Local leaders, friends praise longtime Cedar Rapids mayor

“Great leader.”

“Remarkable person with great foresight.”

“Tireless champion.”

Those words of praise came flowing last night for Don Canney, who held the mayor's job here continuously in four decades from 1969 through 1992, after his death Sunday at age 80.

His son, Kevin, said his dad died of congestive heart failure with the complication of a “broken heart” after losing his wife of 55 years, Gloria, in September.

“Sometimes when you lose your best friend, that's the way it goes,” said Kevin Canney, of Cedarburg, Wis.

Canney was first elected to City Hall office in Cedar Rapids as streets commissioner, a position he held for more than six years before he was was

was elected mayor in 1969. He was at the helm of City Hall for so long that much that is recognizable about the city today - from Interstate 380 to the 5-in-1 dam, U.S. Cellular Center, Ground Transportation Center, and modernized Eastern Iowa Airport - came to be while he was mayor.

The family's obituary notes Canney's push to build the Edgewood Road bridge, dubbed “The Bridge to Nowhere” when it was built to lead development not follow it, and Canney's backing of a police helicopter fleet, known affectionately in its day as Canney's Air Force.

Tom Aller, president of Alliant Energy subsidiary Interstate Power and Light Co., on Monday called Canney “a tireless champion for Cedar Rapids and the state of Iowa.”

Aller, who was executive assistant to Canney and the City Council from 1972 through 1988, said Canney's training as a civil engineer gave him a unique ability to understand the role that the city played in planning for the infrastructure that the private sector needed to grow and expand.

Aller noted that Canney helped the city endure the loss of some major industries during his time in office by helping to create what is now the Priority One division of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce to attract new employers to the city. He said Canney then traveled the world to lure companies to Cedar Rapids.

“He understood that the economy worked when people had a job,” Aller said.

Hal Schaefer, who served on the City Council as finance commissioner from 1971 to 1991, last night called Canney “a remarkable person with great foresight for what the city needed.”

“He helped bring in many businesses and industries into the community, which created many, many new jobs and helped make Cedar Rapids a vibrant place,” Schaefer said.

Schaefer noted that Canney took it hard back in 2008 when his son Tim, 44, died in car crash in which another driver was at fault.

Wayne Murdock, who served on the City Council as streets commissioner during much of Canney's time in office, said last night that Canney was “a great leader, very knowledgeable and very fair.”

“He did a lot for this city. He made it progressive,” Murdock said.

Murdock said he used to call Canney, “Governor,” because he figured the mayor should run for the office or would run for it one day.

Former Gazette newspaper columnist, editor and City Hall reporter Mike Deupree remembered another name - King - that he said news reporters who covered Canney at City Hall often used for the mayor.

“We would kid him because he was powerful,” Deupree said. “He never did anything that was outside the realm of what he could do. But he had a way of getting the things done that he wanted to get done. A lot of that was compromise. But he was a very powerful political figure.”

Deupree said Canney was a hard worker, had “a wonderful sense of humor” and, “it's corny, but he loved Cedar Rapids.”

He said Canney had a knack for taking a critic of the City Council and placing the person on a city board or commission that dealt with the issue that the person had complained about.

“I don't know if he did it because here's a citizen who really cares about this issue, so put him to work,” Deupree said. “But a lot of them would become, if not fans of his, at least not his critics.”

Mostly, Deupree said Canney wanted to accomplish something, and for this he would get criticized, too.

“His critics would talk about how he was getting together with the big movers and shakers in town to do all these things. And it was true,” Deupree said.

At the same time, Deupree recalled the time when an influential person from out of town had gotten a $1 parking ticket and handed it to Canney and asked him to take care of it.

“Canney said, ‘Absolutely,'?” Deupree remembered. “And he took the parking ticket and took a $1 out of his pocket, put it in the parking ticket, and gave it to (his secretary) to turn in.”

Kevin Canney said his dad was equally comfortable around blue-collar workers as he was with local business leaders and visiting dignitaries. He said, too, that his dad had plenty of offers in his time from both political parties to run for governor and for Congress and the Senate.

“He always said he could do more for the people of Cedar Rapids by staying right here,” Kevin Canney said.

Canney resigned from city office in 1992 at age 61 and worked three years for PMX Industries Inc., a South Korean company that had opened a plant in Cedar Rapids.

On the side as mayor and in retirement, Canney continued to produce “Don Canney's Leech Lake filet knife” named for the fishing lake where he spent time in the summer.

A funeral mass for Canney will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Pius X Catholic Church. Visitation will be at Cedar Memorial Park Funeral Home from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. Thursday at the church.

Cedar Rapids milestones for Don Canney

Among the milestones in Cedar Rapids during Don Canney's tenure in city office:

-Edgewood Road bridge over Cedar River: Opened in 1970

-City's aviation department: Created in 1972

-5-in-1 Dam:Completed in 1979

-Five Seasons Center (now U.S. Cellular Center): Opened in 1979

-Ground Transportation Center: Opened in late 1983

-New public library: Opened in 1985

-Central Fire Station: Completed in 1986

-Priority One: Helped launch the economic development division of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce in 1986 as a successor to chamber group known as the Committee of 100

-The Eastern Iowa Airport expansion: New terminal opened in 1986

-Cedar Rapids Museum of Art: Opened with new addition in 1989

-PMX Industries: Helped recruit plant that held its grand opening in 1992

-Interstate 380: Considered a driving force in creation of the freeway and later, a strong advocate of the Avenue of the Saints, which connected St. Louis and St. Paul, Minn., using the interstate

Source: Gazette archives