A sediment trap is one of the water quality improvement practices used by a landowner near the Fountain Springs Park trout stream. The trap improves water quality by reducing the number of sediment, nutrients and bacteria reaching the watershed. The trap also reduces flooding by slowing water reaching streams. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

State officials are ignoring important public policy recommendations to cope with climate change and increased risks of flooding and water pollution, Iowa Policy Project researchers said Monday.

“Iowans are going to see increased problems with water quality and quantity, in the form of flood damage, unless we make changes,” said Brian McDonough, lead author of the report and an intern with the Iowa City-based research group.

The report said that recommendations of three committees established by the Legislature — the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council, the Iowa Climate Change Impacts Committee and the Water Resources Coordinating Council — have all been largely ignored.

The authors noted, for example, that the Legislature has rejected all the key recommendations of the Water Resources Coordinating Council. Among them were adoption of a 500-year flood as the statewide regulated flood plain and increasing the safety and operation requirements for critical facilities within the flood plain, such as wastewater treatment plants.

Policy Project Executive Director David Osterberg, a co-author of the report, said state leaders have acknowledged that Iowa faces a future of increased precipitation and increased frequency of extreme rainfall events.

“Legislators keep asking questions, but the response to experts’ recommendations has been little or nothing,” he said.

Researcher Will Hoyer, another co-author, said state and local policymakers must work with farmers to keep water on the land where it falls rather than letting it run off as floodwater.

McDonough said increased row crop production driven by high commodity prices, coupled with precipitation trends, creates “a perfect storm” for increased flooding and degradation of water quality.

The crystal components of the large chandelier at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids awaits reassembly on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

A beacon of hope during the Floods of 2008 is taking shape to prepare for its reinstallation in the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.

The museum’s signature chandelier was carefully dismantled in November 2010 — the last item removed before the building was relocated to higher ground the following summer. More than 1,000 crystals, along with globes, lamp arms and other pieces, were kept crated in storage until this week, when workers began the process of reassembling the 8-foot-tall chandelier.

“It’s a job that must be done right,” said facilities director Grant Smith, pointing to row upon row of numbered crystals laid out on five tables inside the museum. “It can’t be rushed.”

The chandelier was one of few items left untouched by 8-foot-high Cedar River floodwaters that inundated the building in June 2008.

Grant Smith, director of facilities at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Cedar Rapids, returns a component of the chandelier as it awaits being reassemble and hung in the museum. Any missing or broken electrical parts need to be fabricated. The museum is planning to reassemble and rehang the chandelier later this week. . Shot on Tuesday, May 15, 2012. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

Museum library director Dave Muhlena said 13 pallets of books and archival materials were returned from storage Monday, some of which had been restored at the University of Iowa. Other preparations are being completed as the museum readies for its July 14 reopening date.

On Tuesday, Smith was tasked with devising a connection between the top of the chandelier and a new hoist that will allow staff to raise and lower the nearly 500-pound fixture for cleaning or changing bulbs.

Smith said new bulbs will have an environmental twist. Previously, 48 40-watt lights were used, pulling 1,920 watts of power. New 3-watt LED bulbs will draw just 144 watts, he said, for the same amount of light.

The fixture will be lit whenever the building is open.

“It is a centerpiece of the museum,” Smith said.

The Czech-made chandelier, donated by siblings Leora and Edwin Zahorik, was installed by three electricians from the Czech Republic in 1998. Dave Dyrland of Paulsen Electric, who rewired the fixture in 2007, helped dismantle the piece for storage. The company is also being used for the reinstallation.

Jason Wright, museum vice president for development, said the chandelier cheered staff members who saw it upon returning to the building after the flood. When power was restored to the area, he said, the chandelier was lit as a demonstration of the recovery.

“It was like the soul of the building was still there,” Wright said. “It was this glimmering beacon of hope.”

Kellee Cortez, assistant district court administrato,r demonstrates how the judge's bench can be raised or lowered in one of the eight courtrooms on the first level of the Linn County Courthouse on Friday, May 11, 2012, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Renovation of the first floor of the courthouse is almost complete. Eight courtrooms are located on the first level as well as judges' chambers and other offices. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — After four long years, the first floor of the Linn County Courthouse, which was flooded in 2008, will be open for court proceedings Monday.

The eight new courtrooms, conference rooms and judges’ chambers were getting their final cleanups Friday before the first phase of the $6.3 million renovation project opens to the public. There will be two courtrooms for associate District Court jury proceedings and six courtrooms for non-jury proceedings.

The flood affected the entire courthouse. It closed and services moved to Kirkwood College’s Continuing Education Center for about three months.

At the first-floor entrance, terrazzo tile with pieces of the old flooring pays tribute to the flood. It reads, “dedicated in honor of those Linn County citizens whose lives were changed forever by the flood of 2008.”

The clerk’s office and all the court files were previously on the first floor but more than $5 million was spent on restoring flood damaged files, so moving the clerk’s office up to the main lobby was a priority, court administrator Carroll Edmondson said earlier this year.

Sixth Judicial District Judge Mitchell Turner said it’s great to see the first floor renovation completed.

“The additional courtrooms and staff area, equipped with current technology, are a very welcome and needed addition to the Linn County Courthouse,” Turner said. “The dedication of these new facilities to those citizens whose lives were forever changed by the flood of 2008 is both fitting and appropriate. Hopefully, it will become an example of the old adage that good things come to those who wait. Thank you to everyone who has worked so long and so hard to make this a reality.”

Pieces of the original flooring are inlaid into the new terrazzo floor on the first level of the Linn County Courthouse on Friday, May 11, 2012, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The design is part of a memorial dedicated to people affected by the flood of 2008. Renovation of the first level of the courthouse is almost complete. Eight courtrooms are located on the first level as well as judges' chambers and other offices. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette-KCRG)

Kellee Cortez, the assistant District Court administrator who schedules trials, said the two larger jury courtrooms also can be used for felony cases if needed, which could help her avoid last-minute changes to the schedule.

The rest of the courthouse renovation will be completed next year. The county attorney’s office is relocating to the third floor and the traffic and small claims divisions that moved to Westdale Mall will move back in June. They will temporarily be housed on the first floor but will move to the main lobby when the other renovations are completed.

Pending renovations include a walkway from the jail to the courthouse on the third floor and some additional jury deliberation rooms on the fourth floor.

The City Council this week approved adding the final group of flood-hit properties to the program, which is funded with federal Community Development Block Grant money. The additions bring the number of buyout properties to about 1,350, flood recovery and reinvestment Director Joe O’Hern said Wednesday. Between 100 and 150 of the sites are commercial and the rest residential, he said.

He anticipated that some of this last group of properties may not qualify for the buyout program for various reasons, including not having sustained enough damage in the Floods of 2008.

Among the properties in the final group is the Intermec Technologies Corp. building at 550 Second St. SE, which the City Assessor’s Office values at $2.48 million. Intermec is moving into a new building, now under construction, at 601 Third St. SE.

Also on the list is the home of Affordable Plumbing and Remodeling, 816 First Ave. NW, which is owned by City Council member Don Karr and his family. Karr is retired from the operation of the business, which is run by a daughter and son, he said Wednesday.

Karr said he hasn’t decided whether he’s going to stay in the buyout program, but he suspected that others, like him, only put their properties on the buyout list after voters on March 6 rejected the extension of the city’s local-option sales tax. Revenue from the tax extension would have helped build west-side flood protection, and without it, Karr said he’s not sure his building will retain its value.

Also in the last group of 111 properties are two owned by King’s Material Inc., 620 and 650 12th Ave. SW, valued by the City Assessor’s Office at $1.7 million. Two churches, Redemption Missionary Baptist, 1510 Second St. SW, and Word of Faith Pentecostal Church, 716 Eighth Ave. SW, also are on the list.

Volunteers fill sandbags along Madison Street in front of the Lindquist Center on the University of Iowa Campus Friday, June 13, 2008 in Iowa City. The UI announced on Friday that all non-essential faculty and staff should not report to work on the UI campus, effective immediately. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

University of Iowa officials said they are disappointed by the federal government’s denial of money to replace the UI Museum of Art at a new location, and they are considering their next steps.

State officials Wednesday announced the decision by Federal Emergency Management Agency officials to deny the UI’s second appeal regarding museum funding in the wake of the 2008 flood. The first UI appeal was denied in January 2011 by the regional FEMA office. The second UI appeal for funding was to the federal FEMA office.

UI Spokesman Tom Moore said university officials are reviewing possible next steps or any other available recourse in coordination with the state.

“President (Sally) Mason reiterates her strong support for the UI Museum of Art and for the need for a reliable and safe facility for the university’s art collection,” Moore said in the statement.

UI officials seek FEMA funding to replace the Museum of Art at a new location, away from the Iowa River, because university officials say no insurance company will insure the art in that location. The 12,000-piece collection was evacuated from the museum in the days leading up to the June 2008 flood, and some of the art was damaged. The collection is now being displayed and stored in other locations.

After the flood, FEMA ruled the Museum of Art did not sustain enough damage to qualify for replacement funding. Instead, FEMA would help pay to repair the museum building, but not to replace it elsewhere. The UI appealed, arguing the museum was ruined, since art cannot be returned for insurance reasons. The extensive collection is insured for $500 million.

Under FEMA regulations the building is eligible to be replaced if it is not feasible to repair it so that it can function at the same level that it had before the disaster. This denial by FEMA claims the regulations do not apply because the decision not to insure “is a business decision by private insurance companies,” according to the statement from the state office.

“I am disappointed in this decision by FEMA,” Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division Administrator Mark Schouten said in the statement. “We will work with the University of Iowa to evaluate our options.”

