Council Keeps Smokestack Hope Alive

Cedar Rapids City Council members, sans absent Mayor Ron Corbett and Pat Shey, starred last night in the latest episode of "Dancing with the Sinclair Smokestack."

They waltzed and jitterbugged and voted 6-1 to sustain efforts to save the stack, which is seen by historic preservationists as an important symbol of the city's blue collar history worth keeping. I was a little surprised at the margin, based on the vocal public opposition heaped on the preservation idea in recent days.

I give the council high marks for artistry. But its technical performance was lacking.

There was passion on the panel, to be sure. It spilled out after Historic Preservation Chair Maura Pilcher delivered a Power Point presentation on the stack, during which I and perhaps others learned the meaning of the word "plinth." The century-old smokestack has a 41-foot plinth at its base. Now you know.

Council member Justin Shields wants to save the smokestack from plinth to tip. This union guy doesn't want to see the city's industrial history disappear in a cloud of brick dust.

"We can't get so bogged down in flood stuff that we forget our heritage," said Shields, while acknowledging that the city has bigger fish to fry. "Just to tear it down, say the whole thing is gone, flatten it...It doesn't cut it for me.

Tom Podzimek argued forcefully that the smokestack doesn't belongs to us, it belongs to the people who built the plant and worked there. He called it a physical link to the past that should be preserved and protected. "My full weight is behind preservation," he said.

Mayor Pro-Tem Monica Vernon, who chaired the meeting, invoked the memory of the city's regretful razing of Union Station. "There were a lot of blood, sweat and tears at that plant," she said. "I'm confident we can (preserve it) safely."

Council member Don Karr was "torn" but, in the end, voted to save.There's a historian in that Cowboy.

Technically, as Chuck "The Colonel" Wieneke pointed out, the council was abandoning its earlier lines in the sand.

Back in the day, the council indicated smokestack preservation was OK so long as public money is not involved and stabilization efforts don't delay demolition of the rest of the flooded, burned packing plant.

Now, $150,000 to $200,000 in FEMA historic preservation money will be used. And Flood Recovery Director Greg Eyerly said preservation efforts could indeed delay demolition, a delay that would come with a cost of thousands of dollars per-day. And too much delay could mean not getting demolition work done before cold weather sets in.

The smokestack could add to other potential delays. Wet weather, environmental issues could also slow work, among other unforeseen issues. Finding "Jimmy Hoffa's resting place," Eyerly joked.

Speed is key. If an engineer can be dropped into the smokestack soon to inspect its structure, it could be declared stable fairly quickly. Otherwise, stabilization work could take time.

"There are too many 'ifs' on this project. That's the third strike," said Wieneke, the lone no vote.

Use of public bucks troubles me, although it is money that must be spent for preservation and isn't being swiped from other recovery needs. I just don't get a sense the broader public wants this.

And I don't understand why the council failed to set hard deadline on smokestack efforts. It sounded to me like this needs to be wrapped up by late July or early August in order to avoid costly demo delays. An August 1 cut off would have seemed reasonable. But the council left the ends loose.

That was a mistake, but we won't know for a while if it's a significant blunder. If engineers find the smokestack is safe and stable without much extra work, no problem. If costly, time-consuming work is needed to keep it standing through the demolition around it, the council will have more dancing to do.