Corbett works on selling sales tax extension to voters

Mayor Ron Corbett on Tuesday made a first of what he says will be many public appearances over the next three months to try to convince voters to extend the city's 1-percent local-option sales tax for 20 years to help build a flood-protection system for both sides of the river and to fix city streets.

Corbett was the guest of the local Ex Club, an all-male bastion long on white-collar occupations, retirees and comic irreverence whose members peppered Corbett with questions about the proposed sales-tax extension and joked about the condition of the city's streets.

Ex Club member Dean Beer, a former AEGONUSA loan officer and small-business owner, said after the luncheon at Elmcrest Country Club that club members have had Corbett as a featured speaker over the years, and they “like him” and “respect his opinion,” Beer said.

About the proposed tax extension, Beer asked Corbett why the city couldn't extend the existing tax, set to expire in 2014, for five or so years, rather than 20 years. In response, Corbett said a tax collected over 20 years will allow those who enjoy the benefit of the flood-protection system and better streets 10, 15 and 20 years from now to help pay for the improvements.

One retiree noted that some in the room wouldn't be paying the tax for 20 more years, an acknowledgment that some would have died between now and June 30, 2034, when the existing 1-percent tax with a 20-year extension would run out.

One club member asked why the city didn't put the tax-extension question to voters at the general election in November rather than paying to hold a special election on May 3, as now planned if the City Council on Tuesday evening gives the go-ahead.

The Linn County Auditor has estimated that the special election, which by state law must be held countywide, will cost about $135,000, $80,000 of the cost of which would be the city of Cedar Rapids'.

By holding the vote on May 3, Corbett said the city is trying to show the U.S. Congress and the Iowa Legislature, both of which will be considering proposals in the first half of the year to help pay for Cedar Rapids' preferred, $375-million flood-protection system, that they city has local matching money available to pay its share of the project.

One club member wanted some reassurance that an extension of the local-option sales tax would direct the money for flood protection and streets, not to help the city renovate the now-city-owned Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel.

Corbett assured the questioner that none of sales-tax revenue would go to the hotel. Further, Corbett said he was “outside my comfort zone” being a mayor of a city that now owns a hotel. He explained that the hotel purchase was necessary to make sure that the city's $76-million Convention Complex project would not open next to a rundown hotel. Even so, Corbett said he is “hoping” to convince private investors to buy the hotel and invest $20-million or more in its renovation.

Corbett also said the city needed to adopt an ordinance that would ban train horns on the track outside of the hotel between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m.

The final questioner asked what Corbett was going to do if voters go to the polls and reject the sales-tax extension. Would you limit the city's new flood-protection system to the one recommended by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is designed to protect most of just the east side of the river? he asked the mayor.

“How can I do that?” Corbett asked in return. He said he would go back to the drawing board if voters turned the tax-extension down.

The mayor said using federal tax dollars for an east-side-only system would be unfair to west-side Cedar Rapidians who pay federal taxes just like everyone else in the city.

Corbett gave the Ex Club members a copy of a 1967 newspaper article from The Gazette, in which experts warn that Cedar Rapids was “ripe” for a historic flood.

Should the city sit back as it did then, Corbett asked, and say that flood protection is too big a job, it costs too much and that it's not going to flood again?