Former Cedar Rapids council member Jerry McGrane back in the mix

Former City Council member Jerry McGrane is running for the council again.

McGrane, 73, served on the council from 2006 through 2009 from District 3, the council district with some precincts in southeast Cedar Rapids and a smaller number across the Cedar River on Cedar Rapids' west side.

He was defeated in his run for re-election by then-at-large council member Pat Shey, who decided in 2009 to compete for the District 3 seat.

Earlier this month, Shey announced his bid for re-election in District 3, and McGrane this week said he will compete for one of two at-large seats up for a vote in November.

"I think I can be more of a voice for people who flip hamburgers at Hardees," said McGrane. "I've been a neighborhood leader for 18 years, and I think I can reach out to some who aren't comfortable talking to some of the other council people."

McGrane gained a political footing as president of the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood Association, a post he used to launch his run for the City Council in 2005 when the city moved from five full-time council members to nine part-time ones with a full-time city manager.

As a council member, McGrane said he was a driving force behind the council's Enhance Our Neighborhood initiative, a neighborhood-improvement concept that has become part of the city's new nuisance abatement effort, which the council put in place this year."

"I feel like I planted a seed," McGrane said.

He applauded the new effort by the Affordable Housing Network to invest in the renovation of properties in the Wellington Heights neighborhood, which he said is the kind of approach he has pushed for some years. McGrane has his own small non-profit entity, the Neighborhood Revitalization Service, which has renovated some homes.

In 2008, McGrane was both a council member and, along with wife Judy, a victim of the June 2008 flood. Their home at 1018 Second St. SE was bought out in the city's flood-recovery buyout program.

McGrane now lives in a new home at 1105 Eighth St. SE, which was built with city flood-recovery incentives while he was a City Council member. He said he has gotten some criticism for participating in the city program, but he said he was a flood victim eligible like other flood victims for flood-recovery programs.

"I just don't pay attention to it because it's all BS," he said of the criticism.

McGrane said the City Council in 2008 and 2009 did a good job of setting the "tone" for flood recovery. He added that Mayor Ron Corbett, who took office in 2010 and is seeking re-election this year, has done "a great job of pulling people together" to get things done. He credited Corbett with making tough decisions, like buying the downtown hotel, which he said is now encouraging the private sector to invest in development projects.

"We're recovering form the flood a lot sooner than anybody expected," McGrane said.

His biggest worry, he said, is the next flood and the city's absence of a flood protection system. He supported an extension of the city's local-option sales tax, which was defeated, to help build the system.

McGrane worked as a warehouseman back in the 1980s, injured his back and ended up in the federal disability program.

Two of the council's at-large members, Don Karr and Chuck Swore, face re-election in 2013. Neither has said publicly what his plans are.