In March, Mason said it’s “absolutely realistic” to build a new museum without federal dollars, but that it would require significant fundraising. At the time, Mason expressed hope the appeal would come back in the UI’s favor.

State Board of Regents leaders in March gave support to Mason’s statements, saying it’s a priority to replace the museum. They wanted to work through the appeal process but said they are committed to rebuilding the museum “with or without FEMA funding,” Regents President Craig Lang said.

New exterior images for the NewBo City Market, which now Includes a playground, demonstration garden with rain water collection, solar panels, and other environmentally friendly features. (Cedar Rapids City Market Inc.)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Construction crews were busy Thursday taking the first steps to convert an old metal pole building once home to Quality Chef Foods into the NewBo City Market.

The launch of the construction of the year-round farmers marketon Third Street SE in the heart of the New Bohemia arts and entertainment districtwas helped by a City Council decision to contribute $500,000 in revenue from the city’s local-option sales tax to the market.

The council contribution has brought the market within about $200,000 of its $4.37 million construction budget, which includes a $300,000 operating reserve, said Patrick DePalma, president of the market’s board of directors. The market has received an additional $1.2 million of in-kind city support based on the land value of the city-owned Quality Chef Foods site and demolition of other buildings on it.

Last week’s half-million-dollar grant from the City Council was a shift in City Hall gears from last October when the council agreed with some pause to loan $1.3 million to the market if necessary so the market could show it had sufficient local economic support to qualify for a state Community Attraction & Tourism (CAT) grant. At the time, the council and market representatives said they didn’t expect the market, which was in the midst of a campaign to raise $3 million in private money, would actually need to use the city loan.

The loan guarantee did help. The market won a $750,000 state CAT grant in November.

DePalma said the City Council’s willingness to change its loan to an outright grant will allow the market to open without construction debt.

“It is critical that we move forward with a plan that is viable and sustainable for the long term,” he said.

Mayor Ron Corbett said the City Council now will cancel the loan guarantee to the market in trade for the $500,000 city grant.

He noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had provided the city with $547,000 in disaster funds for the city-owned former Quality Chef buildings, which were damaged in the 2008 flood. Of that amount, $187,000 was used to demolish some buildings on the property and the rest went to other city needs.

The City Council, the mayor said, long has put the market at the top of its priority list of projects to fund with disaster dollars. Steering sales-tax revenue to the market meets the requirements for use of the sales tax because it “matches” federal dollars that came to the city for the property, he said.

The market’s DePalma said the city’s $500,000 grant comes at a time when the market’s construction budget had grown from an estimated $3.8 million to $4.37 million (not counting the in-kind value of the land and demolition on the property). The added expense comes from the cost to build a kitchen for the Kirkwood Community College culinary arts program, one of the market’s anchor vendors, and to add vent hoods and dishwashing stations and equipment to attract vendors to the market, DePalma said. A fitness playground also is being added.

NewBo City Market is expected to open in late fall.

The Linn County Administrative Office Building at 930 First St. SW in Cedar Rapids. (Gazette file)

Linn County departments are into the last months at their temporary home at Westdale Mall.

Crews working on the Jean Oxley Linn County Public Service Center, perhaps the centerpiece of the county’s recovery from the June 2008 flood, are working to meet a May 11 deadline on the project. That will allow departments now at the mall to move by July.

“All the discussion with the contractor is they’ll have it ready for us to move,” said Garth Fagerbakke, the county’s construction manager. “The end of May, we need to have to have it finished.”

Fagerbakke said the top two floors of the three-story building have been finished, and furniture and fixtures are being installed.

“They’ll be close” to making the deadline, Supervisor Linda Langston, D-Cedar Rapids, said at Tuesday morning’s meeting.

The county’s $11 million contract with Miron Construction of Cedar Rapids calls for the building to be “substantially completed” next week. That’s defined as “ready for its intended use,” Fagerbakke said.

Tentative plans call for offices now at Westdale – auditor, recorder, and treasurer as well as the supervisors’ offices and meeting room – to move over a weekend in June. Fagerbakke said the shift will force the offices to be closed only one day, a Friday, for the move.

“It’s too confusing for public to be open two locations,” said Fagerbakke.

Auditor Joel Miller expects his will be the last to move. He plans to remain at Westdale to handle the June 5 primary election in which he’s challenged by former supervisor Jim Houser and Brian Gradoville on the Democratic side of the ballot. There’s also a contest for the First District congressional ballot between Republicans Ben Lange and Rod Blum.

“The plan to stay basically freeze everything in place until the possibility no longer exists for recount or anything from the June 5 primary,” said Miller. “My office should be the last one to move.”

Miller said he’ll be required to maintain custody of ballots in case a recount or other challenge is filed, a process that could take until June 15.

The project, which gutted the flood-damaged former Administrative Office Building at 930 1^st St. SW, carries a $14.8 million total price tag, funded through:

FEMA $4.2 million

I-JOBS $4.4 million

State funds $4.5 million

County funds $800,000

Proceeds from sale of county-owned Witwer Building $500,000

Grants $400,000

A boat full of people makes it's way through the intersection of Highway Six and Hawkins Drive in Iowa City as sightseers take photos Friday, June 13, 2008. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

IOWA CITY — University of Iowa officials on Tuesday received word of the official obligation of more than $6.7 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the demolition of three flood-damaged campus buildings.

The new obligation is money UI officials had expected from FEMA, but the obligation is the final step in the formal commitment of these funds.

The newly-obligated funds will be used in the demolition of Hancher Auditorium, Voxman Music Building and the Studio Arts complex, save for one portion of the Grant Wood studio there that was deemed historic and will be preserved, UI Spokesman Tom Moore said.

Of the $6.7 million obligation, nearly $5 million will go toward the Hancher and Voxman demolition, and $1.7 million will be used for the Studio Arts demolition. Work on those projects is expected to start this summer or fall, UI officials have said.

The UI already has received its total obligation from FEMA for the replacement of those buildings. FEMA treats demolition as a separate project, and therefore obligates money through a process separate from the replacement obligation, Moore said.

FEMA awards the money through the Iowa Homeland Security Office. UI damage and recovery costs from the June 2008 flood could total about $1 billion.

Construction crews work on the future site of the Cedar Rapids Public Library in Cedar Rapids, on Monday, March 26, 2012. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cost of the asbestos removal at the site of the new downtown library has risen to more than $1.7 million and pushed back the opening of the facility another month.

Initially, the city’s library board had estimated that the cost to remove asbestos as part of the site demolition would be $42,916 and that the new library would open in June 2013.

However, a month ago, the library board approved the spending of an additional $1.3 million for the additional asbestos-removal costs, which now have climbed to a total of $1,766,014. A month ago, the library opening date was moved into from June to July 2013.

Bob Pasicznyuk, the city’s library director, on Monday said the complications of asbestos removal have moved the library’s projected opening date back even further, to the end of August 2013.

“It’s the time it took to prepare the site,” Pasicznyuk said. “Our asbestos removal has lasted that long. We’ve lost about 10 weeks. … It’s something we had to deal with. But we didn’t let it get us down.”

Excavation at the new library site uncovered a large amount of asbestos-tainted debris from the Washington School built in 1855 and the Washington High School built in 1890, which once sat on the site.

In the school demolition of 1946, much of the building ended up in the school’s basement and boiler rooms over which an American Legion Post building and bowling alley was built. TrueNorth Companies moved into the building in 2001, and in early 2010, the City Council voted to purchase the site for the new library.

Pasicznyuk this week is asking the library board to add $250,000 from private donations to the overall project budget to beef up the project’s contingency fund. The initial $3 million contingency fund now has shrunk due to the asbestos-related demolition costs and some project enhancements.

With the additional $250,000 added to the project’s contingency fund, the overall project budget increases to $45,820,322, which Pasicznyuk noted is still $3 million less than the project’s original projected budget.

Three project enhancements being proposed to be covered by the project’s contingency fund are a $300,000 addition to the $265,000 in the project budget to purchase art for the building; a $79,366 addition to pay for more thorough testing and inspection of the library’s exterior shell; and a $60,000 addition to enhance the skywalk that connects the library to the Fourth Avenue Parkade.

Water is pumped out of a service tunnel near the Adler Journalism and Mass Communication Building on the University of Iowa Campus Thursday, June 19, 2008 in Iowa City. UI officials have become concerned about the structural integrity of some of the tunnels which are primarily used to provide steam to heat UI buildings. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

CEDAR FALLS — University of Iowa officials will appeal three more flood-related funding decisions to the Federal Emergency Management Agency regional office in Kansas City.

At stake is millions of dollars denied at the state level of FEMA on several projects that UI officials believe the federal government should help fund.

Doug True, UI senior vice president for finance and operations, said it’s not unusual for multiple appeals to be filed with FEMA in the cases of such extensive disaster recovery. Damage and recovery estimates could total $1 billion at the UI from the June 2008 flood.

“I think we’ll have a number of appeals,” True said after updating the state Board of Regents during a meeting in Cedar Falls. “Our hope is we can document it vigorously and prevail.”

The UI already has an appeal pending with FEMA’s federal office in Washington, D.C., regarding the denial of funding for a new Museum of Art building.

Of the three new appeals, the two biggest involve the UI Power Plant, True said. One appeal involves recovery work done in the wake of the flood at the Power Plant and in the underground utility tunnels across campus. About $22.6 million in recovery work was done, and the state FEMA office denied $16 million of that reimbursement, which the UI is appealing to seek 90 percent FEMA funding, True said. That work involves about 2,300 separate work invoices, so it’s a detailed process, he said.

A second appeal involves denial of costs for mitigation work planned for the future to protect the Power Plant, work that will cost “in the millions, a number that’s significant,” True said.

“It is a critical facility” for operation of the university and the hospital, he said of the need to protect the power plant.

