Fagan and Corbett disagree on much; Larson asks, 'Which half of Halloran do you want?'

Mayoral candidate front runners Brian Fagan, a current council member, and Ron Corbett found plenty to disagree on during two Tuesday mayoral forums.

Fagan, 37, and attorney at Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman, and Corbett, 48, vice president at trucking firm CRST Inc., didn't see eye-to-eye on the city's use of consultants; the city's new franchise fee on utility bills; the existence of what Corbett calls a City Hall “culture of delay;” the council's push for “diversification” of revenue; the council's strategy for spending local-option sales tax revenue; and who is leading city government, the council or the city manager.

Meanwhile, the mayoral race's third candidate, P.T. Larson, 52, who has failed in 12 earlier runs for council, noted that outgoing mayor Kay Halloran is both a former state legislator and an attorney. He then asked, “Which half of Halloran do you want?” He said Fagan, an attorney, hadn't delivered on flood-related matters, and Corbett, a former legislator, was more comfortable in the back rooms of politics.

Fagan said that the City Council leads the city government while City Manager Jim Prosser brings professional management to the government, which he said is what voters overwhelmingly endorsed when they changed the city's form of government in June 2005.

Corbett said it's the other way around, and he said Prosser had “too much power.” He'll change that, he said.

Larson went further: Larson suggested he would review Prosser's position with the city if he's elected.

On the role of consultants in city government, Fagan vigorously defended their use and said they are saving money for local taxpayers. He pointed to the damage analysis on the downtown library, and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially claimed that the library's damage amount to 16 percent of the value of the property. With the city consultants' help, FEMA later concluded the damage exceeded 50 percent of the value of the property, Fagan said.

Corbett on several occasions in Tuesday's two mayoral forums criticized what he said was an excessive use of out-of-state consultants, noting that the city only recently brought in a consultant from Minnesota for team-building exercises with the council at a time when the council ought to be looking for ways to cut spending.

Larson lets some of its top department heads go in the last couple years to make way for “the consultant albatross.”

Corbett called the city's new 1-percent franchise fee on utility bills a “regressive” tax and said it unfairly hit nonprofits and the low-income renters some of the nonprofits serve. Fagan said the city could have implemented a franchise fee up to 5 percent, but limited it to 1 percent, which he said covers the city's costs to manage the utility right of ways in the city.

Corbett said the city should be dispensing local-option sales tax revenue, which it began receiving in May, to flood victims, while Fagan said the city first wants to first make sure it doesn't  provide help that later will require flood victims to pay back other government help.

The franchise fee is one step taken by the council to find revenue sources other than the city's main one, property taxes, in what the council has called a need to “diversify” revenue. A local-option sales tax is another step in that effort.

Corbett urged people to “hang on to your wallets” any time someone talks about diversification of revenue because it usually means you'll pay both the old taxes and the new ones.

Fagan said the state of Iowa has failed in bringing about statewide property-tax reform so Iowa cities are more attractive to businesses. Fagan suggested that Corbett likes to talk about his 13 years as a state legislator, and he asked Corbett why he didn't get anything done on tax reform. Corbett said he did, particularly as it related to schools.

One of Tuesday's mayoral forums was sponsored by the Linn County Nonprofit Resources Center, the other by CBS-2 and the Cedar Rapids Jaycees.

During the forums, Fagan made it clear that Cedar Rapids is his hometown, and he said the current City Council has put a foundation in place that has positioned the city for an “amazing period of prosperity.”

“I'm so proud of my hometown, and I'm optimistic about where we are going,” Fagan said.

Corbett called himself a coalition builder and he gave examples of how he brought people together as Speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives and as president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce to help create the Community Attraction and Tourism grant program, pass a local school bond vote and build a new neighborhood Hy-Vee Food Store between the Wellington Heights and Mound View neighborhoods.

Corbett said “a lot of friction” exists in the city today between the City Council and flood victims, veterans, small business owners and the library board. He said he can bring the friction to an end.

Larson, a “floating project worker” at ACT Inc. in Iowa City, said he will concentrate on public safety and public infrastructure. He proposed putting police precinct houses in fire stations and an adopt-a-block program for neighborhood cleanup.

Larson said there were two cities of Cedar Rapids, and he said the fact that country club members got a street quickly named after golfer Zach Johnson while NFL star Kurt Warner, another native son, has not had the same done for him. He was pushing for Kurt Warner Pass.

On a question of adequate housing for everyone, Fagan said he played a key role in the early weeks after the 2008 of convincing Iowa's Congressional delegation to double the amount of tax credits available in Iowa for the construction of affordable housing.

Corbett said he did not like that the City Council steered most housing incentives to big multifamily complexes. He said he wanted to see more incentives for single-family homes in neighborhoods and for helping flood-damaged rental properties, which provided much of affordable housing before the flood. There are many good landlords, he said.