Council Finds its Fighting Spirit

In a year or so, we've gone from skin in the game to steel in the spine.

Cedar Rapids passed a local sales tax in 2009 with hopes of showing our state and federal benefactors that we're worthy of flood recovery help. Now, that same pot of local money is being used as leverage to push the Department of Housing and Urban Development to play the game our way, or keep some of its buyout bucks.

The City Council has found its fighting spirit, and I don't just mean tussling Don “The Cowboy” Karr and Chuck “The Colonel” Wieneke. Turns out our recovery doesn't always have to be dictated on someone else's terms. A little backbone can go a long way.

“The difference is like between playing chess and Rock 'Em Sock ‘Em Robots,” said Greg Eyerly, the city's flood recovery director, describing the change in the city's recovery approach since January.

Nothing against chess. Cautious planning was needed. But now we're entering the execution phase, and robotic bureaucracy may need a love tap on the chin to get its attention.

Like HUD, for example. Mayor Ron Corbett told the agency that he doesn't think it's fair play to award a flooded homeowner a “forgivable” loan to help buy a house, or an energy efficiency grant, and then deduct those dollars from his or her buyout offer. Some flooded out folks have been arguing as much, strenuously, for months. He asked HUD to see it his way, or the city will sidestep the agency and use local-option sales tax dollars to buy those homes.

Instead of accept and lament, it's challenge and move ahead. Five other council members are backing Corbett up.

Maybe the feds balk. But the mayor and council decided the right thing to do - with bureaucracy on one side and Cedar Rapids residents on the other - is to throw in with citizens. A city that has pushed hard for help with its damaged buildings is now pushing equally hard for help rebuilding damaged lives.

Aggressive advocacy also worked in getting bigger buyouts for flooded homeowners. Emboldened, the City Council has stopped treating edicts from above as unchangeable gospel. Breaking rules is not acceptable, certainly, but there's nothing wrong with questioning authority on behalf of your people.

And the council's going to need that confidence, now that it's taking over control of the recovery effort and moving Eyerly from City Manager Jim Prosser's supervision to council oversight.

The council will now own the recovery, with no one else to blame for delays, disappointments and stumbles.

Get ready for more rock 'em sock 'em.

Comments: (319) 398-8452 or todd.dorman@gazcomm.com