Task force tells Cedar Rapids City Council to name airport for mayoral legend Don Canney

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Donald J. Canney Eastern Iowa Airport.

What do you think?

A mayoral task force assigned to come up with a fitting tribute to Cedar Rapids' longest-serving mayor told the City Council last night that the city should name the city's airport for Canney, who died in March at age 80.

The task force chairman, Ralph Palmer, said the task force had “deep discussions” on 13 items on which it might best be appropriate to place Canney's name. Those included the new City Hall, the 5-in-1 bridge, a portion of Interstate 380, the new Convention Complex, a meeting room in the complex, the new riverfront amphitheater and the Edgewood Road bridge among them.

In the end, the task force - which included former Mayor Lee Clancey and an assortment of former city commissioners and city officials who had worked alongside Canney at City Hall - chose the airport unanimously, Palmer said.

“It's like shaking a bag of rocks, the big ones come to the top,” Palmer said before last night's meeting. “And the airport was head and shoulders above everything.”

Canney, a civil engineer by training, served as Cedar Rapids mayor from 1969 to 1992 after first serving for more than six years as the city's streets commissioner.

“He had his footprint or handprint on an awful lot during a dynamic growth period for the city,” Palmer said. “And the airport was one significant piece of that. He acquired a lot of land for it. It might have been the centerpiece of all the things he was involved in.”

Palmer made mention of Canney's son, Mike, who Palmer said told him about the last time he picked his dad up at the airport and how the former mayor talked all the way home about the airport and its growth.

Naming the airport for the former mayor was “a proper and wonderful way to pay tribute” to him, he said.

Mayor Ron Corbett said Canney's name surely will go on the airport terminal as a result of the task force's recommendation.

“I didn't see any objection from the council.  I think it'd be a great way to honor the Canney family and the legacy he left Cedar Rapids,” Corbett said.

He said the council still needed to check into the complications that might exist with the Federal Aviation Administration over an airport name change. The council's Infrastructure Committee will discuss the issue with members of the city's Airport Commission, the mayor said.

Palmer said the task force plans to suggest to the City Council that it consider smaller tributes to Canney as well. One idea is a plaque on the Edgewood Road bridge, which was labeled “The Bridge to Nowhere” by a political opponent after Canney pushed to build it in anticipation of the growth that was to come to that part of the city.

Palmer said the task force also liked the idea of naming a meeting room for Canney in the new Convention Complex and a meeting room or even the council chambers in the new City Hall.