Flood response key in Cedar Rapids District 3 race

District 3 is arguably the city's most interesting piece of City Council geography because it's the only one of five council districts that consists of precincts on both sides of the Cedar River.

The district is even more interesting this election go-round because District 3 incumbent Jerry McGrane is being challenged by at-large council member Pat Shey. Shey says he likes McGrane, but wants to compete for a council seat in the part of the city he knows best.

The outsider in the race, Kathy Potts, lives on the west side of the river, while McGrane and Shey live on the east side.

Potts, 50, moved to Cedar Rapids in 1999 when her husband, Tom, took a job at Rockwell Collins and says she doesn't understand what people say is the historic and cultural divide between east and west sides of the river. Both sides are the same to her, she says.

District 3 is comprised of older neighborhoods that were hit hard by the June 2008 flood and middle-class and wealthier neighborhoods that went untouched by the flood. McGrane, a resident of the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood, and Potts, who lives near the Penford Products plant, both are flood victims. Shey acknowledges that he is not a flood victim and can't know how awful being one is.

Shey isn't conceding the Oakhill Jackson vote to McGrane. Shey, 50, notes that soon after the June 2008 flood he contacted homebuilder Kyle Skogman about building 20 new homes in McGrane's flood-hit neighborhood, where the city had earlier purchased land for residential redevelopment.

McGrane, 69, shoots back that it was during his time as president of the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood Association - before either he or Shey joined the council in 2006 - that he worked with City Hall to create the special Housing and Neighborhood Development district to buy up empty lots. Those lots now hold the Skogman homes, he says.

McGrane notes, too, that he's been there for other parts of District 3, and he points to his work to keep the scenic East Post Road bridge a two-lane one and to block a plan that neighbors opposed to extend Bever Avenue SE to East Post Road SE. Shey voted that way, too.

For her part, Potts tells people about the time she called McGrane with a question, and she says he told her she was on the west side of the river and it didn't matter. McGrane just shakes his head and says it isn't true.

Shey defends the performance of the City Council the last four years and says it has made “tough decisions” on flood recovery while laying a foundation so the city is ready to use the large amount of federal and state money that is coming to the city for property buyouts, neighborhood rebuilding and the repair of city buildings.

McGrane says he wants to remain on the City Council because he, as a flood victim, personally understands what other flood victims continue to wrestle with. McGrane is pushing for a “buy local” initiative and says the city manager has too much power at City Hall.

Potts says she decided to run for the council because incumbents like McGrane and Shey weren't listening to constituents and flood victims like her. She says the council needs to make more decisions and make decisions more quickly. At the same time, city government needs to be more customer-friendly and more user-friendly and needs to use more local experts and fewer out-of-state consultants.