Cedar Rapids Chamber's Priority One is scratched from City Council agenda

CEDAR RAPIDS - Priority One, the economic development arm of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, isn't coming to the City Council meeting this week after all.

The group's planned appearance has been scratched from the City Council agenda.

Priority One, which now receives funding from the council, was to make a pitch to the council for a new, $600,000 commitment over five years.

Council member Monica Vernon, for one, noted last week that she intended to suggest that the council take a fresh look at how it hands out money for economic development with the idea that economic-development entities now funded by the council work together better.

Priority One's new request of the City Council had been coming at a time when some on the council have been feeling a little bruised over the loss of about 100 Cedar Rapids jobs, which Internet firm Go Daddy has taken to Hiawatha along with plans to add hundreds more jobs. Some on the council have suggested that Priority One did little to give Go Daddy options other than Hiawatha in the metro area, including an option to locate in struggling, flood-recovering downtown Cedar Rapids.

Mayor Ron Corbett made his own run at Go Daddy with a late-inning pitch for the jobs, without success.