Council Races with Corbett in the Driver's Seat

We've gone from a “culture of delay” to the Daytona International Speedway.

The first month of Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett's term will not be remembered for its slow, methodical deliberation. More likely rapid acceleration.

Corbett is dropping the hammer to see what this “part-time” council can do, and its performance has been anything but sluggish.

By month's end, we'll have a library site picked and a construction manager hired to guide the Paramount Theatre restoration. An answer from FEMA on the Central Fire Station could set more progress in motion.

The council's new committee structure helped untangle the Sinclair site-demolition bidding battle. Council members before our very eyes in public crafted ground rules for a new round of housing incentives. It looks like, after a another healthy public debate, that the city's budget will get balanced without bigger property tax bills.

Corbett wants to pay for a new events center with hotel/motel taxes and would use $3.2 million annually from the Corridor Metropolitan Planning Organization over the next 10 years to finish a trails network. A decision on whether to return city offices to Vets Memorial is on the horizon. Kurt Warner will probably have a street with his name on it soon.

Try to keep up, folks.

Corbett's public push to get more buyout bucks for flooded homeowners may still succeed. His critics have called it pandering, but I think it's good when the city shows as much zeal in seeking money for people as it does seeking big bucks for public buildings.

“Some say, ‘You're raising expectations, Corbett, that's the wrong thing to do,'?” he told me last week. “But I disagree with that. What's the old saying? I'd rather aim at the moon and hit a bucket of (beep) than aim at a bucket of (beep) and hit it.”

Clearly, the city's long symposium on process is yielding the civic stage to a dose of unpredictable drama. Open houses are out. Open debate is in. And the City Council is now driving the plot.

Corbett isn't doing it alone. The whole council, even his critics, seem awakened by this jolt of octane. Council meetings are now must-see TV. City staff and City Manager Jim Prosser have taken a less visible supporting role.

 Sure, some early success can be attributed to Corbett and the council being in the right place at the right time. And not everything is perfect. I think, for instance, a buy-local resolution narrowly focused only on Cedar Rapids misses the regional nature of the local economy. And there surely will be other stumbles ahead.

But, no matter what, the “culture of delay” has kicked the bucket.

Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@gazcomm.com