Corbett tells 500 at the State of the City Address that flood recovery, fixing economy top to-do list

Mayor Ron Corbett told a gathering of 500 people at the annual “State of the City' speech today that the city was somewhere between “running on eight cylinders” and being on “life support,” but he said he believed the city was headed to its best days ever.

Corbett opened his prepared speech of about 30 minutes at The Ballroom of the Crowne Plaza Five Seasons Hotel by saying he felt a bit guilty giving the annual mayoral speech after only eight weeks in office. But he noted that the speech is a requirement set out in the City Charter.

In his remarks, Corbett quoted Proverbs, the Broadway musical, “Wicked,” former President Bill Clinton and Beth Malicki, KCRG-TV9 news anchor.

Corbett said Malicki had been right on her weekly interview show when she told Corbett he would need an army of helpers to solve the city's problems.

Corbett said those in the audience – 461 paid to eat at the League of Women Voters-sponsored event – that they were that army.

“I believe Cedar Rapids is in good hands,” he said.

In a gray suit with a yellow flower provided by the event sponsor in his lapel, Corbett said the city's top two “focal points” today are flood recovery and restoring the local economy.

On the first point, he noted that he had successfully worked to see that flood victims now will be paid 107 percent of the pre-flood value of their properties and not 100 percent in the city's buyout process. He said, too, that he was working to begin spending local-option sales tax revenue now in city coffers to fill gaps in flood recovery.

The lines he cited from Proverbs said, in part, “Defend the rights of the poor and needy.” He then pointed out that it has become popular in Washington, D.C., to talk about banks and companies that are “too big to fail.”

“Cedar Rapids should coin its own phrase: ‘No one is too small or unimportant to let fall through the cracks,'” he said.

It drew the crowd's biggest applause, with applause lines also coming when he said the council would freeze property taxes at the present rates for the industrial and commercial sectors and that he thought the council would return city government to the Veterans Memorial Building and to the nearby old federal courthouse.

Corbett said the city was moving ahead with the renovation of five key flood-damaged buildings: the Paramount Theatre – “with a little more leg room;” the public library; the Central Fire Station; the Veterans Memorial Building; and the U.S. Cellular Center. He spoke as if it were a near-certainty that a $35-million federal grant will be coming, to go with a $15-million state I-JOBS grant in hand, to build a new convention center next to the U.S. Cellular Center.

He also said he would consider his time as mayor a failure if he doesn't help secure funding for a new flood protection system in the city. The great danger, he said, is to fall off the Washington, D.C., radar, adding Cedar Rapids didn't have a Super Bowl championship football team like New Orleans to help keep their flood-protection needs a national priority.

“The effort really falls on the political leadership of Cedar Rapids. Frankly, it needs to get done this year,” he said.

Corbett called on the local economic-development players to step up their game, and he said he also would challenge the city staff to let people know that the city is “open for business.” He proposed changing the name of the city's Code Enforcement Department to Code Assistance Department as one way to let businesses know the city is here to help.

In answer to some questions:

Corbett noted that his recently appointed long-term planning commission has 10 women and 10 men on it. He thought a tougher problem to solve than gender equity might be geographic equity: of 38 who applied for the commission, 27 or 28 came from the city's east side, he said.

He said the best he could do was this related to the library: It will be built in Cedar Rapids. The council will discuss three proposed sites at its meeting this evening.

He said it was important to get the Fourth of July fireworks back downtown, calling it a “symbolic step” in the city's flood recovery.

He said he did not think the Sinclair meatpacking site would be quickly redeveloped, and for now, he said, the goal was to demolish the buildings and clean up the property.

He said the Army Corps of Engineers will be in town on March 11 to discuss why the city chose a system of levees and flood walls for its proposed method of flood protection.

Corbett and the League of Women Voters reserved a couple tables at the event for those whose property had been damaged by the June 2008 flood.

They thanked Corbett for his help.