The third appeal involves recovery work at the Iowa Memorial Union, and Americans with Disability Act accessibility standards required as part of that work. That is about $800,000 worth of work that UI officials will complete, with or without FEMA funding, True said.

Many of the items just said “denied” and UI officials don’t know the reasons.

“We don’t know exactly why, but we start from scratch and go through it all” with FEMA, he said.

The Cedar River nears its crest in Cedar Rapids shortly before noon on Friday, June 13, 2008.(Liz Martin/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Without comment or mention that the matter was on its agenda, the nine-member City Council Tuesday night unanimously approved how it will spend most of the remaining revenue from the 1 percent local-option sales tax.

In approving the spending measure along with an assortment of minor matters as part of the consent agenda, the council divvied up the final $30 million the tax is expected to raise before it expires on June 30, 2014.

Of that amount, $15.635 million will go to fill spending gaps on flood-recovery building projects. Another $1.2 million will be used to pay part of the city’s share of the pre-construction design and engineering work that’s being carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers for a proposed east-side flood protection system. And $13.165 million will be used to cover unknown project costs and as local matching funds needed to secure money from a newly created state fund to help communities build flood protection.

After the meeting, Mayor Ron Corbett said he had commented publicly late last week about what the council intended to do with the final $30 million, so there was no need to discuss it at Tuesday night’s meeting.

The tax was put in place for 63 months beginning April 1, 2009. With the first three years past, Corbett said, the council has spent what it has taken in to date as it said it would — to help flood victims, to help with the renovation of flood-damaged homes and to match federal dollars for flood recovery.

He called Tuesday night’s vote on how to spend the remainder of the money “the closing of the book” on the local-option tax.

Twice in the last year — last May 3 and this March 6 — voters turned down a request to extend the tax to provide local funds to help build flood protection on both sides of the Cedar River. Corbett said some of the vocal opponents of the tax extension had called on the City Council to spend some of the remaining revenue from the current tax on flood protection.

“So we’re responding by spending revenue from the fifth year of the tax on flood protection,” he said.

The sales tax has been bringing in about $17 million a year for flood-related programs; another 10 percent of the total goes to property-tax relief.

Member Kris Gulick said Tuesday night’s vote was an important one even if it did not generate council discussion. He said members had talked long and publicly from the start that it would use some of the tax revenue to fill funding gaps to pay for what the Federal Emergency Management Agency wouldn’t.

“That was one of our plans we had from Day 1,” Gulick said. “We knew we would have gaps, and rather than use property taxes, we knew the local-option sales tax would be one of the options.”

Colleague Chuck Swore said the council has discussed the tax enough.

“Every time we’ve talked about LOST (in public) we’re in trouble,” he said. “So why toss it out for something else for somebody to say, ‘Oh now, they’re … .’

“We’ve been accused of taking the money ourselves and we’ve been accused of having a corrupt government, all because of LOST. You get to the point where, what do we want to talk about LOST for? It’s a lost subject. We’re at the end. We’re going to get it done and we’re going to move on.”

Of the $15-million-plus set aside for city building projects, $10.9 million will go to new public works facility. The rest will be spent in various amounts to fill funding gaps for the Ground Transportation Center bus depot, the levee portion of the riverfront amphitheater, City Hall renovations, the new Time Check Recreation Center and the demolition of the First Street Parkade. The NewBo City Market is getting $500,000 of the total as well.

Mays Island aerial, Cedar River, downtown Cedar Rapids, 7/12/03

CEDAR RAPIDS — The city of Cedar Rapids will try to be the first in line to seek flood-protection help from a new state fund created by the Iowa Legislature and approved on Thursday by Gov. Terry Branstad, Mayor Ron Corbett said shortly after the governor acted.

Corbett said the City Council will vote next Tuesday to use about a year’s worth of revenue from the city’s current 1 percent local-option sales tax, which expires on June 30, 2014, to serve as local matching funds needed to tap into the new state funding pool for flood protection.

The city’s hope, he said, is to have an estimated $14 million to $15 million in local sales-tax revenue to match a like amount from the state fund. Then, the $30 million or so that might result would provide most of the non-federal money needed to match federal dollars to build the Army Corps of Engineers’ approved flood-protection system for the east side of the Cedar River, he said.

“Remember, we’re also competing for this state money,” the mayor said. “So it’s in our best interest to try to assemble a local match as swiftly as we can.”

Congress still has to fund the majority share of the Army Corps’ $104 million plan to protect the east side of Cedar Rapids. But Corbett said the city’s plan to combine revenue from its local-option sales tax with state funds will enhance the city’s position to secure congressional funding.

Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, described the creation of the state fund as “a significant bipartisan accomplishment.”

Branstad on Thursday called the new state flood-protection fund “a tool” that will help communities across the state.

As for Cedar Rapids, “The Army Corps is only willing to fund flood protection on one side of the river, and the community obviously feels strongly that there needs to be protection on both sides,” the governor said. “This would be a mechanism whereby the state could be of assistance.”

For now, Corbett said the city is focused on getting the Corps’ system build on the east side of the river. As for west-side protection, Corbett said it was hard to see how it would be built in the “foreseeable future.”

The mayor had pushed unsuccessfully in May 2011 and again on March 6 to convince local voters to extend the city’s local-option sales tax beyond June 2014 so revenue from it could help access additional state funds to pay for west-side flood protection. Without the additional local revenue, it’s not clear today where money for west-side flood protection will come from, he said. Even so, the mayor envisioned east-side flood protection being in place in five years and west-side flood-protection in place in 10 years.

This month, the city started its fourth year of a five-year, three-month period of collecting the 1-percent local-option sales tax for flood recovery and flood protection. Revenue in the last year of the tax will be steered to flood protection and any other outstanding flood-recovery matters.

Corbett said the city has used most of the revenue in the first three years of the tax — about $17 million annually — for flood-related uses, including payments to individual flood victims for personal possessions lost in the flood and for the renovation of flood-damaged rental properties. Other money has gone to fill other gaps related to flood-damaged housing. Ten percent of the tax revenue goes toward property tax relief.

The mayor said he expected the City Council on Tuesday also to vote to spend most of the revenue from the local-option sales tax for the year ahead to cover flood-recovery spending gaps on city building projects much like it already has on the city’s library and animal control facility.

He said the council is looking to approve $10.4 million in revenue from the local sales tax for the new public works building; $1.6 million for the Ground Transportation Center bus depot; $700,000 for the northwest recreation center; $500,000 for the NewBo City Market; $675,000 for the levee portion of the riverfront amphitheater; $500,000 for City Hall renovations; and $1.2 million for part of the city’s portion of the cost of the Army Corps’ preconstruction design work.

City Council member Kris Gulick, who is chairman of the council’s Finance and Administrative Services Committee, on Thursday said he had studied City Hall emails and other written documents from four years ago. In those, he said the City Council made it clear that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would not pay all the costs to fix or replace flood-damaged buildings and other infrastructure.

“We knew we would have these gaps and that the local-option sales tax was one of the options to be able to fund it,” Gulick said. One of the selling points of the sales tax as it was approved in 2009 was that it would lessen the need to use property taxes to pay off some of the flood-recovery costs, he added.

The state fund allows individual communities to seek a portion of the growth in the state sales tax collected in their communities for use in flood protection projects. They must apply by Jan. 1, 2016. Up to $30 million will be available statewide in any given year, with $15 million the most any one community can receive in a year. Individual communities can position themselves to tap into the fund for up to 20 years. The fund also sets aside some of the funding pool for communities that see small or no sales-tax growth.

The new Cedar Rapids Animal Care and Control building is seen in this artist’s rendering.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Residents and officials got their first good look at a proposed $4.55 million city Animal Care and Control facility on Wednesday.

“I wish it was open right now,” said longtime animal activist Audrey Rahn. “I’m 94 years old and I’m afraid I won’t get to see it.”

Rahn and about 40 to 50 others viewed the floor plan, site plan and architectural drawings of the facility during an open house in the Cedar Rapids Police Department’s community room.

The 13,000 square-foot, one-story structure is to be built on the Kirkwood Community College campus starting this summer. Plans call for it to be completed in July 2013.

“I’m excited, it’s just like moving into a new house,’ said Diane Webber, program manager for animal control. “We’ve gone over the plans every other week for a long time just to make sure we didn’t forget anything.”

The building will house up to 43 dogs and 123 cats at any one time, and has public areas for adoptions. Webber said Kirkwood students in veterinary technician, veterinary assistant, grooming and humane (animal) control programs will use a 900-square-foot classroom.

Simon Andrew, an intern in the Iowa City city manager’s office, was among those taking a look at the plans.

“Iowa City is in the concept stage for a similar 12,000-square foot facility in the south part of town,” he explained.

Volunteers Kathy Couser and Dana Nogelmeier both said the new Cedar Rapids facility will be a “big improvement” over the old building, which was damaged in the 2008 flood. Since then, Animal Control has been operating in a temporary facility at 2109 North Towne Lane NE.

Animal Control has 203 volunteers, nine full-time employees and four trucks, Webber said.

Posters at Wednesday’s open house detailed the financing and advantages of the new location. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will put up $1 million local option sales tax (LOST) funds will cover the $3.55 million remainder.

FEMA also will pay $700,000 to demolish the old building on Old River Road SW and pay $100,000 to replace its contents.

In addition to being near students, the new location is accessible from nearby roads and has plenty of room for future expansion. It will be located just north of 76th Ave SW near Washington Hall and some agricultural buildings.

