Carl Cortez bids for at-large City Council seat

Carl Cortez, a retired IBM service technician and member of the city's River Recreation Commission, is running for the at-large City Council seat on the Nov. 8 election ballot.

The 66-year-old Cortez, of 4118 Paradise Ct. NW, says the main reason he is running is because he thinks the city has gone downhill “severely” and he wants to help change that.

“We used to be called the Parlor City,” a label which he says the city earned by being neat and clean. “There's no pride in the city anymore, and that comes from the top, from all of the City Council,” he says.

“I get tired of people saying we don't have enough money to fix the streets or mow the grass,” Cortez continues. “If they (City Council members) don't have any money, why are they buying a hotel?” He thinks the city ought to come up with a plan for the long-struggling Westdale Mall.

Cortez reports that he voted “no” in the May 3 referendum to extend the city's local-option sales tax for 20 years to help pay for a flood-protection system and to fix streets. Two of his five grandchildren are 7-year-old twins, and he says he doesn't want to see them still paying the tax when they were 27. However, he says he might consider a tax extension for a shorter period, such as five years.

Cortez, whose wife, Nancy Ann, died in 2007, has two adult children. A Navy veteran, he's a long-time boat house owner in Ellis Harbor and is a vocal advocate for the harbor and those who lease space there. He's also a long-time member of the Cedar Boat Club.

“The river makes Cedar Rapids. It's why the city is here,” he says. Any flood protection should be for both sides of the river, he says, but says he still has questions about the protection issue.

Cortez thinks the city ought to work harder to sell excess property it owns and he thinks the city needs to do a better job of explaining what it does. “They're not little kids,” he says of the city's residents.

For example, he says he doesn't understand why TrueNorth Companies is investing some $7.5-million in the city's flood-damaged library as it transforms the former library into an office building while the city is building a new $50-million library elsewhere.

“It appears everybody wants something new,” he says. “But they want something so fancy. I'm just a plain Jane, evidently.”

Cortez' grandfather was born in Mexico and settled in Cedar Rapids in a neighborhood called “Mexican Hill,” which Cortez says is an area which Interstate 380 cut through behind the Scottish Rite Temple. He calls himself an American of Mexican descent, not a Mexican-American.

Tom Podzimek currently holds the at-large council seat on the Nov. 3 ballot, but Podzimek is not seeking reelection.

Ann Poe, 58, of 2560 Country Club Parkway SE, is also seeking the at-large seat. Poe worked for nearly three years as the community flood-recovery liaison in Cedar Rapids for the state's Rebuild Iowa Office, which closed its doors in June. She is now director of business development at M. Hanson & Co., a furniture and design firm at 312 Third St. SE.