City manager promotes cleaner Cedar Rapids

 City Manager Jeff Pomeranz surely doesn't sleep in a suit and tie, but you wonder.

So it was no surprise to see him pull in last Saturday to clean up litter from a vacant lot wearing a dress shirt, albeit with collar open and shirt tail out. The members of his office staff, who were on litter patrol too, eventually convinced him to don the uniform of the day, a T-shirt promoting the Pomeranz-led City Hall crusade, CleanUpCR.

On this particular day, Pomeranz and his colleagues were doing their part for one of the crusade's core initiatives, The City Manager's 1 Bag Challenge.

In the course of an hour or so, Pomeranz, about five staffers and one of his employee's young children filled up 10 aqua-green garbage bags - a signature of the 1 Bag Challenge - from the lot across Third Street NW from the flood-ruined former Central Fire Station.

The 1 Bag Challenge is one of several cleanup initiatives being promoted by City Hall's Mr. Clean.

In addition, the city has reconstituted a bulky-item pickup program, which this year will be held May 12 at the Site 1 landfill, 2250 A St. SW, and will allow residents to drop off furniture, electronics, clothing, scrap metal and wood waste free of charge and appliances for $4.50.

Also, there's an Interstate 380 litter cleanup set for April 28, and the city is holding a second annual neighborhood litter collection day on May 5. The city also is promoting its own Adopt-A-Road program.

Proof that Pomeranz's crew had come to the right place last Saturday was the hundreds of pens scattered among the lot's litter, pens that Pomeranz surmises washed away in June 2008 from the former Souvenir Pen business two blocks away.

“It's very basic,” Pomeranz said of his 1 Bag Challenge. “It's not something we had a consultant think up. It just came about through discussions with city staff. What if we challenged every citizen to pick up at least one bag of litter? What a great way for individuals and families to get out and help their community.”

Pomeranz noted, too, that city street crews have been filling in cracks in concrete medians to prevent them from becoming weed-sprouting eyesores and the crews also will make sure grass medians are being mowed. He also said the city's move to mechanized garbage collection, which requires uniform garbage cans, will cut down on the amount of garbage blowing around neighborhoods.

This kick on cleanup in some sense is coming from an outsider - Pomeranz is still relatively new to the city, having just passed the 18-month mark as city manager after a 12-year stint in West Des Moines.

An outsider often can see blemishes that longer-time residents of a place have stopped seeing.

From his first visits to Cedar Rapids in the summer of 2010, Pomeranz said he was struck by the amount of litter in the city.

“And then spending some time driving around, I saw some other things. These aren't big visionary ideas. They're just observations,” he said.

He said grass was too high in medians. Too many weeds and grass were growing up through concrete medians. The welcome sign coming into Cedar Rapids was broken, parts leaning against a fence. Many of the city's bright green street signs had faded to white. And one of the Interstate 380 signs was still directing people to the downtown location of the Science Station, which relocated two years earlier after the 2008 flood.

“While it may seem minor as far as all the needs of the community, just as a new resident, I sort of noticed all this,” he said. “And I thought, in addition to what a city manager does as far as managing the city day to day, that I would make a commitment to cleaning up our city.”

Pomeranz said his cleanup campaign borrows a little from the “broken-windows” theory of community improvement that suggests that fixing smaller things in neighborhoods - broken windows, for instance - can cut down on larger problems like street crime and drug dealing.

Doug Neumann, executive vice president of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, said virtually no one in and around the downtown put cleaning up as a top priority after the June 2008 flood because there was so much else that needed to be done.

“Now all of a sudden we're at the point in flood recovery where we're hearing from citizens that things need to be cleaned up,” said Neumann. “Jeff's right on the mark. We not only commend him for the effort, but are doing our best to pitch in ourselves.”

Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association, said neighborhoods like hers also are on board with City Hall's cleanup focus, and she added that she likes that Pomeranz is working to get families involved in the programs.

“We think this new endeavor by the city manager will be an additional way to feel we are in control of our environment - from the little ones to our seniors,” Seger said.

Cleanup programs

• City Manager's 1 Bag Challenge: Pick up a litter kit of mint-colored garbage bag and a pair of gloves at any Hy-Vee Food Store. Set the bag out at the curb when full with your Garby for pickup on your regular collection day. There's no additional charge.
• Interstate 380 Litter Collection: 9 a.m. to noon, April 28. Meet in the parking lot at Sam's Club, 2605 Blairs Ferry Rd. NE. Neighborhood Litter Collection: 9 a.m. to noon, May 5. Meeting places vary by neighborhood.
• Spring Large-Item Drop Off: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., May 12, at the landfill, 2250 A St. SW.