Cedar Falls Main Street project cited as wasteful spending by senator

Is a small Community Main Street project in Cedar Falls truly one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer dollars in 2010?

That's the claim of U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma.  Each year, Coburn lists projects that he considers to be examples of wasteful government spending.  His “Wastebook 2010” this year includes millions for a Neon Boneyard Park and Museum in Las Vegas and $200,000 going to the National Science Foundation to study why political candidates make vague statements.

But his top 100 list this year also includes a small Community Main Street grant awarded to a pizzeria in Cedar Falls.  In fact, it's number 85 on the list.

The list from Senator Coburn criticizes $60,000 in federal money going to Tony's Trattoria in Waterloo for what the list called a new vertical garden entryway.  But community leaders said the list got both the city and a lot of the facts about the grant program wrong.

The grant actually went to Tony's LaPizzeria on Main Street in downtown Cedar Falls.  And the restaurant, that opened just a week ago, hardly seems like the kind of place that would wind up on a Senator's annual taxpayer “boondoggle” list.

Marabeth Soneson, executive director of Community Main Street in Cedar Falls, said aside from the correct grant amount ($60,000), the Wastebook 2010 list got most everything else wrong.  Soneson said “he (Coburn) got the name of the business wrong and he got the location wrong-it's Cedar Falls and not Waterloo, Iowa.  And the staff, who I assume wrote this, focused on a small part of the grant and ignored something much more significant.”

The Wastebook 2010 list focused on a “green design” vertical garden that will eventually be part of a back entrance to the restaurant.  The building itself, for most of its life, was a downtown meat market.

But Soneson said the main reason the project won a competitive grant is a proposal for a possibly first-in-Iowa commercial-sized solar water heating system on the roof.  The idea would attempt to demonstrate if other businesses could save water or money with something similar.  The design would also call for capturing and reusing rainwater to prevent runoff into the street and storm sewers.  The runoff captured would water the vertical garden in the back.

Soneson said it's not just free money-owner Tony Tomlyanovich also has a lot of his own funds invested.  “The grant is only one-third of the total project cost, and in the end the owner will probably pay much more than that, given how projects go,” Soneson said.”

Soneson said the pizzeria project won the award last January in a competitive process in which more than 40 Main Street programs around the state compete.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin secured money for the program through the office of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  His office defended the grant in this case in a statement, saying “…the grants Senator Harkin has helped secure have a track record of leveraging five local dollars for every federal dollar invested.”

The statement also took a swipe at the Oklahoma Republican's waste list, saying “…the fact that Senator Coburn cannot even identify the location of the project he questions suggests that he has done little to ascertain the merits of the projects as well.”

A person representing restaurant owner Tony Tomlyanovich promised a statement responding to the Wastebook 2010 listing.  But no statement was given.