Corbett wants gubernatorial candidates to take stand on flood protection plan

After 13 years in the Iowa Legislature - five of those as speaker of the house - Mayor Ron Corbett knows all about making hay while the sun shines. Last Tuesday, Corbett and other local leaders called for Iowa to divert a portion of the state's salestax revenue collected each year in the city and Linn County to Cedar Rapids to help pay for a flood-protection system.

As he spoke, Corbett knew full well that Iowa's gubernatorial candidates would be at Coe College's Sinclair Auditorium this week for a 7 p.m. debate sponsored by The Gazette and KCRG-TV9. And by Friday, the mayor was making it known that he'd like to see both candidates, Democratic Gov. Chet Culver and former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad, use the political event to take a stand on the floodprotection plan.

'I don't see how any governor can say they're not going to support the flood-protection plan in Cedar Rapids,' Corbett said. 'I don't see how they can walk away from it.' Nearly 28 months after the June 2008 flood, the Army Corps of Engineers is completing a feasibility study for a Cedar Rapids flood-protection system that the Corps and the city hope will be part of a Congressional appropriation in the first part of 2011.

Corbett said it is no secret that federal funding nearly always requires a 35-percent match of state and local dollars. And the mayor is betting that the city will move up in Congress's 'pecking order' if Cedar Rapids shows it has a plan to come up with the required matching dollars.

'They're both well aware of the federal law that requires a 35-percent match,' Corbett said of Culver and Branstad.

'They're well aware that Cedar Rapids - although we're the second largest community in the state - doesn't have the financial wherewithal to pay 100 percent of that 35-percent match. These are facts that are very clear in their minds.' But there is a difference: The Branstad campaign is studying the City Hall plan while the Culver campaign likes it.

'Right now it's a new proposal, and we believe it merits discussion and analysis and that's what we intend to do,' Tim Albrecht, spokesman for the Branstad campaign, said on Friday.

On the other side, Troy Price, spokesman for the Culver campaign, on Friday said Culver supports the Cedar Rapids City Hall plan, with the understanding that there are details that need to be worked out.

'The governor looks forward to standing with the mayor, the City Coun­cil, other local officials and the people of Cedar Rapids next year to push this idea in the legislature,' Price said. 'Chet Culver knows how important it is for the state's economy to keep Cedar Rapids strong.' Just how much of a commitment the city of Cedar Rapids might need from the state of Iowa for a new flood-protection system is yet to be determined.

At this point, the Army Corps of Engineers is prepared to recommend a nofrills, $100 million system, which protects most of the east side of the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, but not the west side. City leaders call that unacceptable, while the Corps has emphasized that it can only recommend a system that does not cost more than the value of the property it protects.

Meanwhile, the city's own 'preferred' plan would protect both sides of the river and at various places employ more-expensive removable flood walls in the downtown rather than less-expensive permanent concrete flood walls. The price tag for the preferred plan has been put at $375 million.

As city leaders pointed out last week, in a bestcase scenario, the city would need $131 million in state and local funds if Congress approved the $375-million plan and required 35 percent of it to be paid by state and local funds. The size of the needed state and local funds would go up significantly if Congress funds just a $100-million system but the city pushes ahead with a system that protects both sides of the river.

Corbett said the dollar figures will remain fluid for some time until the city knows what the Corps' final recommendation to Congress is and then what Congress will fund. He said, too, that the city's preferred plan might be scaled back a bit.