Attorney leaves Cedar Rapids library board, criticizes council

CEDAR RAPIDS - Respected local attorney Dennis McMenimen has resigned from the city's library board in frustration over the City Council and amid questions about a possible conflict of interest that he insists doesn't exist.

McMenimen, who sits on a special building committee of the library board, revealed his intent to resign to The Gazette as he was being asked about his legal work for companies that have bought property in the very area where the library board now thinks the library should be built.

In fact, Lagniappe Investments and Zydeco Investments own nearly the entire block between First and Second avenues SE and Seventh and Eighth streets SE, a site that library board President Susan Corrigan acknowledged on Friday is one of the board's preferred building sites.

Corrigan said it is a preferred site because it is on high ground above where floodwater reached in June 2008, it is centrally located and it is easily accessible to Interstate 380 - not because McMenimen has some connection to it. It will remain among the preferred sites, she suspected.

The questions to McMenimen, an attorney with Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, came a day after he, Corrigan and two other library board members appeared in front of The Gazette Editorial Board to make their case for a new $45 million library. In the presentation, the four board members, all of whom sit on the board's building committee, were asked about and defended the library board's preference - which the board made public weeks ago - that the new library be built in an area on higher ground outside the core downtown area that flooded.

Neither McMenimen nor the other board members noted McMenimen's ties to property in the preferred construction area. On Friday, McMenimen said he made those ties clear to library board members, a fact that Corrigan confirmed.

Asked why she, as library board president, has continued to have McMenimen on the board's building committee now that site selection is at the top of the agenda, Corrigan said, “That's a good question. And I'd say accountability on that solely rests with me.”

She said McMenimen, who also has been chairman of the library board's finance committee, has expertise in finance and law that have been essential for the building committee.

For his part, McMenimen said the building committee has worked long hours since the flood making a variety of decisions that have had nothing to do with where a new library might one day go. But he acknowledged that the early work has now evolved into selection of specific sites.

“My professional obligations to my clients really create problems as this thing unfolds,” he said Friday. “I don't know that they actually created them (problems). But I can see how this could easily evolve.”

On Thursday, McMenimen said he was quitting the library board because of his frustration with the council, but on Friday he said that questions of him related to site selection were also “a consideration.”

McMenimen said he has had “every right” to comment publicly about the need to put the new library on higher ground as long as his comments were about elevation and general location and not a specific site.

“Where do you draw the line?” he said when asked if the site to which he is connected would benefit even if a $45-million library were built nearby and not on the site.

McMenimen said he has cast no vote on a specific site but that he is part of the building committee's consensus about the area where a new library should be built.

“I don't think I've done anything inappropriate so far,” he said.

However, the library board's building committee hasn't been sitting still. It has gone on to identify possible preferred building sites and has revealed them to a City Council library committee. And this week, council member Tom Podzimek, a member of that committee, pointed the sites out, and one high on the list is the one to which McMenimen is tied.

In his letter resigning from the library board, McMenimen cited his displeasure with the City Council. He said he has put in countless volunteer hours on the board over many months only to come to believe that the City Council - which has the ultimate say - appears to have its own ideas about where a new library should be built.

Corrigan on Friday similarly focused her comments, saying she was “incredibly unhappy” that the City Council may ignore the library board's view on library location.

“We're putting in a lot of hours,” she said. “But will our feedback be recognized? Will our input be acknowledged?”

Lagniappe Investments and Zydeco Investments appear related to St. Martin Land Co., a century-old development company that was started by a small group of investors from Linn and Cedar counties with an initial plan to buy land in Louisiana. About 200 investors, most of whom are descendants of the original investors, are with the company today, which has one full-time employee in Cedar Rapids.

According to the City Assessor's Web site, the Lagniappe company bought property at 706 Second Ave. SE and 712 Second Ave. SE in December 2006, and property at 709 Second Ave. SE and 704 Third Ave. SE in January 2008. Zydeco purchased 705 First Ave. SE in December 2006.

McMenimen said the purchases, made before the June 2008 flood, were for investment purposes. McMenimen is listed as the registered agent for Lagniappe, Zydeco and St. Martin Land Co. and is secretary of St. Martin.