Much Learning before March Voting

In March, local voters will emerge from winter quarters to show us if we'll have 10 more years of sales tax.

I watched petitions get handed in this week to the Linn County Board of Supervisors by members of CREST, Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax.

A line of folks in CREST T-shirts marched to the board table and deposited a pile of papers bearing nearly 5,000 signatures, more than enough to put a 10-year local-option sales tax extension on the ballot in Cedar Rapids and its contiguous neighbors on March 6.

This time, backers say it will be a pure vote, up or down, on flood protection for both sides of the river, for 10 years. The measure that failed narrowly in May was for 20 years, and included bucks for roads and property tax relief.

Too long and too muddled, was the voters' spring verdict, backers say. March will be different.

“All of our work has indicated that people thought 20 years was too long,” said Al Pierson, who owns a flower shop on the west side that flooded in 2008. “And the majority of people want flood protection.”

We've got three months to figure out if Pierson is right. And that's a good thing. Because in three months, some stubborn unknowns will be known, or we may know more.

We'll know if President Obama's budget, due in February, will include any more bucks to pay for federally blessed flood protection on the east bank of the Cedar River. Who knows if kooky Congress will approve it, but if it's in the budget, at least it's a live round.

By March, we should have a feel for whether the city's proposal for using a portion of state sales tax dollars collected locally for flood control, also known as the Growth Reinvestment Initiative, has any chance at the Statehouse. It's possible western Iowa flooding might help build a broader geographic coalition backing the proposal.

We'll know whether Cedar Rapids school leaders will be shuttering or saving Harrison Elementary School, which serves a flooded core neighborhood the city hopes to protect and redevelop.

Three months also gives us time for a good discussion about what sort of flood control citizens want.

If the tax passes and a project moves forward, it will be up to the city to design and build a west bank system. The city's plan ultimately will be reviewed by the Army Corps of Engineers to make sure it meets Corps standards, but the feds will not design or build it. The city has a preferred plan, but it's not set in stone, and there's still plenty of time and room for citizens to weigh in.

What we don't know is how this will all turn out. But if we did, what fun would that be?