Corbett greets Biden at Air Force Two, talks city business

Vice President Joe Biden walked down the steps from Air Force Two about 30 minutes ago to the greeting of a single person – Mayor Ron Corbett.

Corbett reports that he was thinking in the minutes before Biden's handshake with him that he might just ask about the flight, the weather in Washington, D.C., and the blue skies that are in place in Cedar Rapids today to greet the vice president. But the mayor didn't mention any of that.

“I wanted to make sure I got every ounce of my two to three minutes with him to talk about business,” Corbett said.

The mayor said he told Biden that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has done a good job in Cedar Rapids both in providing funds for individual flood victims and for public buildings and facilities. He also told Biden that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has steered plenty of money to the state of Iowa and to the city, but federal rules in how the money is spent for flood recovery unnecessarily complicate the process, he said.

Corbett said there needs to be a change on the national level on how disaster funds are dispensed, and he told the vice president that new flood disasters in Rhode Island and Nashville will give the federal government a new opportunity to look at some of its rules.

Corbett said he also told Biden that the city of Cedar Rapids needs a new flood protection system, and that the city will need some support from the Obama administration to help pay for it.

“It was just us,” Corbett said of his exchange with Biden. No staff, no one else.

“Yes, I think he was listening,” Corbett said. “It was not just that he was looking me in the eye. He was asking questions.

“ … I certainly appreciate having two to three minutes with him. And I took the opportunity to put a few issues in his ear.”