Committee considers facility naming possibilities for former Cedar Rapids mayor Canney

“Welcome to the Don Canney Terminal at The Eastern Iowa Airport.”

How does that sound?

A citizen committee named by Mayor Ron Corbett has wasted no time in creating a list of 13 possible facilities or sites to be named for the city's longest-serving mayor, Don Canney.

Canney, who served as mayor from 1969 into 1992, died March 20 at age 80.

Among the naming committee's top picks - the airport's terminal; the Convention Complex, construction of which is to start soon; the former federal courthouse, now the new home to City Hall; and the 5-in-1 dam and bridge.

Ralph Palmer, the committee chairman and president of the Ar-Jay Center, said on Friday that the committee now wants to hear what the public thinks about the committee's list of 13 ideas and if there are some other possible ones that would serve to commemorate Canney.

The committee, which includes former Mayor Lee Clancey, former City Council contemporaries of Canney, former city officials and current City Council member Chuck Swore among others, will meet again June 15 and, perhaps then, have its recommendation to make to Corbett and the City Council.

Palmer said the committee's list of 13 ideas also includes the Edgewood Road bridge, a meeting room in the new Convention Complex, any portion of Interstate 380, the planned Highway 100 extension, the soon-to-be-built riverfront amphitheater, the greenbelt along the river, First Street West, the Cedar Hills neighborhood and the new City Council chambers.

In any event, Palmer said he personally would like to see Canney commemorative plaques on both sides of the Edgewood Road bridge, which was branded “The Bridge to Nowhere” by a political opponent of Canney's when Canney backed its construction to support the city's growth.

“This bridge was a vision of Don Canney's,” Palmer said. “It was a Bridge to Nowhere that led to a Bridge to Somewhere.”

Canney, a civil engineer by training and the maker of his own brand of fish filet knives, was Cedar Rapids streets commissioner for more than six years before his 22-year run as mayor.

In appointing the naming committee, Corbett said the City Council was looking to place Canney's name on something “significant.”

“Don was big into public infrastructure, so it only makes sense from that standpoint, too,” the mayor said in March.

Palmer said former Mayor Clancey has made a good point that it might be better to name something for Canney like the airport terminal, with which he was directly involved, rather than the Convention Complex, which is being built after he has died.

Palmer invites people to contact him directly with ideas at 270-3016 or Ralph@ar-jay.com.

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