McGrane says council colleagues fear election defeat if they make positions clear on a new City Hall

Council member Jerry McGrane says some of his City Council colleagues have avoided saying much if anything publicly about the future of City Hall's long-time home on May's Island so they don't hurt their chances headed into the Nov. 3 city election.

“I think they're all scared that if we build a new building, they won't get reelected,” McGrane said in comments to The Gazette editorial board. “… I think everybody is scared to put their foot in their mouth.

McGrane, who is seeking reelection in council District 3, was responding to a question about why no one on the City Council, including him, had said much publicly – 16 months after the June 2008 flood -- about which of two options they favor related to the future of City Hall.

The central choices are between a return to the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island or the construction of a new City Hall, the cost of which has been estimated at more than $50 million by city consultant OPN Architects Inc. of Cedar Rapids.

At a public open house in September, OPN presented a case that suggested that building a new City Hall would cost about the same as returning to a renovated, improved Veterans Memorial Building when the costs were looked at over 50 years. In the OPN analysis, the cost picture for a new City Hall benefitted from what city leaders acknowledge are less-than-clear insurance costs that may attach to the Veterans Memorial Building.

In the wake of the September open house, the City Council and the city manager opted to delay a final open house, which had been slated for Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, until after the Nov. 3 election.

The council also announced it would approach the Linn County Board of Supervisors and the Cedar Rapids school board anew and see if one or both would like to once again talk about building a new administrative office building or a campus of buildings together.

Both the county and school district dropped out of such talks earlier this year.

However, Council member Tom Podzimek, who is the council's liaison on the “co-location” issue, has said neither the school district nor county expressed interest in sharing facilities at a meeting to revisit the issue in late September.

"I'm not optimistic that we will be sharing functions of structures," Podzimek said after the meeting.

No City Council member has come out in support of building a new City Hall or returning to the Veterans Memorial Building.

In comments to The Gazette editorial board, City Council member and mayoral candidate Brian Fagan has said he is still hopeful that the county and schools will decide to join with the city to share some facilities. Fagan suggested, too, that another option might be to locate City Hall in an existing building rather than building a new building.

City Manager Jim Prosser also has said that the city likely will seek funds from the federal government to help fund the construction of new buildings to replace flood-damaged ones. Without such help, the cost to build a new City Hall would come from local taxpayers. In any event, the Veterans Memorial Building – because of its historic status -- will be renovated and reused as something with the help of money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mayoral candidate Ron Corbett, for one, wants city government to use existing buildings, noting that the city also will be assuming ownership of the existing federal courthouse building a half block from the Veterans Memorial Building.

For his part, council member McGrane said he thinks city government ought to move back into the Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island if co-location with the county or schools is not going to work out.

“I love the island. I think it's a great place,” he said.

At-large council member Pat Shey, who is competing against McGrane for the District 3 seat, told The Gazette editorial board that he suspected that a majority of residents would embrace the construction of a new downtown library to replace that flood-wrecked one. But Shey said residents often can see the call for building a new City Hall as “a testament to a politician's vanity.”

Still, Shey said a shared facility among the different government entities “would be nice.”

He also said that two-thirds of the Veterans Memorial Building would not be available for “critical” city functions, but he seemed to acknowledge that some part of the “two-thirds” computation included lower levels of the building that were rarely used before the flood.

Shey then noted that the Veterans Memorial Building was “a darn-near unfunctional building before the flood.”

Kathy Potts, a third candidate in the District 3 race, told The Gazette editorial board said she wasn't sure she wanted every layer of local government in the same place.

She said a lot of people are “proud” of the Veterans Memorial Building and May's Island.