Go-to guy on police chief interviews is Presbyterian minister

It's not CBS or CNN. But Robin Kash was on the front line Tuesday at City Hall with a tripod, a small video camera and a still camera to record the interviews of four of the candidates competing to be Cedar Rapids' next police chief.

A small sign dangling from the tripod explained what Kash was up to. He is Neighborhood Network News.

Kash also videotaped the first chief interview on Saturday and will be there Wednesday to capture the final two chief candidates on video camera.

You can go to his Web site at www.neighborhoodnetworknews.com to see the video replays of each of the seven interviews. Give him a little time to post the latest.

Kash reports that he served as a Presbyterian minister for 40 years, and that he came to Cedar Rapids from Topeka, Kan., in the last couple years to serve for a year as interim pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Cedar Rapids.

In the last 20 years, too, he's worked in the publishing business.

He now lives with his wife in the Wellington Heights Neighborhood, and over the last several months has launched his neighborhood news network.

He has videotaped some neighborhood meetings and other local matters of neighborhood interest.

On his Web site, he has a video piece on the Noelridge Park Greenhouse. He's interviewed former neighborhood president and former council member Dale Todd about the building of the new Hy-Vee Food Store on First Avenue NE. He's talked to Michael Richards, president of the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association. And there's 90 minutes of a meeting between council member Monica Vernon and her District 2 council constituents.

Kash says the future of news is the Internet and that's where he is establishing his upshot effort.

Among his future plans: Videotaping potholes and, perhaps, eyesore properties in neighborhoods, and then going back later and seeing what progress has or has not be made.