Corbett finds no adoration on Cedar Rapids’ west side even though he’s fighting to protect it

CEDAR RAPIDS – Mayor Ron Corbett jokingly broke the ice last night by telling 80 residents at Harrison Elementary School in the northwest Cedar Rapids area hit hardest by the June 2008 flood that he had been told to expect an adoring, supportive crowd.

The Army Corps of Engineers' plan for the city's flood-protection system calls for protection on most of the east side of the river, but not the west, and Corbett and the City Council are determined to see a system built that protects both sides of the river.

“They should love you over there on the west side because you're fighting for them,” Corbett said a resident from elsewhere in the city told him.

Last night's event – the first of 20 evening neighborhood meetings in April, sponsored by the Protect Cedar Rapids Committee to explain the need for a 20-year extension of the city's 1-percent local-option sales tax – was far from a love fest.

Instead, it was serious session in a neighborhood sometimes skeptical of City Hall in which an attentive, serious-minded audience peppered Corbett with 90 minutes of questions about the particulars of the city's need for the tax extension and its plans for flood protection and fixing streets.

Voters in the city and in most of Linn County vote on the tax-extension question on May 3, with each jurisdiction having plans for how to use its portion of the tax revenue. Cedar Rapids will use 50 percent of about $18 million the tax will raise a year for the city to help pay for flood protection, 40 percent to fix streets and 10 percent for property-tax relief.

Lynn Stansbery asked Corbett the first question: What happens if Cedar Rapids voters turn down the May 3 vote? What is Plan B? she asked.

Corbett said the city's plan is Plan B. Plan A was to get the Corps' backing to build a comprehensive flood-protection system on both sides of the river, and the Corps' cost formula didn't support such a plan, he said.

“If this fails, it won't help us get federal and state support,” the mayor said. “How can I ask them for money if we won't provide a local match?”

Corbett started the 100-minute session with a short presentation, the first and most important message of which is that the City Council believes it is not acceptable to not protect against another flood disaster, he said. The presentation feature the mayor's “three-legged stool,” in which he said the city's $375-million flood protection system needs funding from the federal and state governments and local taxpayers if it is to become reality.

He said it's as if the city is one of three young boys or girls headed down to the swimming hole in early summer. Which of the three is going to take the dive first? The federal and state governments expect the city to prove it can produce a local match of dollars first, he said.

One questioner wondered who was going to be entrusted to handle the revenue and maintain the flood-protection system once in place, and Corbett said a “levy authority” will be created to oversee the construction and the long-term maintenance of the system.

Several questions center around the request for a 20-year extension rather than for a period shorter than that, and one person said he didn't feel comfortable giving the City Council that much leeway over that many years.

Corbett said the ballot language is specific on how the tax revenue must be used, and he said, in fact, the City Council has much more freedom to do what it wants with its central source of revenue, property taxes, than it has with sales-tax revenue. Yet citizens trust the elected officials with property-tax revenue, he said.

Corbett envisioned a scenario in which the council would return to the voters to alter how the tax extension is used or the length of the extension should the city obtain more funds from the federal government than it now expects. He said the city will continue to battle to get the federal government to help fund west-side construction if the city succeeds in getting funds for the east side of the river.

One retiree said he City Hall can use “fuzzy math” when it comes to taxes, to which Corbett noted that the sales-tax extension doesn't increase the level of taxes but extends the level of an existing tax.

Corbett said, “I don't like it (the tax extension) either,” but he said he then goes back to the most important question: Protect the city or don't protect it?

One questioner wondered how other Iowa cities fix their streets while Cedar Rapids says it is falling behind on fixing its streets. Corbett read from a state tax list that showed Dubuque, Davenport, Waterloo and Sioux City have had a local-option sales tax in place for years, and all use it to fix streets, he said.

The Rev. Courtney Twedt-Ball asked Corbett if the city would use the sales-tax revenue for streets and shift what it now spends for streets from property taxes for other items.

Corbett said the city had no plans for a “bait-and-switch.”

“I drive on our streets,” the mayor said. “We have potholes in potholes. We're going to fix our streets.”

The next neighborhood event is 6:30 p.m. Monday at Garfield Elementary School, 1201 Maplewood Dr. NE.