CR Council Now Owns Recovery

The Cedar Rapids City Council now owns the city's flood recovery effort. We won't have Jim Prosser and those infamous consultants to kick around anymore.

Ownership was officially transferred when the council voted 7-2 last eve to bring Flood Recovery Director Greg Eyerly under its management wing. Eyerly previously worked for Prosser, the city manager.

So now the electeds are calling all the shots. Prosser will be trading his flood hat for a job-creation hat. And Eyerly now has 900 percent more bosses than he did when he walked into the Hiawatha City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

This did not occur without some drama.

Council member Justin Shields chairs the council's personnel committee, which was supposed to delve into the details of the management change. Instead, Shields reported that he "forgot" to tell Council member  Tom Podzimek, another committee member, about the panel's meeting on the matter. 

Seriously. Did Shields really "forget" to tell the single most vocal opponent of the Eyerly shuffle that the committee was meeting to discuss said shuffle?

I was all for setting up committees, but it might be nice if their chairs would be at least competent enough to remember a few names. Otherwise, it might start looking like these panels are just window-dressing societies charged with decorating done deals. Perish the thought.

Podzimek charged that Shields' amnesia constituted a violation of open meetings law. That's a stretch, legally, but it was certainly a violation of good sense and fair play. I don't care whether you agree with Podzimek or not.

Corbett then asked City Attorney Jim Fitz for a ruling on Podzimek's charge. Flitz would not touch the issue with a 10-foot copy of the Iowa Code, insisting he would first need to do "lawyerly things" before giving such a fateful opinion.

And with that, the openness debate swiftly closed.

Podzimek's real fighting concern is with how, exactly, the council will manage Eyerly and marshal the personnel resources he needs. He wondered now how Eyerly would get help from employees who still report to the city manager and how, for goodness sake, will he get copy paper, etc.

Podzimek was told it will all get worked out. Prossser's office has issued several recommendations on how it will work. No worries.

"I would hope copy paper is available to anyone working with the city," said Council member Chuck Swore, speaking for all of us.

Shields demanded that the council not get "childish" on this. No one questioned this, fearing he would forget to invite them to future meetings, birthday parties etc.

Council member Don "The Cowboy" Karr then decided to oh-so-delicately accuse Podzimek of failing to show up for other city hall stuff. Mayor Ron Corbett stepped in to throw a lasso around The Cowboy's diatribe.

At that point, Chuck "The Colonel" Wieneke, once a critic of moving Eyerly, called for a tactical retreat. He said there's no use fighting a move that 's going to happen.

"The Trojan horse is going to be wheeled into the city," Wieneke said. Unfortunately, he did not say exactly when.

Indeed, no copy paper was needed. The writing was on the wall.

All that was left was for Council Member Kris Gulick to cue a Corbett monologue on why the council needs to take over recovery management.

"What is the underlying reason to do this?" Gulick asked.

Funny you should ask.

Corbett explained that up until now, recovery has been mostly about preparation and planning. But now that we're moved into an era of decision-making, and the council is making those decisions, the recovery director should answer to the decision-makers. Decisive.

Oh, and there was also Corbett's 10-month mayoral campaign anchored to the notion that the city's flood recovery strategy was mired in a "culture of delay." It might be tough to run against dysfunction and then leave that management structure unchanged after you get elected.

"Frankly, I'm disappointed by the flood recovery effort and the pace of it," Corbett said. "There is a sense we need to step up and be responsible."

Corbett insisted that the move is "no power grab" and that Prosser should be focused on economic development. Prosser did not say whether he likes his new hat. He said nothing during the whole discussion.

"Maybe it's not the textbook way to run a city manager (form of government). But these are not textbook times," Corbett said.

That would have been the grand finale, and should have been, but Swore couldn't resist rattling Podzimek's cage one more time, for fun.

"Are you satisfied with our flood recovery? Swore asked, referring to the speed of recovery efforts.

"You're haven't showed me this will be faster," Podzimek said.

"We're going to show you, Tom. Sit back and watch," Swore said.

Zing.

Podzimek and Gulick voted no.

I'm not sure exactly how this will work, either, but I think the elected council does need to take full ownership and responsibility for the big recovery decisions that are about to be made. That's what people expect, and didn't get often enough under the previous regime.

Then again, maybe we should have held a series of open houses to pick from seven different management structures. Nah.