but the laws and regulations are different from state to state so we get to well I shouldn't say we I get to attend bi-weekly meetings and they're they're building it for us and with us and also with ISAC. Sure which ISAC is great about keeping a standardized practice across Iowa making sure everyone knows that any laws that have changed or bills that are in the process just kind of keeping everybody updated so that not every county has to dive in at an individual level and we can all communicate through ISAC and they're very supportive. Okay well keep working at that. Again those those are some of the challenges. People don't really see that no about what's going on. What they do is they come in that door and they want to see somebody that's going to be there to help them and get it done. I agree and with most people probably don't understand that Iowa code for elected officials they only have to be there eight or sixteen hours a month and that is just wild to me. Doesn't make sense huh? Yeah I'm like yeah that doesn't make any sense to me at all whatsoever and I've I've seen individuals that have taken advantage of that and I've seen others that they put in way more than what's required of them and it's about public service isn't it? Yes it is about public service. Is that is that one of the reasons why you okay I've been helping in the I'm in the engineer's office but this is a little more actual public service. It is it is more public service. I was how do I want to say it? I was very disappointed when somebody called and they needed their road graded. I looked at it and I was like unfortunately that's a private driveway and I was like well you can find you should have an easement agreement in your abstract well during the move they can't find their abstract so I sent them up to the recorder's office and they were directed to go on to Beacon find the document and then go search for the document find their abstract with that easement agreement. This individual called back and I was slightly appalled and I was like don't worry give me give me some time I'll get it. We'll find it for you. So found it brought them into the office explained their abstract and their easement agreement and you know what I easily could have said I'm sorry that's not my job yeah but that's not me I want to help anywhere I can. So since you're working full-time then you do have some limited opportunities to do campaigning and stuff like that so what are how do people get a hold of you how do you find it because if you're just going out to the different spots every once in a while when you have time I'm guessing weekends are pretty packed yes yes everything is very packed I mean I can strike up conversations at the grocery store I tend to save going into businesses over my lunch hour because that's when they're generally open I've had a lot of emails I do have a Facebook page okay people are more than willing to create comments on there and I'll answer what I can respectively yeah Mackenzie Davis yes Mackenzie Davis for Boone County Recorder okay that's it easy way to make contact if they do that if they don't you check around watch because you'll be going out doing different things yeah yeah and don't know if you're going door to door but big county a lot of different parts of the county to cover so do you try to make stops get over to Ogden get down to Madden I do try and make some stops that is yeah so actually with Maddard having there like city-wide garage sale yeah I did get to talk to some individuals so you made around down there yep not not a lot but just to introduce myself which an Ogden I know a lot of people from Ogden I grew up playing soccer there so it's it's been good to touch base with individuals that I haven't seen you and they go Mackenzie you got your name yeah yep so well good luck I mean I know it's it's a step going up you have an incumbent to face and that's a challenge once again the office recorder's office is a service it's a community yeah basically the public service opportunity it is and that's the big thing they you know everything that starts with any land transaction goes through there and then you got all the dnr service in there as well and and birth certificates and all of that marriage you gotta have all of yes do the whole thing I do appreciate you taking time to come and visit with us good luck in the election and again I checked Mackenzie Davis for county recorder on facebook thank you for having me