Don’t trust city with 10-year blank check

Once again we are being asked to extend the local-option sales tax - i.e., you are being asked to voluntarily tax yourself.

Flood protection facts have not changed since last year's vote. The design phase for the east side is not fully funded. If it ever is, Congress would then have to authorize this plan and appropriate project funding. The city has its own “preferred plan,” which differs from the Army Corps of Engineers plan. If this project is strictly about flood protection, why is the city unwilling to accept the Corps' east-side plan?

The Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax committee is stressing ballot language that says all money will go for flood protection. If no federal money is appropriated for this project, which is a good possibility, then where does this money go?

Given the city's spending of money since the flood, I am not going to vote to give them a blank check for 10 more years.

And it will be the city that decides how this money is spent. Don't forget how inventive the city has become in spending LOST money, or that the city appointed an oversight committee for LOST money and ignored them when they did not agree with how some of the money was to be spent.

One other item not being mentioned is the ongoing cost to maintain flood-protection walls, levees, pumps, etc. For a city hard pressed to maintain its streets and parks, where is this money going to come from?

Michael S.

Augustine

Cedar Rapids