Knox-Seymour announces bid for Cedar Rapids council

CEDAR RAPIDS - Carletta Knox-Seymour, the owner of two small businesses and a member of the City Planning Commission, is running for an at-large seat on the City Council.

Two at-large seats on the nine-member council will be on the November ballot, and incumbent Susie Weinacht announced in January she will seek re-election. Incumbent Ann Poe is expected to do the same.

Knox-Seymour, 61, ran in 2013, finishing third in a race for two council slots, which Weinacht and Ralph Russell won.

'Since two years ago, many good things have happened in our city,” Knox-Seymour said in announcing her election bid.

She said an abundance of new housing is being built, and there is plenty of development in the districts around the downtown - in New Bohemia, Kingston Village, the Ellis Boulevard NW area and the MedQuarter District.

She said it's good to see the city fixing streets with revenue from the local-option sales tax. She said it's also good to see the $200 million Highway 100 extension project and the first pieces of the city's flood control system moving ahead.

At the same time, Knox-Seymour said some issues 'need attention.”

She said the city needs to improve its bus transit system, both to make it easier for riders locally and to add options for those who want to use the bus to get from cities in the Corridor.

'This problem has a particular impact on people who are working,” she said.

Knox-Seymour said the city also should look to support organizations that are providing job programs to develop 'our human capital.” She said a concept for her own program, which she calls Dignity, is designed to empower women and help them enter or re-enter the workforce.

Since 2010, Knox-Seymour has served on the City Planning Commission, which has put her in the middle of decisions on a wide variety of development and zoning matters.

She was on the losing side of a vote in which the commission majority approved a new Kum & Go convenience store near McKinley Middle School even though school administrators objected. In another instance, she voted against liquor sales in a store in the Taylor Elementary School neighborhood.

'Yes, we have people seeing how we can bring new businesses and industry to the city,” she said. 'We have to have those kind of people. I'm one of them.

'But we have to be more well-rounded in our thinking. We have to go underneath and see who else is being affected.”

Knox-Seymour grew up in Cedar Rapids and lived in Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Minnesota before returning to Cedar Rapids in 2008 to help take care of her mother. She now has started two businesses, a home-based bakery featuring banana bread and a cleaning service.

In the past, she has worked as a communications manager for Four Oaks in Cedar Rapids, as a development official for a homeless shelter and as a board member of an inner-city private school in Milwaukee.