Castana, a female yellow lab puppy, sits in her kennel at the Cedar Rapids Animal Shelter Thursday, April 21, 2011 in Cedar Rapids. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

A crew from Kelly Demolition in Mount Vernon is demolishing commercial buildings in the 400 block of First Street SW in Cedar Rapids. The buildings, including a small apartment complex, were significantly damaged by the June 2008 flood. (George C. Ford/The Gazette)

A crew from Kelly Demolition in Mount Vernon is demolishing commercial buildings in the 400 block of First Street SW in Cedar Rapids.

Read more at Business380.com

“When city officials visited Grand Forks, they were told that it would take a minimum of 10 years for the community to get out of recovery mode,” Dan Thies of OPN Architects said Tuesday during the Leadership for Five Seasons annual luncheon at TrueNorth Companies.

“We will be marking the fourth anniversary of the June 2008 flood in a couple of months. At the end of year six, the recovery will be mostly complete with regard to major construction projects like the United States Federal Courthouse, the Cedar Rapids Central Fire Station, the Cedar Rapids Convention & Events Center, the Cedar Rapids Public Library and the Paramount Theatre.”

Thies said the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Corridor will see construction completed over the next five to seven years on projects that would normally happen over six or eight decades during normal economic times, much less recovering from a disastrous flood and national economic recession.

“Depending on how you look at it, there’s somewhere between $750 million and $1 billion worth of reinvestment occurring in downtown Cedar Rapids,” Thies said. “Coralville, Iowa City and the University of Iowa will be reinvesting roughly $1.5 billion.

“If you’ve run into cranes, barricades and red barrels all over downtown Cedar Rapids lately, that’s progress. This will be a vastly different community when all of the construction is completed.”

Thies also noted the New Bo City Market, PCI Medical Mall, Hall-Perrine Cancer Center and other projects outside the immediate downtown area, saying there has been a “ripple effect” of reinvestment in the community. He also pointed to Alliant Energy, United Fire & Casualty, TrueNorth Companies, Intermec and Steve Emerson as examples of private reinvestment in the community,

“All of the public and private reinvestment opens the door to additional opportunities,” Thies said. “We need to look at bike paths, trails and other ways to surround this new infrastructure and link it to various amenities.”

Thies urged fellow Leadership for Five Seasons alumni to spread the word about the public and private reinvestment in the community.

“There are many people in the community who do not have a clue that this is happening,” he said. “We need to step out in front and promote this. We have a great community with a lot of good things happening, but we need to stay engaged and focused.

“This is not the end, but the beginning of the future for Cedar Rapids and the Corridor.”

The sun sets behind the Tree of Five Seasons sculpture along the river in downtown Cedar Rapids on Thursday, July 21, 2011. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

The city-owned riverfront spot next to the First Avenue bridge that has been home since 1996 to the sculpture, the Tree of Five Seasons, is on the verge of getting a new name, Five Seasons Plaza.

Daniel Gibbins, the city’s parks superintendent, on Monday noted that tree and the park around it are in the process of a face-lift, funded by private donations, and he said those behind the renovation have suggested the park’s name change.

Gibbins called the park’s current name, Riverfront Park, “nondescript,” and he said the city’s Parks and Recreation Department is supporting the park’s proposed name change.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission will weigh in on the name change before it gets to the City Council for a final decision.

The creative forces behind the city’s Five Seasons moniker, the Five Seasons tree and the current tree and park renovation are Bill Munsell and Gary Anderson, colleagues at the former ad agency, Creswell, Munsell, Fultz & Zirbel Inc.

The two came up with the idea that Cedar Rapids had five seasons — the fifth to enjoy the other four — more than 40 years ago.

The Pollution Prevention Center and the recycling drive-through at the same location remain open and regular business hours apply ( 7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.)

The compost and recycling facility at 2250 A Street SW, Cedar Rapids, is also open regular business hours today (7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.)

Nesper Sign Advertising employees (from left) Gregg Pospisil, Dan Alpers and Larry Howard lower part of the marquee of the Paramount Theatre in downtown Cedar Rapids on Friday. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

Restoration of the Paramount Theatre, damaged in downtown Cedar Rapids flooding in 2008, advanced Friday when part of the marquee was removed to be enhanced with modern technology and lighting. Here’s a look at the downtown mainstay:

PARAMOUNT HISTORY

• Opened Sept. 1, 1928, as the Capitol Theatre; for one year it provided a live stage show with comedians, singers, dancers, acrobats, audience singalong with the Mighty Wurlitzer organ and a film.
• Purchased by Paramount Studios and renamed the Paramount Theatre in 1929.
• Building gifted to to the city of Cedar Rapids in December 1975, renovated and reopened.
• $7.8 million expansion/renovation in 2003; reopens Jan. 7. 2004.

ABOUT THE MARQUEE

• Original marquee topped with vertical Capitol sign reaching above the building.
• Theater name change brings new vertical Paramount sign.
• Current marquee installed in 1985 by Nesper Sign Advertising, the same company that installed the original marquee and is updating the current one.

FLOOD DAMAGE

• June 2008 floodwaters rise 8 feet on the main floor, fill the basement and subbasement, causing $16 million damage.
• December 2008 water line breaks, flooding basement, subbasement and nearly filling the orchestra pit.
• $34.5 renovation under way for flood-damage repairs, building code upgrades, hazard mitigation, upgrades for performers, performance spaces and audiences.
•  Grand reopening set for November 2012.

WHAT ABOUT THE MIGHTY WURLITZER?

• 

  Paramount Theatre marquee in 1979

  1928 organ console destroyed in floods; pipes and instruments housed in second floor chambers are safe above the water line.

• Replacement console — the next one built after the Mighty Wurlitzer — is purchased from a private collector for $7,500, arrives in Cedar Rapids on March 11, 2011.
• Replacement console and pipes shipped to Reno, Nev., in February, for renovation and decoration to match the Mighty Wurlitzer’s ornate design.
• “New” console to be on display when Paramount reopens in November

Sources: Darren Ferreter, Cedar Rapids Area Theatre Organ Society president; http://cr-atos.org; www.uscellularcenter.com/PTf/history.html; www.cedar-rapids.org/city-news/crprogress/paramount-theatre/pages/restorationprojectplans.aspx

Curated by Diana Nollen, Dave Franzman, Terry Coyle, Jim Riley/The Gazette

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In this June 16, 2011 photo, floodwaters from the Missouri River covering Highway 333 outside of town approach a levee in Hamburg, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says having more space free in the Missouri River’s reservoirs would have reduced, but not eliminated, last year’s flooding.

The corps says in a new report released Friday that flooding still would have caused widespread damage along the Missouri last year because of the massive volume of water that moved through the river.

And any increase in the amount of flood storage space in the reservoirs would reduce the economic benefits the river offers through barge traffic, recreation and hydropower.

The corps says increasing flood storage space in reservoirs is only one option to reduce flood risk. It says officials may need to consider increasing the capacity of the Missouri River channel and reducing development in the flood plain.

Downtown Cedar Rapids showing Interstate 380 in lower right corner Saturday, May 30, 2011, in northeast Cedar Rapids. (SourceMedia Group News/Jim Slosiarek)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Costs to the city for basic infrastructure fixes are colliding with costs for flood-recovery work and those for not-universally-popular projects like the city’s hotel and Convention Complex in a way that will require the city to sell more new annual bond debt than any time in its history.

Even so, the City Council this week, without hesitation, unanimously gave the go-ahead to take on some $67 million in new general-obligation bond debt, which is significantly more new debt that the council typically takes on in a given year.

In each of the last three post-flood budget years, the city sold between $30 million and $33 million in new general-obligation bond debt, according to city figures.

Casey Drew, the city’s finance director, reported Wednesday that previous council action this fiscal year actually will make the upcoming bond sale even larger and put it in the ballpark of $86 million. That, he said, would make for the largest annual bond sale in city history.

According to Drew’s estimates, the proposed new bond sale will raise the city’s total outstanding general-obligation bond debt from the current $282 million to $341 million. The new total will bring the city to within 73.6 percent of its debt limit, a limit that is an amount equal to 5 percent of the value of property in the city. The city now sits within 62.25 percent of the debt limit.

The proposed bond sale will come in the form of multiple bond sales at once to raise revenue for a variety of projects. Much but not all of the debt will be paid back with revenue from property taxes over 20 years, and in some instances, perhaps over 30 years. However, revenue from the downtown hotel, slated to reopen in 2013 as a DoubleTree by Hilton, is expected to pay most of the debt payments for the hotel renovation while parking revenue is expected to pay most of the debt payments for a new parking ramp across from the hotel, Drew noted.

Drew said the largest amount of revenue, an estimated $37.5 million, from the upcoming bond sale will go for the renovation and acquisition of the hotel.

The $11.8 million to be spent for a new parking ramp at the Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa’s new medical facility and improvements in the city’s new Medical District will be paid for with the incremental increase in property-tax revenue that comes as a result of the new PCI investment and other new investment in the Medical District.

City Council member Scott Olson said that all of the spending for which the city is issuing debt had been approved previously by the City Council as it voted on the city budget. The vote in March on the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 was unanimous.

At the same time, council member Don Karr acknowledged, “These are large numbers.” But he added that the new debt needed to be seen in the context of the city’s 2008 flood disaster, which he said caused more than $1 billion in damage.

“I guess when you have a billion-dollar loss, you got to spend some money to come back,” Karr said.

Council member Monica Vernon agreed, putting the damage in the city in the $6 billion range.

Vernon said the new debt that the City Council is taking on will finance projects that the council has analyzed and endorsed over the last couple of years. Some of the revenue from the bond sales is needed for flood recovery work and some to support projects that will make Cedar Rapids better in the future, she said.

Mayor Ron Corbett pointed out that disaster funds coming to the city from the federal and state government has benefitted the city’s flood recovery greatly, helping to limit the city’s need to go into even greater debt as it gets back on its feet.

