Increased costs in Cedar Rapids irk event organizers

Local organizers cite a lukewarm reception from the city as the reason there haven't been as many events in downtown Cedar Rapids lately.

“The city just isn't competing with Des Moines or Davenport to hold special events; it costs a lot less in those cities,” said Mike Regan of Iowa City, who is director of the Fifth Season race.

This weekend, the Cedar Valley Running Association held its Freeze Fest in Marion. It's one of the few races the organization still runs in the area.

Candy Mullen, president of the CVRA, said one reason for the shift is increasing security costs from Cedar Rapids.

“Our costs from last year were an increase of $2,000,” said Mullen, who lives in Marion. “So, in one year, it raised $2,000 and we used five fewer officers.”

Organizers of several special events say the city has increased its security costs to be above other major towns.

“Those security costs have sky-rocketed over the last two years,” said Regan.

Regan said his group had to increase the entrance fee for the Fifth Season race to handle the increase in security costs. He said that has made the Fifth Season race at least $5 more expensive than similar races in the region.

In a tight economy, he said, that amount will keep people from coming to one of the largest races in Cedar Rapids.

“I can't remember the last time we've had a rate increase for our security costs,” said Tiffany Tauscheck, vice president of marketing for the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In the Quad-Cities, organizers of the Bix 7 road race said the community works hard to find ways to help the event grow.

“Why can't Cedar Rapids look at what those two communities do to help events survive,” asked Regan.

Event organizers in Cedar Rapids said rising costs have cut any advantage Cedar Rapids ever had.

The Run the Flood race is using private security this year because they couldn't afford the police.

“And our costs are going to be under what we budgeted because the private security is so much cheaper than the police officers,” said Kari Lammer, Run the Flood race director.

Lammer hopes to know more about her costs and the exact route of her run in the next few weeks. She said she submitted her event permit application back in August, and has yet to get final approval from the city. However, she said the city did approve the event date, which is on the anniversary of the June 2008 flood.

“Its longer than we would feel comfortable with, ideally we would have loved to sit down with the city in December and laid out our race and route in January, where we're six months our from the race,” said Lammer.

Before he retired last week, City Rapids Fire Chief Steve Havelik said the changes to fees came because city departments couldn't continue absorbing costs from special events.