Cedar Rapids council sells sales-tax extension then votes to put it on Nov. 5 ballot

CEDAR RAPIDS - The City Council made it official last night and unanimously approved a measure to ask voters on Nov. 5 to extend the 1-percent local-option sales tax for 10 years to raise money to maintain, repair, construct and reconstruct city streets.

The council, which represents the majority of residents in the county, has the ability to prompt a vote on a local-sales tax measure.

At the same time, voters in Cedar Rapids vote as a part of the metro block of cities on such measures. So the cities of Marion, Hiawatha, Robins and Fairfax also will be voting on the tax extension on Nov. 5.

The mayors of Marion, Hiawatha and Robins joined Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett at a news conference last week to announce their support for the tax extension.

Each city will use revenue from the tax for its own specified projects.

The existing local-option sales tax expires for the five metro cities and the city of Walford on June 30, 2014.

All other cities in Linn County as well as unincorporated Linn County have the sales tax in place for additional years.

Last night, five of the nine Cedar Rapids council members spoke in favor of extending the sales tax "to pay for the costs of the maintenance, repair, construction and reconstruction of public streets."

Three others, including Corbett, did the same at last week's news conference.

Council member Chuck Swore, chairman of the council's Infrastructure Committee, said last night that council members drive on city streets, too, and "we know they are in dire straits." He said it is a problem 20 to 30 years in the making and the result of not spending enough in many of those years to keep pace with the deterioration.

He said the local-option sales tax has the advantage of generating revenue from people who use the streets and work and shop in the city but live elsewhere and so do not contribute to fixing what they help to destroy. The burden falls on residents of the city that pay property taxes to fix the streets otherwise, Swore said.

Council member Scott Olson cited an oft-cited figure that 30 percent of the revenue from a local-option sales tax comes from those who live outside the city but use the city and its streets.

Swore and Olson said the city will provide voters with a list of streets it intends to fix and build and the city will spell out how each street's condition is rated based on a national rating standard. Streets in every quadrant of the city would be fixed under the tax-extension plan, Olson said.

Council member Kris Gulick, who is chairman of the council's Finance and Administrative Services Committee, said last week the city could use at least $30 million a year to fix its 630 miles of streets, 15 percent of which he said are in poor condition and 19 percent of which are rated fair, according to the city's rankings.

The 1-percent sales tax would provide about $20 million a year in revenue for streets for Cedar Rapids. The city receives about $11 million a year in state gas-tax revenue to help.

Swore said the sales tax would let the city fix streets without taking on new debt to do the work.

Two members of the public spoke to the council last night about the tax measure.

Former council member Chuck Wieneke spoke in favor of the tax extension, saying Cedar Rapids streets were "an embarrassment."

Wieneke said he runs into people all the time, many of them younger and new to the city, who say, "I can't believe how bad your streets are,'' he said.

Carol Martin, a longtime City Hall observer, told the council last night that they had an "uphill" battle on the tax extension, and she predicted it wouldn't pass. It will fail because "people don't trust you," Martin said.

She agreed the streets needed fixing, "but another tax for 10 years?" she asked.

Swore, who is seeking re-election to an at-large council seat, noted that six of nine council seats also are on the Nov. 5 ballot along with the sales tax question.

"Throw us out," he said if you don't trust the current council members. "I don't want to be here if people don't trust me."