City, county: Walk together first

With too many budgetary mouths to feed, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett wants Linn County to a “adopt” plans for building a $4 million amphitheater on the city's riverfront.

The way Corbett sees it, the amphitheater is a great project, but it will probably languish on the “back burner” as long as the city has so many other pressing recovery needs. He'd like the county to take it over and run with it. One of the potential sites for an amphitheater, which would be designed to flood when the river rises, is owned by the county.

Corbett points out that the county has a larger tax base and no bonded debt, which puts it in a good position to pitch in. “It seems to me the county could be a bigger player,” Corbett said.

So far, the county supervisors have met this request with polite caution.

Supervisor Linda Langston says the board is willing to talk it over. Supervisor Brent Oleson didn't reject the idea out of hand, but he's skeptical that his constituents outside Cedar Rapids will want their scarce property tax dollars to go for a city-backed, city-planned project. He points out that Marion, too, is making plans to build an amphitheater at Lowe Park.

And can a mayor who pushed for and passed a Cedar Rapids-only “buy-local” resolution on city purchasing credibly push for broader countywide cooperation? Corbett says if the county wants him to broaden that buy-local policy as a condition of adopting the amphitheater, he's willing to consider it.

We understand Corbett's argument, but we're not sold on his contention that an entertainment project in the heart of Cedar Rapids is a good candidate for county help. Perhaps things would be different had the Legislature agreed to allow local voters to raise the hotel/motel tax by three cents, two for the city and one for the county. Then the county would have had $700,000 annually that could have gone for such an effort. But the Legislature balked. Now property taxes are the only option.

We might also feel differently if there was evidence of successful county-city coordination in the past. Unfortunately, there isn't much. Sputtering discussions last year about creating a co-located government service center underscored the lack of communication between the county and its biggest city.

They should try walking together before they run. A good place to start would be with the potential city-county merger of animal control functions. Discussions are under way that could lead to the establishment of a joint operation, potentially at Kirkwood Community College.

Corbett, Oleson and others have talked about the possibilities and progress has been made.

If the two local governments successfully pull that off, perhaps bigger fish could be put on the table. And instead of the mayor proposing and the county reacting, the two governments could sit down and decide which priority projects would be a good fit for cooperation.