“Unfortunately, the federal and state governments don’t pay for 100 percent of recovery,” Corbett said.

In February, City Manager Jeff Pomeranz cautioned the council during his annual budget presentation that the city may need to raise the city’s property-tax rate a year from now to cover increasing debt payments.

The council’s budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 did not raise the city’s property-tax rate, though residential property-tax payers on average will see a 4.5-percent tax increase in the city portion of their property-tax bill because of some property valuation increases and because of a change in a state formula that increases how much of a home’s value is subject to property tax. Commercial and industrial property owners will pay the same property tax to the city.

Where bond revenue will go

• $11.6 million: Basic infrastructure repairs and city equipment needs

• $37.5 million: Hotel renovation and acquisition

• $10.15 million: Construction of convention center

• $10.6 million: Convention Complex/hotel parking ramp

• $1.32 million: Replacement of Roosevelt apartments’ fire escape

• $11.8 million: New parking ramp associated with the Physicians’ Clinic of Iowa’s new medical facility and improvements in the city’s new Medical District

• $2.9 million: New riverfront amphitheater and renovation of the underground parking ramp on May’s Island and the new City Hall

Source: City of Cedar Rapids

Jerry McGrane in what will be the dining room in the house being renovated by Neighborhood Revitalization Service. (Steve Gravelle/SourceMedia News)

CEDAR RAPIDS — On hiatus for two years after the Floods of 2008 wrecked Cedar Rapids neighborhoods, the Neighborhood Revitalization Service is back at work.

“We’re not that big of a deal, and yet the neighbors are buying into it,” Jerry McGrane said. “They really take ownership and pride in it, and start fixing things up.”

McGrane, a former City Council member, was standing in front of 1548 Sixth Ave. SE, where volunteers and a contractor are rehabbing what had been an abandoned house. It’s only the second home rescued and renovated since McGrane founded the non-profit in 2004, but he hopes to build on the momentum.

“We want to have one (house) being bought, one being rehabbed, one being sold,” he said.

Linn County supervisors approved a $10,000 grant Wednesday from the economic development fund to cover unexpected project costs.

The service used $84,500 in Community Development Block Grants to buy and renovate its first home, just around the corner on 16th Street SE from its latest project. The federal money came with a string attached: the buyer could earn no more than 80 percent of the local median income, then $43,200 for a couple.

A murder down the block just as the house went on sale didn’t help, but the group sold it after about a year for $57,700.

The sale brought enough money for the group to take on a second project the next spring. But McGrane lost his home to the flood; other volunteers were hit, too.

McGrane said the service’s board relaunched it in the fall of 2010. The group bought this project house from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development for $15,000 a year ago.

The unplanned expense occurred as a crew removed flashing from the roof in preparation for new shingles. A dormer collapsed through the roof. McGrane said it cost more than $6,000 to repair structural damage.

“That’s why we went to the county,” McGrane said. “We had everything budgeted, but even the housing inspector didn’t see that coming.”

McGrane hopes to have the house renovated and on the market by June. Meanwhile, the group is already looking for its next project, he said.

Cedar Rapids city employee Melissa Kopf (right) carries a bag of garbage as Alexa Greene (left), 9, carries an old tire and city employee Drew Westberg (center) carries another bag of garbage after they and other city employees and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz picked up garbage from the land under Interstate 380 near the former Central Fire Station on March 31 in Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

 City Manager Jeff Pomeranz surely doesn’t sleep in a suit and tie, but you wonder.

So it was no surprise to see him pull in last Saturday to clean up litter from a vacant lot wearing a dress shirt, albeit with collar open and shirt tail out. The members of his office staff, who were on litter patrol too, eventually convinced him to don the uniform of the day, a T-shirt promoting the Pomeranz-led City Hall crusade, CleanUpCR.

On this particular day, Pomeranz and his colleagues were doing their part for one of the crusade’s core initiatives, The City Manager’s 1 Bag Challenge.

In the course of an hour or so, Pomeranz, about five staffers and one of his employee’s young children filled up 10 aqua-green garbage bags — a signature of the 1 Bag Challenge — from the lot across Third Street NW from the flood-ruined former Central Fire Station.

The 1 Bag Challenge is one of several cleanup initiatives being promoted by City Hall’s Mr. Clean.

In addition, the city has reconstituted a bulky-item pickup program, which this year will be held May 12 at the Site 1 landfill, 2250 A St. SW, and will allow residents to drop off furniture, electronics, clothing, scrap metal and wood waste free of charge and appliances for $4.50.

Also, there’s an Interstate 380 litter cleanup set for April 28, and the city is holding a second annual neighborhood litter collection day on May 5. The city also is promoting its own Adopt-A-Road program.

Proof that Pomeranz’s crew had come to the right place last Saturday was the hundreds of pens scattered among the lot’s litter, pens that Pomeranz surmises washed away in June 2008 from the former Souvenir Pen business two blocks away.

“It’s very basic,” Pomeranz said of his 1 Bag Challenge. “It’s not something we had a consultant think up. It just came about through discussions with city staff. What if we challenged every citizen to pick up at least one bag of litter? What a great way for individuals and families to get out and help their community.”

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz picks up a pair of plastic bibs and other debris from a lot near the former Central Fire Station in Cedar Rapids on March 31. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Pomeranz noted, too, that city street crews have been filling in cracks in concrete medians to prevent them from becoming weed-sprouting eyesores and the crews also will make sure grass medians are being mowed. He also said the city’s move to mechanized garbage collection, which requires uniform garbage cans, will cut down on the amount of garbage blowing around neighborhoods.

This kick on cleanup in some sense is coming from an outsider — Pomeranz is still relatively new to the city, having just passed the 18-month mark as city manager after a 12-year stint in West Des Moines.

An outsider often can see blemishes that longer-time residents of a place have stopped seeing.

From his first visits to Cedar Rapids in the summer of 2010, Pomeranz said he was struck by the amount of litter in the city.

“And then spending some time driving around, I saw some other things. These aren’t big visionary ideas. They’re just observations,” he said.

He said grass was too high in medians. Too many weeds and grass were growing up through concrete medians. The welcome sign coming into Cedar Rapids was broken, parts leaning against a fence. Many of the city’s bright green street signs had faded to white. And one of the Interstate 380 signs was still directing people to the downtown location of the Science Station, which relocated two years earlier after the 2008 flood.

“While it may seem minor as far as all the needs of the community, just as a new resident, I sort of noticed all this,” he said. “And I thought, in addition to what a city manager does as far as managing the city day to day, that I would make a commitment to cleaning up our city.”

A pedestrian walks past a pot of daffodils at the corner of Second Street and Third Avenue SE on Friday. The flowers are example of efforts to beautify downtown Cedar Rapids .(Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

Pomeranz said his cleanup campaign borrows a little from the “broken-windows” theory of community improvement that suggests that fixing smaller things in neighborhoods — broken windows, for instance — can cut down on larger problems like street crime and drug dealing.

Doug Neumann, executive vice president of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance, said virtually no one in and around the downtown put cleaning up as a top priority after the June 2008 flood because there was so much else that needed to be done.

“Now all of a sudden we’re at the point in flood recovery where we’re hearing from citizens that things need to be cleaned up,” said Neumann. “Jeff’s right on the mark. We not only commend him for the effort, but are doing our best to pitch in ourselves.”

Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association, said neighborhoods like hers also are on board with City Hall’s cleanup focus, and she added that she likes that Pomeranz is working to get families involved in the programs.

“We think this new endeavor by the city manager will be an additional way to feel we are in control of our environment — from the little ones to our seniors,” Seger said.

Cleanup programs

• City Manager’s 1 Bag Challenge: Pick up a litter kit of mint-colored garbage bag and a pair of gloves at any Hy-Vee Food Store. Set the bag out at the curb when full with your Garby for pickup on your regular collection day. There’s no additional charge.
• Interstate 380 Litter Collection: 9 a.m. to noon, April 28. Meet in the parking lot at Sam’s Club, 2605 Blairs Ferry Rd. NE. Neighborhood Litter Collection: 9 a.m. to noon, May 5. Meeting places vary by neighborhood.
• Spring Large-Item Drop Off: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., May 12, at the landfill, 2250 A St. SW.

People watch as houseboats in the Ellis Park Harbor are tipped from their moorings by the rising flood waters of the Cedar River on Thursday, June 12, 2008, in Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The city’s efforts to recover from and protect against a repeat of the 2008 flood took big steps forward Tuesday on the federal and state fronts:

• City Hall learned its nearly two-year pursuit of $13.8 million in federal disaster payments for the city’s flood-ruined hydroelectric plant at the 5-in-1 bridge has paid off.

• The Iowa House, on a 76-23 vote, sent to Gov. Terry Branstad a funding bill to help communities like Cedar Rapids build and repair their flood-protection systems.

The governor “has given no indication” that he opposes the legislation, said Mayor Ron Corbett.

“We should celebrate the fact that we were able to get the Legislature, in such a bipartisan way during an election year, to pass legislation that helps out Cedar Rapids .., (and) the whole state,” Corbett said.

The state legislation, which was previously approved by the Senate and in large measure designed by Cedar Rapids city leaders, establishes a program that allows communities with local matching dollars to tap into the incremental increase in state sales tax collected in their communities for use in fixing or building flood protection systems.

Corbett and other city leaders hoped to obtain significant state dollars through the funding mechanism to help the city build flood protection on the west side of the Cedar River to go with the Army Corps of Engineers’ plans and expected federal funds to build flood protection on the east side of the river.

However, voters in Cedar Rapids turned down a ballot measure to extend the city’s local-option sales tax for 10 years to provide local matching funds, which are particularly needed for west-side flood protection.

