C.R. tax supporters ‘done with the issue’

CEDAR RAPIDS - Opponents of the local-option sales tax extension they worked to defeat Tuesday say they'll continue working on flood-mitigation plans for Cedar Rapids, but those on the other side say they're done.

“We gave it our best try yesterday and our group is done with the issue,” said Gary Ficken, chairman of the pro-extension Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax (CREST), said Wednesday. “In our view the city has spoken, and the city does not seem to have any interest in west-side flood protection.”

That's not the message extension opponents took from their 579-vote, 52-48-percent victory.

“This vote was not about flood protection, it wasn't,” said Lisa Kuzela, a northwest Cedar Rapids resident and founder of We Can Do Better CR. “They will not admit that the people do not trust how they've spent their money. That is the reason why they defeated it. The people do not trust the city, that's the message they need to hear.”

The $200 million the 10-year extension of the tax would have raised in Cedar Rapids would have been earmarked for flood protection on both sides of the Cedar River.

Kuzela and Eric Rosenthal, We Can Do Better's chairman, say the group will remain active, promoting an alternative sales-tax question they could put before voters yet this year.

Mayor Ron Corbett thinks it's too late.

“The longer you get away from the disaster, the less people think it's going to flood again,” said Corbett, noting the tax extension lost by its widest margin - 964 votes - in Cedar Rapids. Last May's vote on a 20-year tax extension was defeated by about 700 votes within the city.

“Only a handful (of precincts) passed it so we actually lost ground,” Corbett said.

Rosenthal said he'll urge local legislators to continue pressing the case for a flood-mitigation package now moving through the state Legislature. The plan would use state sales taxes to fund a $30 million pool to match local governments' flood projects.

“Don't just abandon the flood legislation,” Rosenthal said. “The message from over here is the voters would like some specificity, some accountability.”

“We're still going to push for them to pass the legislation, but I think it's a little steeper hill for us,” Corbett said.

Rosenthal thinks We Can Do Better can provide the foundation for a flood-control coalition.

“We have a broad coalition of folks, folks that would never vote for it and folks that would vote for a more specific thing,” he said. “But to have a dialogue it's incumbent for both parties to communicate. They thought they could win it, and they ignored us.”

But Corbett said tax supporters listened, cutting the sales-tax extension from 20 to 10 years and dropping other spending provisions from the ballot.

“We tried to work with them last time,” he said. “We took their advice on that.”

Rosenthal said We Can Do Better's petition has about 1,000 signatures, and the group could launch an effort to bring yet another tax extension before voters as early as late summer, but he concedes there's a fatigue factor.

“Because people were so upset it's twice now in 10 months, we have to be sensitive to it,” he said. “I will push the group to move and hopefully we can have dialogue with our leaders.”

Meanwhile, Corbett said, the city will work with the Army Corps of Engineers to develop a plan for flood protection on the east bank. The Corps can't justify west-bank protection under its cost-benefit formula.

“I'd hate to be the mayor of a community that only wants to protect one side, but the voters have turned it down twice now,” he said.