Winners say All-America City costs dwarfed by benefits

CEDAR RAPIDS - City officials this week said the city spent about $18,000 of public funds to send 11 city employees plus Mayor Ron Corbett and two City Council members to Denver to compete for and bring back home an All-America City award.

The Cedar Rapids delegation to the National Civic League's annual competition and training event numbered a total of 39 people.

Local companies contributed $27,000 to the effort to cover flight, hotel, food and a $100-per-person conference registration fee for the 25 non-city staff on the trip, said Maria Johnson, the city's Communications Division manager.

The city's investment was not unlike the city of Dubuque's in 2013.

In that year, Dubuque - which is half the size of Cedar Rapids and has won the award in 2007, 2012 and 2013 - spent $25,000 in public funds as its 36-person delegation secured the 2013 award in the competition in Denver that year.

Cindy Steinhauser, Dubuque's assistant city manager, said Thursday that the city's public dollars for the 2013 trip covered the costs of half the 36-person delegation, with the other half of the members paying their own way. The Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce also spent $10,000 for promotional materials, she explained.

Steinhauser said she's happy to talk about the public dollars spent on the All-America City competition, a cost which she said has paid uncountable and ongoing dividends to Dubuque.

The All-America City designation, she said, not only raised the city's profile for companies, workers and people looking for a new city, but, just as important, it has reminded those already in Dubuque that it is a special place to be, she said.

'The All-America City award is truly the premier award that recognizes a community's ability to overcome challenges successfully and community's desire to transform itself,” Steinhauser said.

The award matters

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz, who was part of the Cedar Rapids delegation in Denver last week, has said he consulted with city of Dubuque to get their advice on what was needed to win the All-America City award and what the payoff would be if Cedar Rapids won.

That's when Pomeranz said he learned from Dubuque city officials how much the All-America City award for Dubuque in 2007 mattered when IBM started looking to open a new 1,300-employee technology services delivery center.

Dubuque's Steinhauser said it can be difficult for a community to put into words what it has to offer in the competitive world of economic development.

'The All-America City award succinctly explains to people why your community can get things done,” she said.

Steinhauser said Dubuque has found that companies often bypass the traditional recruitment professionals in favor of their own online exploration to see where they might want to invest.

She said top executives at IBM told Dubuque city officials that they 'just started seeing Dubuque's name and saw that it was an All-America City” in their own study of communities, which led them to look closer and closer at Dubuque, she recalled.

'That's one very direct example that we know that this award has garnered attention for us,” Steinhauser said.

In this year's All-America City competition, the city of Eau Claire, Wis., about half the size of Cedar Rapids, and the city of Hampton, Va., about the same size as Cedar Rapids, joined Cedar Rapids among the top 10 winners from among 25 finalist cities.

Dale Peters, Eau Claire's assistant city manager, said Eau Claire sent 19 people to Denver for the competition. Public dollars, he said, paid for the expenses of two of the 19 with employers or donations covering the rest of the costs.

Mary Bunting, Hampton's city manager, said the Hampton delegation consisted of 21 people, including five city employees, two elected officials and a school staff member. The city paid the upfront costs for the entire delegation, but community donations are coming in to cover some of the cost, she said.

Best ideas

The city of Marshalltown, Iowa, has been a persistent competitor for the All-America City award, and has had trips to the finalist competition in 2011, 2012 and this year. It won in 2012, did not in 2011, and was among the finalists this year in Denver that did not win.

The travel expenses for Marshalltown's 13-person delegation - which included three city employees and the mayor - were paid by contributions from local businesses and a local foundation, Michelle Spohnheimer, Marshalltown's housing and community development director, said.

Spohnheimer said Marshalltown started focusing on the All-America City award competition after the arrival of Randy Wetmore as the city administrator four and half years ago.

She said the All-America City designation has helped the city promote itself and has been useful as she writes applications for outside grant money. At the same time, the designation makes the city strive to maintain a standard that it otherwise might not attempt to do, she said.

Cedar Rapids's Johnson said the National Civic League's annual conference in Denver is as much a training event as a competition, and she said it features an assortment of workshops as well as a front-row seat for ideas from the 25 communities in the nation that the League considers the best in a given year.

Dubuque's Steinhauser and Marshalltown's Spohnheimer had similar views.

Steinhauser said the All-America City judges asked Dubuque in 2013 why it was competing after it had won in 2012, and she said Dubuque answered, in part, that it viewed the competition and the conference as a great place to share ideas with other top communities.

'I saw the video the other night,” Steinhauser said of last week's Cedar Rapids presentation to the All-America judges, a presentation that focused on the city's recovery from the 2008 flood. 'It brought tears to my eyes. I'm thrilled Cedar Rapids got it.”

Spohnheimer said the Marshalltown delegation, of which she was a part, was 'bummed” that it, too, didn't win. But she said the Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown groups were pulling for each other, and she said she also is happy to see Cedar Rapids win.

'As much as you're competing, it's still great to bring it home to Iowa because it shows what a great state we have,” Spohnheimer said.