On Tuesday, Corbett said Cedar Rapidians didn’t turn down flood protection on March 6 so much as they turned down using revenue from the local-option sales tax to build it.

Now, the city will have to look how it might use other city funds to access money from the state program approved by the Iowa Legislature. By way of example, Corbett imagined that the city could look to commit a large portion of the $3 million in revenue it takes in a year from traffic enforcement cameras for 10 years to use as matching local funds to qualify for state dollars.

The legislation passed by the Iowa Legislature, Corbett said, “puts the city within range” of seeing east-side flood protection. At the same time, he said the city will not stop working to find a way for west-side flood protection.

FEMA appeal

Corbett also cheered the news Tuesday that the city’s second appeal of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s denial of disaster payments for the hydroelectric plant had succeeded after a review at FEMA’s headquarters in Washington.

The central point of dispute over the city’s hydroelectric plant, which was disabled at the time of the 2008 flood, was whether the city, in fact, had been reviewing options to repair the plant at the time of the flood.

In its second appeal to FEMA headquarters, which was filed last May, the city was able to show that it was “moving in the direction” of fixing the plant when the flood hit, Michael Cappannari, external affairs officers at FEMA’s regional office in Kansas City, Mo., said Tuesday.

Joe O’Hern, the city’s flood recovery and reinvestment director, said the city now will talk to FEMA about how it can use the $13.8 million in disaster money.

The option most discussed by the city in the past has been to use the funds for an alternate improved project rather than for restoring the hydroelectric plant. The city can use 90 percent of the funds if it chooses the option of an alternate improved project, O’Hern said.

Corbett noted, however, that the city continues to have key appeals in front of FEMA with some $50 million at stake. The disputes involve money the city has paid for repairs to the incinerator at the city’s Water Pollution Control plant, funding for a new incinerator and money the city has paid for debris removal from the Sinclair meatpacking site.

“We still have several unresolved FEMA issues, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” the mayor said.

On a 76-23 vote, the House approved Senate File 2217 and sent it to the governor. The Senate approved it earlier, 50-0.

SF 2217 would create a Flood Mitigation Program administered by a state board. The board could allow communities to retain growth in sales tax revenues over a period of time or provide state aid from a state flood fund for communities without sales tax growth. The program requires a 50 percent local match.

As much as $30 million a year could be diverted from general fund sales tax revenues, with as much as $15 million available for any one project.

Although it appears Cedar Rapids is the most likely community to be able to take advantage of the legislation, supporters emphasized its statewide application and merit as sound flood protection policy.

“The question we can ask now is, ‘Did we learn anything?’” floor manager Rep. Jeff Kaufmann, R-Wilton, said. “I think, this bill says ‘yes.’ We are allowing communities to help themselves by investing sales tax revenue to help themselves.”

Rep. Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, pointed out that the bill requires more than “asking for government funds.”

“Basically, it requires local involvement as well with community match dollars from the private sector, so you have a public-private sector relationship,” Murphy said.

Even in the case of Cedar Rapids, the benefit of flood protection will have a wider impact, said Rep. Nate Willems, D-Lisbon. Although communities in his district were not directly impacted, many residents of the district work in Cedar Rapids. Flood protection there will protect their jobs.

“The longer we wait, the longer time goes by, we’re simply rolling the dice with thousands and thousands of jobs in Cedar Rapids that if another flood were to hit that community I don’t think would come back,” he said.

“We’re still recovering,” added Rep. Dave Jacoby, D-Coralville. “Any help with flood mitigation is sorely needed, especially in areas where flood damage is four years old.”

Although there has been organized opposition to the bill, especially in regard to accountability, no representative spoke in opposition. Some lawmakers privately expressed concern about diverting even the growth in sales tax revenue from the state to communities. They are concerned that could impact funding for state priorities, such as education.

In the end, 39 Republicans and 37 Democrats voted for SF 2217, while 20 Republicans and three Democrats voted against it.

Floodwaters of the Cedar River rise around the Linn County Courthouse and City Hall as the river nears its crest in Cedar Rapids shortly before noon on Friday, June 13, 2008.(Liz Martin/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s effort to prepare the area for future floods begins Tuesday in Cedar Rapids.

“The focus is now on truly identifying risk and helping to mitigate it and deal with it,” said Ginger Dadds, FEMA project manager. “We’re trying to discover what information the community has to better identify risk.”

The first meeting for the mapping project will be from 3 to 7 p.m. at Kennedy High School, 4545 Wenig Rd. NE. Dadds said there will be several more public meetings throughout the project, which may run through fall 2013.

Dubbed Risk MAP (for “Mapping, Assessment and Planning”) the project will produce digital models and other tools as well as maps. The effort starts with a review of maps showing known flood hazards.

“We know they’ve been remapped, but if people feel the maps aren’t accurate, we want to identify those areas,” Dadds said.

A crew works at the former site of 1044 H Ave NW in the Time Check neighborhood of Cedar Rapids on Wednesday, March 28, 2012. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The fact that thousands of RAGBRAI riders are due to descend on Cedar Rapids in late July is encouraging the city to finish up its demolition of flood-damaged homes.

So far, the city has torn down 957 homes and six commercial properties that were damaged beyond repair in the Floods of 2008. Officials this week awarded a contract for the removal of another 75 homes obtained through the post-flood buyout program.

But with an influx of bicyclists scheduled to arrive July 26 and spend the night during the annual ride across Iowa, the city may adjust some demolition schedules and locations so visitors won’t see the crumbling, flood-damaged homes and businesses that remain standing.

In hard-hit areas like the northwest Time Check neighborhood, residents are used to seeing backhoes chewing up buildings. Christine Goodwin said she’s lived next door to a “nuisance” for more than three and a half years — and when the home was finally demolished Wednesday, some of her frustration disappeared as well.

“The sign on the window said it was going to be torn down last September. I kept calling and leaving messages and they (the city) never got back to me,” she said. “It’s nice it’s done now.”

This latest batch of teardowns doesn’t mark the end of the process, but it’s getting nearer. In fact, it’s so close that officials want to have the remaining 100 to 200 demolitions almost wrapped up by the time the crowds roll into town.

John Riggs, a city flood recovery project manager, said the idea in the coming weeks and months is to look at the demolition process through a lens of RAGBRAI preparation. Total completion by late July might be a tall order, though.

“That may be stretching it to make it to that point and be done by then,” he said. “At that point we’d be near the end of our last contracts, but there will be several after that.”

Riggs said if the city can’t wrap up all of the demolition by the time the bicyclists get here, the alternative would be to clear areas close to any RAGBRAI routes. For instance, if riders camp overnight at the Kingston Stadium grounds as expected, damaged homes or businesses on streets leading from there to the downtown entertainment venues will get demolition priorities.

“I think we’ll have to pick our spots,” he said.

Riggs said a lot still depends on when the city takes possession of the remaining buyout properties. That has to occur before any demolition can take place.

But if contractors are still tearing down homes and businesses by the fourth week of July, he said, they’ll have to shut down and clean up the work sites for a few days out of concern for the bicyclists’ safety.

A five-member House Ways and Means subcommittee heard from representatives of We Can Do Better CR, who raised various concerns with a bill that has been approved 50-0 by the Senate. The subcommittee unanimously moved the bill to the full committee.

Citing a “deficit of trust,” Cedar Rapids resident Shane Beckman asked legislators to consider enforcement mechanisms to ensure that state sales taxes would be appropriately used.

“If the city is going to petition the state for dollars, we want to make sure they go for stated purposes,” he said.

Lawmakers agreed but repeatedly asked what enforcement mechanisms the residents wanted.

Those protections already exist in the bill, Tom Cope, a lobbyist for Cedar Rapids, told House members. The bill defines what kind of flood mitigation projects are eligible; requires that cities show public support as well as private-sector investment; and includes a state board to oversee the use of the funds.

“Several aspects of this bill are designed to be very tight,” he said. “We’re willing to look at suggested language … but we’ve spent a lot of time working on this. There are a lot of safeguards in there.”

The program’s board could allow communities to retain the growth in sales tax revenues over a period of time, or could provide aid from a state flood fund for communities without sales tax growth. It requires a 50 percent local match.

As much as $30 million a year could be diverted from general fund sales tax revenues, with as much as $15 million available for any one project.

Unlike previous state flood assistance that was delivered in lump sums, “this is a stream of money over a 10-year program,” said Cedar Rapids lobbyist Larry Murphy. The state board will have the authority “to slow down or cut off the sales tax rebate money.”

Lisa Kuzela of Cedar Rapids raised several concerns based on decisions by the City Council and state agencies on earlier projects.

“You’re talking about legislation in the past. We’re talking about legislation moving forward,” Cedar Rapids lobbyist Don Avenson said. “We could spend three days thinking of teeny little problems.”

If Cedar Rapids leaders want something done, they find a way to do it, Kuzela said.

The sooner the better, said Rep. Nate Willems, D-Lisbon, who noted that many residents of his district commute to jobs in Cedar Rapids.

“I’m reminded of the urgency of taking action,” he said when told that construction of a flood wall likely couldn’t start until at least 2014. Flood prevention measures would protect those jobs, he said, so “It’s imperative we act.”

Earlier this month, the bill was approved 21-4 by the House Appropriations Committee.

Artist rendering of new Cedar Rapids public library.

CEDAR RAPIDS — The opening of the city’s new downtown library is apt to be pushed back as much as four weeks and into July 2013 because of a $1.3 million surprise found during the demolition of the former building on the library site across from Greene Square Park.

Bob Pasicznyuk, the city’s library director, on Monday said excavation at the building site, which was once home to an American Legion post and bowling alley and then to TrueNorth Companies Inc., uncovered a large amount of asbestos-tainted debris from the Washington School of 1855 and the Washington High School of 1890 that once sat on the site. In the school demolition in 1946, much of the building ended up in the school’s basement and boiler rooms over which the Legion Post building subsequently was built.

