Good intentions, bad process

Two groups of Cedar Rapids residents are on opposite sides of the same penny.

One is the Cedar Rapids City Council, which recently voted 8-0 to provide grants of up to $10,000 to flooded-out homeowners to help cover the cost of lost personal possessions. The grants would be funded using dollars from the one-cent, local-option sales tax.

The second is an advisory panel that's supposed to make sure the council's plans for penny tax spending are consistent with the plan voters approved in March 2009. The panel voted 6-1 this week that the council's grant program does not fit the ballot language, which says the tax can be spent on housing acquisition, rehabilitation and to provide any necessary local match needed to pull down federal funds.

Mayor Ron Corbett says the grants match federal dollars provided earlier, so they fit the plan. And because the advisory panel has no power, the grants program will move forward.

Now the public has an unmet need - an explanation for how such a split can happen.

Clearly, the council is going beyond the ballot's limits. But members are doing so for admirable reasons. There's a strong desire in a community that approved the tax to help flood victims that those dollars hit the streets and do some good. Tens of millions of dollars have been obligated, but little has been spent.

The grants at issue will cover only a small fraction of lost possessions, which we all saw stacked in tall, muddy, soaked piles in front of flooded homes. Federal dollars received previously to cover possessions will be subtracted from the grants, which are also taxable.

Council members also are hemmed in by ballot language that was approved before the city's leaders fully understood the needs and barriers to recovery they now face.

But good intentions and understandable difficulties do not give the council a free pass. Under Iowa law, if the council believes the ballot language needs editing, it can go back to the voters and ask for a change.

The creation of an advisory panel to oversee spending of the tax was a vital component of the tax plan. The fact that the council is ignoring the panel's guidance seems to confirm the worries of tax opponents, who predicted the advisory panel would be simply window dressing. The council should, at the least, allow the panel to be fully informed and consider a proposed use before it's passed.

With no sign that the council will reconsider, this debate is largely over. But we're concerned about the future. If recovery needs or the cost of a flood protection system require the city to ask for the penny tax to be renewed, this chapter may come back to haunt city leaders. Already skeptical voters may not sign on to renewal if they're convinced the plan they pass isn't the plan they'll get.

The road to mistrust may be paved with good intentions.