Legislative panel wants chat with Corbett on sales tax proposal

DES MOINES – A legislative panel considering Cedar Rapids $200 million request to divert future sales tax revenue growth for Cedar Rapids flood protection wants to hear from Mayor Ron Corbett.

Also, the Democratic and Republican co-chairmen of the 12-member task force considering Cedar Rapids' Growth Reinvestment Initiative plan to visit Cedar Rapids to learn more about the $375 million system of levees, concrete walls, removable flood walls and pumps needed to protect the city's downtown core, major industries and neighborhoods.

After a March 10 organizational meeting, Sen. Tom Courtney, D-Burlington and Rep. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, said the task force's discussion is likely to go beyond the dollars-and-sense aspects of diverting a portion of future sales tax revenue to include the impact of Cedar Rapids' flood protection efforts on both upstream and downstream communities.

“I represent the place where all that water goes,” Courtney said, “so it's not just the money.”

It would be fairly easy to get lawmakers to agree to support flood protection efforts, “but it wouldn't be fair not to look at the other issues,” Courtney said.

Corbett, who plans to make a presentation to the task force March 17 similar to those he made to legislative committees last month, believes watershed management policies are germane to the discussion, “but approval of our proposal shouldn't be conditional on those policies.”

He's received “mainly positive” feedback from lawmakers. They tend to be more supportive as they come to understand the impact Cedar Rapids and Linn County have on state sales tax revenues.

“It becomes less of a parochial issue,” Corbett said.

Schultz doesn't want to expand the scope of the discussion too far. His priorities are to examine how adoption of the Cedar Rapids plan would affect the rest of Iowa and whether similar accommodations should be made for other communities.

“Once we begin carving out special situations it's hard to counter the argument that another community should get the same treatment,” he said.

The panel's membership is evenly divided between House and Senate Republicans and Democrats. Rep. Tyler Olson, D-Cedar Rapids, one of four Linn County legislators on the task force, hopes that will help build bipartisan and bicameral support for Cedar Rapids' proposal.

“Maybe we can get consensus before this gets the floor,” he said.

Task force members have acknowledged Cedar Rapids' problem and are interested in finding a solution, Olson said, but have not yet made a commitment to support.

“I'm encouraged that we're meeting and we have time to find a solution,” Olson said. “We need to get something done this session.”

Other task force members are Democratic Sens. Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids and Jeff Danielson of Waterloo, Republican Sens. Merlin Bartz of Grafton, Bill Dix of Shell Rock and Tim Kapucian of Keystone, Republican Reps. Nick Wagner of Marion and Josh Byrnes of Osage, and Democratic Reps. Kirsten Running-Marquardt of Cedar Rapids and Roger Thomas of Elkader.