The library’s initial contract to remove asbestos from the site was in the amount of $42,916. However, removing material led to the need to remove more and more. In the end, more than 6,000 tons of material needed to be removed.

Pasicznyuk put the total extra project cost to remove and landfill debris, provide new fill to the site and pay the building contractor for project delays at $1.3 million.

“It’s one of those things that there’s nothing we can do but legally take care of the matter,” the library director said. “And wish that asbestos was never invented.”

He emphasized that the increased site-preparation cost does not affect the overall cost of the library project. He said $3.2 million is provided for in the project budget for contingencies like the site-preparation surprise.

“We prudently put aside money because we knew something would go wrong,” the library director said. “I foolishly thought that we would never have to tap it. But now I’m being educated why you put aside a contingency.”

The overall cost of the project, Pasicznyuk said, is actually moving in a positive direction. The $49.5 million library project — which was the total project estimate including pre-construction expenses and contents — actually has become a $46 million one because bids on the project have come in lower than had been expected in the project planning, the library director said.

The library project is being financed with disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state I-JOBS program as well as from private donations.

No local property-tax revenue is being used on the project. The city is using $4 million in revenue from the city’s local-option sales tax on the library project. The sales tax is in place for 63 months to provide money for flood-recovery projects including as matching funds for projects receiving federal funds, which the library project is.

On the plus side, the debris removal at the library site also has produced “some nice pieces of granite” that the library may try to use, said Pasicznyuk.

Homes along 17th Ave SE were damaged by June's flooding adjacent to Cargill's wet corn milling plant in Cedar Rapids on Monday, October 27 2008.(Cliff Jette/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — The city and its flooded neighborhoods, now on the mend, can’t stand still — with or without local funds for flood protection.

That’s the take of Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association. Since the March 6 defeat of a referendum to raise that local money, she’s been busy convening a group of those interested in rebuilding neighborhoods. They will steam ahead on plans to bring commercial development to Ellis Boulevard NW, parts of which sit in the 100-year flood plain.

Seger, a key community force in the city’s post-flood recovery, said so much home construction and renovation are going on in the Ellis Boulevard neighborhoods around Harrison Elementary School that it would be unfair for the city to turn its back now.

“People are buying homes here, they are rehabbing homes, they are moving back,” said Seger, of 1629 Eighth St. NW, a flood survivor herself. “There is an energy you feel here. There’s just a real desire to move ahead.”

Mayor Ron Corbett said the defeat of the ballot measure — to extend the city’s 1 percent local-option sales tax for 10 years for flood protection — hasn’t changed his outlook.

“I’m not giving up on flood protection,” he said. “We have a challenge in our community for long-term flood protection, and it’s incumbent on me as mayor to come up with alternative solutions.”

Corbett said he is committed to building flood protection for both sides of the river, but the tax defeat means that east-side flood protection, which the Army Corps of Engineers supports and for which it is now designing, will get built sooner than any west-side protection.

The Corps’ east-side plan, which has a price tag of $104 million, includes $12.5 million in preconstruction design and engineering work, now under way. Of that cost, 25 percent falls on the city, which the city has funds to pay for. The remainder of the east-side project requires a 35 percent non-federal match, some of which can be state dollars. In the end, the biggest impediment to east-side protection might be congressional funding, though the east-side project has been cleared for Congress’ consideration.

As for west-side protection, it has “taken a step backward,” Corbett said, “but that doesn’t mean we’re abandoning west-side protection.”

City Council member Monica Vernon said she is still trying to understand why the referendum was defeated a second time.

“I still think people want to protect our community, and I still think people want to protect both sides of the river,” Vernon said. “Perhaps the message is they don’t want to pay for it, or they didn’t want to pay for it in this manner.”

She’s s not ready to say that flood protection is dead, either.

“Cities are forever, and we just have to keep moving forward,” Vernon said. “I think you never give up. You never give up on Cedar Rapids. You never give up on each other.”

New homes are being built on lots where flooded homes once stood, on Tuesday, March 20, 2012, on 10th Street NW between I and J Avenues. (Liz Martin/The Gazette-KCRG)

Residential rebirth for some

Much of the new-home construction in the flood-damaged neighborhoods is spurred by a city initiative for home replacement. The program provides a lot and a $25,000 down payment to an income-qualified homebuyer willing to move into a new home on flood-hit streets outside the 100-year flood plain and outside the construction zone for a flood-protection system.

The lots once held flooded homes, which were bought out and demolished in the city’s disaster buyout program. Nearly all the funding for the buyouts, demolitions and incentives for replacement homes has come from the federal government.

Critics remain vocal. In an opinion piece in The Gazette following the tax vote, Michael Richards, former head of the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association, said the city has shown favor for a “small, elite group of economic interests” and needs a “new, citizen-based leadership.” By way of example, he said, the city had given away lots for the profit of developers like Skogman Homes of Cedar Rapids.

Corbett said Richards is misinformed. The incentives in the home-replacement program go to the homebuyer, he said.

Eighteen builders, of which Skogman is one, are participating in the project — the current phase of which the city calls ROOTs, for Rebuilding Ownership Opportunities Together. It will mean more than 200 new homes in the city’s flooded neighborhoods.

Northwest Neighbors’ leader Seger said the homebuilding incentives are giving people a start in life with a home they would not be able to afford otherwise. At the same time, she said, the new homes are bringing new life to the neighborhood.

“This is the American dream that came out of a disaster,” Seger said.

West-side commercial hopes

Much of the west-side property close to the river that was bought out by the city likely will go undeveloped for the foreseeable future while flood protection remains up in the air.

Vernon and City Council member Chuck Swore said they are committed to encouraging the private sector to invest in commercial establishments on Ellis Boulevard NW to support the neighborhood-building beyond there.

A city committee is backing a plan to build the new Northwest Recreation Center on the river side of Ellis Boulevard NW, even though it’s inside the 100-year flood plain. Actually, much of the boulevard is.

Swore envisions neighborhood storefronts with sandwich shops, a bakery and a coffee shop.

“The neighborhood needs those sort of amenities,” he said.

City Hall-critic Craig Augustine’s home backs up to the river near Ellis Park. His house and others sit inside the construction zone for a flood-protection system. That has not stopped the owners from renovating their riverside homes. Augustine said after the tax vote that it’s time for the city to throw away its plan for the construction zone.

“I don’t foresee us doing that,” Vernon said. “I think that would be premature to do something like that. We’ve held that area aside for a long time, and this vote means that this form of payment didn’t work for people. So I’m not just ready to throw in the towel and say, ‘Forget it.’ ”

Corbett agreed. The city isn’t ready to promote building and renovation inside the 100-year flood plain, except on a case-by-case basis, he said. The new recreation center, which would connect to the existing Time Check Park, might be one exception, he said.

Vernon still has an interest in the “West Village” concept, that calls for redevelopment of the area inside the 100-year flood plain and directly across the river from downtown. The historical Louis Sullivan-designed bank sits there, and the city has promised to protect it. Developers have expressed interest in saving other commercial buildings near it.

Preservation Iowa president Rod Scott of Cedar Rapids looks at the interior of a gutted flood-damaged home along Second St. SE on Saturday, July 10, 2010, southeast Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/SourceMedia Group News)

Residential ghost town for others

Michael Lane’s renovated house at 43 20th Ave. SW is one of just a few left among the 10 blocks of homes nearest the Czech Village commercial strip and along the Cedar River.

Lane said he would live in the country if he could, but his piece of urban Cedar Rapids has become something like the country since the June 2008 flood. Nearly all the flooded homes around him — this was one of the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods, from 17th to 21st avenues between A and C streets SW — have been bought out and demolished.

So little is left that the veteran construction worker said he thinks a little about public safety at night.

“You couldn’t hear someone screaming here now,” he said.

Lane voted no in the March 6 tax vote. His reasons, he said, were that the city has not been clear enough on how it spent revenue from the existing local-option sales tax, and the city will have money left from the tax when it runs its course on June 30, 2014, that it can use for flood protection.

“We need to get some protection here, but I think they’re trying to be a little opulent,” Lane said. “They’ve got enough money now to get something going without the bells and whistles.”

Chris Dostal, affectionately called “the Mayor of 19th Avenue SW” by his neighbors, lives on one of the hardest hit blocks next to Czech Village. He believes that trying to build a flood-protection system to defeat Mother Nature is ludicrous. He can’t see another catastrophic flood hitting the city for many years to come, if ever.

Dostal’s flood-ruined house, built in 1890 at 87 19th Ave. SW, is still standing. He is intentionally taking his time selling it to the city.

“It’s been almost four years; what’s my hurry now? It’s been four years of misery,” said Dostal, who received some down-payment assistance to purchase a replacement home.

He hopes to retain one of his two lots. Then, he said, he could take some chairs down there and sit near the river with friends and family in the summer. At the least, he might put a big rock on the lot, commemorating daughter Vicki’s coronation as Czech princess in 2006.

May's Island in Cedar Rapids flooded by the Cedar River on Thursday, June 12, 2008 as seen from the air. (Perry Walton/P&N Air)

Andrew Cira of Coggon and Marion-based Northway Wells and Plumbing lines up the well platform on top of an outer well casin near Mohawk Park in Cedar Rapids (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

At 43 locations along the riverbank, the city is adding 10 additional feet of well casing to the top of each of its vertical wells to ensure that a repeat of the city’s historic 2008 flood or even one worse won’t shut down the city’s drinking water system as it nearly did in 2008.

