Cedar Rapids woman collecting signatures for bond referendum

Kathy Potts, an unsuccessful candidate last fall for the City Council, is collecting signatures in hopes of forcing a referendum on a council plan to sell up to $17 million in bonds.

The council is scheduled to vote Tuesday to enable it to sell the bonds to qualify for an expected $35-million federal grant to build a $50-million Event Center convention facility.

A story in Friday's Gazette noted the current deadline for citizens to obtain 2,353 signatures to prompt a citizen vote on the bond sale is Tuesday. The council has not made mention about the ability, spelled out in state law, for citizens to prompt what is known as a reverse referendum.

Potts, who is upset about the council's silence on the referendum and who thinks citizens ought to have a say in such city spending, began Friday to collect signatures.

She notes, too, that Mayor Ron Corbett, in his campaign last fall, said he favored citizen votes on sizable local spending for new city buildings.

Corbett last week did not disagree, but he noted that his campaign last fall pointed especially at a new state law, pushed by the last City Council, which he says was designed to let the last council build a new $38-million city hall without a citizen vote. The Event Center funding is based on a long-standing law related to urban renewal projects, he said.

Potts on Sunday said she wouldn't know until Tuesday how many signatures she might get.

She has had her issues with City Hall this year.

Earlier this year, Potts pointed out that two council members had gone on a hunting trip with a local inventor who had attempted to sell the city 54,000 Yardy cart anti-tip guards for $540,000. Potts knew about the hunting trip because she had worked with the inventor on council member Pat Shey's successful council runoff election.

Last month, Potts filed a complaint against Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, for what she said was a sexually suggestive comment made in her presence.