Cedar Rapids council sets ballot language for May 3 vote

CEDAR RAPIDS - The campaign begins today, Mayor Ron Corbett said last night after the City Council unanimously approved ballot language for the May 3 vote to extend the city's 1-percent local-option sales tax for 20 years to help pay for flood protection, street repair and property-tax relief.

Corbett, a part-time mayor, promised to serve as a pitch man to help educate voters on the tax-extension question, but a group calling itself the Protect Cedar Rapids Committee is in place to advocate for the passage of the tax extension.

The committee is headed up by Pat Baird, retired president/CEO at AEGONUSA Inc., who on Tuesday called the group a “grass-roots” educational effort.

Baird said Corbett and a group of others have gone “round and round” on 20 or 25 different ways to come up with local funding that Baird said is going to be required for the city to secure federal funding and, perhaps, state funding for its $375-million flood protection system.

“And those who have done that with the mayor have come to the conclusion that extending the local-option sales tax is the most efficient, the fairest and the most effective way to come up with the matching dollars that are needed for flood protection,” Baird said. “We get nothing from the federal government unless we come up with our match.”

Meanwhile, Tim Pugh - a 2009 City Council candidate, founder in 2009 of the Cedar Rapids Tea Party and a leading opponent of the local-option sales tax when it was approved by Cedar Rapids voters in March of that year - is organizing a new effort to oppose the tax-extension.

“The city has been pretty irresponsible with the way it's been handling the sales tax and the flood and the budget and everything, and I don't think we really can trust them with another 20 years,” Pugh said Tuesday.

The city does need a flood-protection system, he said, but the current proposal is more of a “grand scheme” than a “solid plan.” He compared the city's proposed $375-million system to the city's unsuccessful riverfront redevelopment plan of a number of years ago called River Run.

Baird said he agrees with Corbett that the sales-tax extension is a better option than a property-tax hike, and he said leaving the city unprotected is not an option, “given all the money that's now been reinvested.”

Voters in Cedar Rapids, he said, are willing to support a local tax issue once they understand the facts, and he pointed to past successful referendums to raise money for swimming pools, school repairs and the city's minor league baseball park.

“It seems when this community has an issue in front of them, where it's very focused and all the facts are out there, I think you get 70 percent of the vote. Or at least we have,” he said.

Baird said major companies, small companies and individuals will be contributing to the Protect Cedar Rapids Committee, adding that requests for contributions to date “have been very well received.” He hoped the committee would raise more than $200,000 to get its message out.

Most of the committee's work, he said, will come in April leading up to the May 3 vote. He said the committee members expect to hold neighborhood meetings in people's homes as one way to get the committee's message out.

“If you feel you're right, all you should have to do is educate,” Baird said.

Pugh said there is a lot of energy from people opposed to the tax extension compared to the effort to defeat the current 1-percent sales tax when it was approved primarily for flood-recovery-related programs in March 2009.

“There is a lot of momentum behind it this time,” Pugh said of the opposition.

In its action last night, the City Council approved ballot language, which calls for 50 percent of the revenue from a sales-tax extension to go to build and maintain a flood-protection system for both sides of the city with 40 percent for street improvements and 10 percent for property-tax relief. The tax extension would kick in on July 1, 2014, after the current tax period ends. The tax now raises $19 million a year for the city.