Rift between Vets Commission and City Hall easy to spot; Corbett wants council meetings back on May's Island

Mayor Ron Corbett told the Veterans Memorial Commission on Monday evening that he wants it to make fixing the elevator on the Second Avenue side of the Veterans Memorial Building a priority so the city can return City Council meetings to the council chambers on the fourth floor.

Corbett – who will preside over his second Wednesday evening council meeting this week as mayor – repeated that he doesn't think the council's current temporary meeting site in an auditorium at AEGON USA is “conducive” to council meetings.

As mayor, Corbett is an ex officio member of the Veterans Memorial Commission, and it doesn't' take long at a commission meeting for the deep rift between the commission and city officials to surface.

From the commission's standpoint, city officials and the prior City Council have by and large left the commission out of the planning for the renovation of the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building, and, in fact, have left planning for the building in limbo. Hence, the rift.

Corbett, though, arrives in office with a commitment to return some functions of city government to the 82-year-old Veterans Memorial Building, which for all its life has been home to City Hall.

The prior City Council spent a great deal of time, energy and resources trying to investigate the prospect of building a new City Hall.

Corbett on Monday evening reminded the commission that he opposes a new City Hall, and he said he expected the City Council to take up the matter in quick order.

Commission members turned particularly irreverent when the subject of the underground parking ramp between the Veterans Memorial Building and the Linn County Courthouse came up for discussion.

The message from city officials for many, many months has been that the June 2008 flood might have structurally damaged the parking structure.

Mike Jager, the city's memorial director and staffer to the commission, read from a consultant CDM's report from a year ago that concluded that the underground ramp flood-hit parking was “minimally affected” structurally or architecturally from the flood. It “survived in good shape,” Jager said.

Commission member Gary Grant wondered when the city would be removing the orange plastic fence encircling the lawn between the Veterans Memorial Building the county courthouse. The fence went up months ago because city officials said it was unclear if the parking structure was in good shape.

On Tuesday, City Manager Jim Prosser noted that the city asked local consultant Howard R. Green earlier this year about holding events on the lawn above the garage, and he said the city was told that it was best to error on the side of caution for now.

The viability of the ramp matters as the council considers the parking availability should city government return to the Veterans Memorial Building in some shape or form.

One argument for building a new City Hall has been better parking.