Questions pile up after LOST goes down

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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As the referendum on extending the local-option sales tax slipped into narrow defeat in the Cedar Rapids metro area late Tuesday, questions began piling up like debris from the flood of 2008.

The proposal for a 20-year extension to fund, in Cedar Rapids, a $375 million flood protection system, repair targeted streets and ease pressure on property taxes lost by a few hundred votes with unofficial results from all of the precincts reported in the Cedar Rapids metro area.

The measure, which needed a simple majority to pass, also likely jeopardized the other legs of what Mayor Ron Corbett has pitched as a three-legged stool of funding for comprehensive flood protection. State legislators have an assistance plan on the table in the Senate and the Army Corps of Engineers has recommended a roughly $100 million plan that would provide basic protection only on the east side of the river with the federal government's share 65 percent. But neither funding source is a sure thing and they are even less sure after local voters decided not to commit to the pot for the comprehensive plan, unless any recount reverses the outcome.

So, among key questions to emerge post-referendum:

Should the city settle for getting the Army Corps plan approved and hopefully funded?

Should tax extension supporters come back this fall and try again with a revised plan, perhaps one that focuses only on flood protection with a shorter tax extension period?

Should this city simply take its chances and hope that we won't see a flood the likes of, or even approaching, the 2008 disaster. Would that deter the rebuilding already under way or planned?

All difficult questions with no guarantee of the outcomes. Of course, there's risk in any choice. But the one we like least is doing nothing.

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