Residents more upset about closing Second Avenue SE than buying a hotel, mayor says

Mayor Ron Corbett, along with three of his eight City Council colleagues, spent time Saturday morning at the Hy-Vee Food Store on Wilson Avenue SW, meeting breakfast-goers and inviting them to chew a bit on their elected officials.

The Coffee and Conversation with the Council event came on the heels of Corbett's announcement late in the week that the city intended to try to buy the downtown's only hotel, the long-struggling Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel, which is now owned by its creditors.

“Instead of spending $3 million to buy a hotel, why doesn't the city issue checks to people who have been waiting two years now for a buyout (of their flood-ruined home)? asked Dennis Pusateri, a 52-year-old truck driver with a house at 908 16th Ave. SE that's on the city's buyout list.

“Iowa City is all done (with their buyouts),” added Ron Hubler, 69, of 1529 Third St. SW.

Pusateri, who said he is only able to find work part time, Hubler and third man at their table also were grumbling about the lack of jobs in the city, and they wondered if Corbett was going to do anything about that.

“I'm in my 50s,” said Pusateri, “and no one seems to want to hire anyone in their 50s.”

Cloud “Robbie” Robinson, a one-time state senator and former legislative lobbyist, also had questions for Corbett about the city's proposal to try to buy the Crowne Plaza hotel. How much tax revenue does the hotel now bring to the city? Is the city prepared to lose that revenue? Robinson wanted to know.

He pointed across the river from downtown to the Best Western Cooper's Mill Hotel, and wondered how fair it was to the hotel's owner for the city to buy the Crowne Plaza and compete against a private hotel.

“There's a question of fairness there,” said Robinson, 72, of 404 Cherry Hill Rd. SW.

Robinson, though, said he and Corbett, a former state lawmaker and speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives, go way back, and he said he stands ready to have the mayor try to convince him about the city buying a hotel. But he added, “What's next, a hospital?”

Frank King, a veteran west-side neighborhood leader, showed up with the 31 citizen comments made in reaction to a news story about the city's proposal to buy the hotel, and every one of the comments was against the idea, King said.

“But Ron Corbett is going to do what he wants to do,” said King, 61, of 19 27th Ave. SW. King said he voted for Corbett last fall with the thought that he would listen to the public and not think he had all the answers. “It's sad to see it's business as usual,” he said.

Saturday morning's chitchat was not all about the hotel and whether the city had any business buying one.

A 72-year-old former city engineering department employee, who declined to give his name, sympathized with Corbett on the hotel issue, calling it “a conundrum” that probably needed some attention.

“But the streets are going to hell in a hand basket,” he told Corbett. “It's tough to do fight all of (these issues) at once, but streets are going to get you over time.”

Rick Struve Jr., a regulatory technician at Intermec, showed up to talk about the city proposal to close Second Avenue SE between 10th and 12th streets SE at the request of Physicians' Clinic of Iowa, which wants to build a new clinic there on what is now Second Avenue SE.

Struve Jr., 50, of 1949 B Ave. NE, said the physicians ought to do what they had initially planned and build the new clinic to straddle Second Avenue SE. He said the second story of the clinic could be built across Second Avenue SE, creating a tunnel so traffic could continue to flow and so patients can be dropped off out of the elements at the clinic door. Traffic on First Avenue East will be a mess if part of Second Avenue SE is closed, he said.

After two hours of conversation, Corbett said he was surprised at what he said was the relative lack of comment about the city's proposal to buy the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

He said there is and has been much more “intensity” from people opposed to the closing of a portion of Second Avenue SE, a decision the council will make later this summer.

“With the hotel, they may be against the idea, but they said they were open to hearing more about it. Some said do what you think is best,” Corbett said.

The Saturday event was the sixth of seven such events in which the mayor and council members are visiting the seven local Hy-Vee Food Stores in the city to meet with residents.

Failing streets has been a “very consistent message,” Corbett said.

Council member Chuck Wieneke, along with Corbett, spent the full two hours at the Hy-Vee on Saturday morning, though Wieneke and Corbett appeared to keep their distance from one another. Wieneke is displeased with Corbett for announcing plans about the hotel without telling him about it, a fact for which Corbett publicly has apologized to Wieneke.

“As I sit here today, I don't think the city belongs in the hotel business,” said Wieneke. He said he needs to be convinced.

Council members Chuck Swore and Justin Shields also attended part of the Saturday event.

Swore defended the proposal for the city to buy a hotel. He recalled how citizens howled back in early 2007 when the city purchased the former Sinclair meatpacking plant for $4 million to redevelop the eyesore of a site. Local investors paid almost nothing for the shuttered plant in the early 1990s while the city sat back and watched, Swore noted.

As for the hotel, he said the city doesn't want to stay in the hotel business, but he predicted that citizens would call council members “dummies” in years to come if they don't grab the hotel now at a bargain-basement price, refurbish it and sell it once the new Event Center opens next to it in 30 months.