City moves to hire consulting team to help put flood-recovery plans into action

On a split vote, the City Council on Tuesday evening authorized the city manager to negotiate a contract with a team of consultants to help the city pursue $375 million in federal funds for a new flood-protection system and to help the city with its plans to create a greenway and outdoor amphitheater along the Cedar River.

Mayor Ron Corbett, who ran for office last year saying that the city needed fewer outside consultants, voted against hiring the consulting team led by Anderson-Bogert Engineers and Surveyors Inc. of Cedar Rapids.

Council members Don Karr and Monica Vernon joined Corbett on the short end of a 6-3 vote.

The city's budget includes up to $1 million for consultants to help implement the city's flood-recovery plans.

In presentations to the City Council two weeks ago, the Anderson-Bogert team and another led by a West Des Moines firm explained how they would help the city execute flood-recovery plans that now are in place.

A city evaluation team graded the Anderson-Bogert proposal highest. Among its partners is Sasaki Associates Inc., Watertown, Mass., which has been the city's lead flood-recovery planning and design consultant since the 2008 flood.

The consultants will help the city prepare for a meeting with an Army Corps of Engineers review board in October and for Congressional consideration of funding for flood-protection projects in 2011.