Candidates disagree in Cedar Rapids mayoral forums

Mayoral candidate front runners Brian Fagan, a current council member, and Ron Corbett found plenty to disagree on during two Tuesday mayoral forums.

Fagan, 37, and attorney at Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman, and Corbett, 48, vice president at trucking firm CRST Inc., didn't see eye-to-eye on the city's use of consultants; the city's new franchise fee on utility bills; the council's strategy for spending local-option sales tax revenue; and who is leading city government, the council or the city manager.

Meanwhile, the mayoral race's third candidate, P.T. Larson, 52, who has failed in 12 earlier runs for council, noted that outgoing mayor Kay Halloran is both a former state legislator and an attorney. He then asked, “Which half of Halloran do you want?” He said Fagan, an attorney, hadn't delivered on flood-related matters, and Corbett, a former legislator, was more comfortable in the backrooms of politics.

Fagan said that the City Council leads the city government while City Manager Jim Prosser brings professional management to the government, which he said is what voters overwhelmingly endorsed when they changed the city's form of government in June 2005.

Corbett said the council follows the manager, and he said Prosser had “too much power.”

On the role of consultants in city government, Fagan vigorously defended their use and said they are saving money for local taxpayers. He pointed to the damage analysis on the downtown library, and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially claimed that the library's damage amount to 16 percent of the value of the property. With the city consultants' help, FEMA later concluded the damage exceeded 50 percent of the value of the property, Fagan said.

Corbett on several occasions dismissed what he said was an excessive use of out-of-state consultants, noting that the city only recently brought in a consultant from Minnesota for team-building exercises with the council at a time when the council ought to be looking for ways to cut spending.

Corbett called the city's new 1-percent franchise fee on utility bills a “regressive” tax and said it unfairly hit non-profits and the low-income renters some of the non-profits serve. Fagan said the city could have implemented a franchise fee up to 5 percent, but limited it to 1 percent, which he said covers the city's costs to manage the utility rights of way in the city.

Corbett said the city should be dispensing local-option sales tax revenue, which it began receiving in May, to flood victims, while Fagan said the city first wants to first make sure it doesn't provide help that later will require flood victims to pay back other government help.

One of Tuesday's mayoral forums was sponsored by the Linn County Nonprofit Resources Center, the other by CBS-2 and the Cedar Rapids Jaycees.