Well heads that had extended about 10 feet above the ground at the time of the flood are growing 10 feet taller and being painted a fresh, bright green. It can make it hard to see the forest for — for the well heads.

City Hall wasted little time in deciding to raise the city’s vertical wells in the wake of the 2008 flood when floodwaters overtopped all 43 functioning vertical wells, knocked out two significantly more-productive horizontal collector wells, compromised a third and threatened a fourth, all of which sit in the city’s three well fields that stretch 4 1/2 miles along the river. The wells pull water from the sand-filtered alluvium 43 to 75 feet below ground.

“We’d just been through this experience, and raising the vertical wells in the big scheme of things, isn’t that expensive,” said Bruce Jacobs, the city’s utilities engineering manager, explaining the city’s thinking about protecting its water supply in the event of another significant flood.

He puts the cost to raise the 43 vertical wells at about $2.1 million, all of which the Federal Emergency Management Agency has agreed to pay.

“Now, if we have another (flood) event, and everything goes the way it did before, the water system should be secure,” Jacobs said.

After all, one of the great dramas that unfolded as flood water was cresting in Cedar Rapids in June 2008 was the frenzy to save the last functioning well of the city’s 47 — 43 vertical, four collector wells — that had been working at the time.

Jacobs calls it the story of the “famous collector well #3.”

Floodwaters surround well No,. 3 in Cedar Rapids in June 2008. About 1,200 volunteers showed up to stack sandbags around what was the last well serving Cedar Rapids area during the 2008 floods (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

As word circulated that the last of the city’s wells was about to get knocked out of service, a few hundred citizens poured out to the site of collector well #3, located on the south side of the river just above the Edgewood Road bridge, to help sandbag in an effort to keep the well working.

“The hundreds of people coming down the road to sandbag the thing was just astonishing to us,” Jacobs said. “That was very uplifting.”

Greg Eyerly, the city’s utilities operations manager at the time who was at the well site as flood water rose, calls it “a miracle” that the well continued to pump water. The volunteers and city crews were great, he said, but they only had a chance to save collector well #3 because access to it had not been cut off by the rising river the day before the crest.

All and all, “it’s kind of like the lucky shot into the wastebasket at the office. Just don’t ask me to do it twice,” said Eyerly, who subsequently became the city’s flood recovery director and now is wastewater treatment manager for the city of Salem, Ore.

In the saving, collector well #3 was able to provide about one-third of the city’s average daily water supply of about 36 million gallons, Jacobs said. Even so, for a time the city’s largest industrial customers stopped using water, and citywide, the call went out to conserve. People were told not to shower or bathe.

Two days later, collector well #4, which was reached by boat with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, was brought back on line, and the crisis lessened.

“So then we were hanging by two threads instead of one, which was a big improvement,” Jacobs said. “ … It was a really good thing we didn’t lose the water system. It was one less thing. I think it gave the community quite a lift. They could still get a drink of water just by turning the tap open.”

Both collector wells #3 and #4, which are substantial aboveground structures that can’t be raised, had oil-filled chambers to cool them, which helped keep water from each of the well’s electrical systems. By contrast, collector wells #1 and #2 were air cooled and flood water knocked out the electrical systems.

The cooling systems now have been changed, Jacobs said. In addition, the city is moving ahead to build two additional collector wells, and both of those will be 9 to 11 feet above the height of the 2008 flood, In the first weeks after the flood, the roads into the city’s well fields were impassable and so the city used helicopters to lift the motors from the flooded vertical wells and to fly them off for repair.

In short order, the city then began to plan to raise the vertical wells — each of which has the capacity to send between 0.8 and 1.7 million gallons of water a day to the city’s two water treatment plants — even before the Federal Emergency Management Agency determined if it would help pay the bill. In the end, though, FEMA agreed to foot the $2.1 million project cost. (story continues below map)

Work to raise the 18 vertical wells in the city’s Seminole Valley Park well field now is complete, and just last week, contract crews began work on raising 17 vertical wells in the city’s east well field (in the city’s northeast quadrant north of the river) in an area across the Cedar River from Ellis Park. Work on another 8 vertical wells in the west well field (in the city’s northwest quadrant and south of the river) above the Ellis Boat Harbor will take place next year.

The city’s Jacobs said the city figured in 2008 that its wells sat high enough to withstand a flood that reached about 26 1/2 feet, 6 feet above the previous record flood. The 2008 flood, though, climbed to 31.12 feet.

The city is adding 10 feet of casing to the vertical wells because the standard length of casing is 10 feet, he explained.

Mayor Ron Corbett, who has expressed disappointment at the second defeat of a local ballot measure to extend the local-option sales tax to provide local funds to help build a flood-protection system, said he has tried to point out how much federal and state disaster aid has come to the city, its residents and businesses in making the case to extend the local sales tax.

In any event, Corbett said the outside disaster help is protecting the city to a degree even without flood protection. In the event of another flood, the city’s drinking water should be safe, he said.

Mary Goodlove gathers asparagus into bunches at a farmers' market in Cedar Rapids in 2008. (Gazette file photo)

A Linn County citizens’ advisory on food issues moved closer to reality this morning with county supervisors’ friendly reception to the proposal.

“We wouldn’t be telling anybody what to eat,” said Jason Grimm, addressing a potential criticism of what would be Iowa’s fourth county food systems policy council. “The council would work with people who want  to create a better  access to fresh foods.”

Grimm, food systems planner for the Iowa Valley Resource, Conservation and Development,  reviewed how three other counties, including Johnson, have launched food policy councils.

“They have been doing a lot of work looking for farmers who want to market locally, building markets,” Grimm said of the councils in Cass and Pottawatomie counties.

“It’s more about connections and facilitation,” said Supervisor Linda Langston, noting the county’s support for the NewBo City Market in southeast Cedar Rapids.

The council wouldn’t require county funding, drawing on the county staff for support.

“We are on board with that,” Planning and Development Director Les Beck told supervisors.

Supervisors agreed to advance the proposal to their March 28 formal session. Assuming it’s approved, Beck’s staff would post an appeal for volunteers to serve on the council.

Budget Director Dawn Jindrich told supervisors department heads are putting off some hiring and purchasing to offset higher fuel prices, which they expect to weather without further disruption unless there’s an unexpected jump. The supervisors instructed Jindrich to survey all county departments after hearing concerns from Conservation Department officials last week.

A portion of the brick storm sewer under E Avenue NW that collapsed during the 2008 flood. (Gazette file photo)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Federal disaster dollars are coming to the city’s aid again.

Beginning in late June, 3,100 feet of 110-year-old storm sewer will be replaced under E Avenue NW from Third Street almost to 13th.

A section of the storm sewer — an arched brick structure eight feet tall and 14 feet wide that was built in the late 1800s and early 1900s — collapsed in 2009 from damage caused by the Floods of 2008. The collapse took a section of E Avenue with it, and the temporary fix for that problem left a block of the roadway limited to one lane of traffic.

Federal Community Development Block Grant disaster funds are paying the cost of the $8.9 million permanent replacement project, which will include a new storm sewer, street reconstruction and sidewalk replacement. No local funds will be used, said Dave Wallace, Cedar Rapids’ project engineer.

The construction will bring a permanent change to long-established patterns of traffic flow on E and F avenues NW. Both streets will change from one-ways to two-ways between Third Street and Ellis Boulevard.

Wallace said the expectation is that F Avenue will be converted to a two-way as construction on the E Avenue project begins in late June.

Work on E will start at Third Street NW and move toward 13th Street. Portions of E Avenue in the construction area will stay open as sections under construction close. Work between Third and Ellis Boulevard NW should be complete in 2012, with work from Ellis Boulevard nearly to 13th Street slated for 2013.

The 110-year-old brick storm sewer will be placed by a rectangular concrete box culvert, eight feet high and 12 feet wide.

The old brick sewer, Wallace said, worked well for its long life until it was damaged by the flood. One piece of the storm sewer had problems some years ago related to construction in the area of 12th Street NW, he said.

As it replaces the old sewer, the city is working at the same time to preserve a century-old former neighborhood fire station at Fifth Street and E Avenue NW that was damaged in the 2008 flood.

The city held an open house a month ago to seek ideas for the old firehouse.

A conceptual drawing of where the Northwest Recreation Center would sit in relation to the rest of the Time Check Park. (image provided by the city of Cedar Rapids)

CEDAR RAPIDS — A City Hall committee that includes a majority of the City Council agreed unanimously Thursday to build a $3.5 million Northwest Recreation Center at a spot in the 100-year flood plain along Ellis Boulevard NW — with or without flood protection.

“I feel like this is the neighborhood that needs this,” council member Monica Vernon said. “This is the neighborhood where it (the recreation center) was originally sited.”

Colleague Scott Olson said the city can’t wait years for a flood protection system to be built before it moves forward with the new rec center. What it can do, he said, is take steps to protect the facility by moving electrical and mechanical systems higher in the new building.

“I think we can manage the risk,” Olson said. “… I think we have to move on with our lives.”

Joe O’Hern, the city’s flood recovery and reinvestment director, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency doesn’t like spending public dollars in the 100-year flood plain, so the city will need to make its case with FEMA for why the new recreation center should go there. The committee’s sentiment, though, was that the agency would agree.

If the site is approved, the building will need to be elevated one foot above the 100-year flood plain. Olson noted that satisfying the elevation requirement still would mean that the new building would take on several feet of water in a repeat of the Floods of 2008.

Chuck Wieneke, a former City Council member, reminded the current council Tuesday of the vulnerability of building the center in an area so prone to flooding. Wieneke has favored putting it on higher ground in Ellis Park.

Committee members, though, particularly like the spot at Ellis Boulevard and J Avenue NW site because it ties into the six-acre Time Check Park, which had contained a city recreation center before it took on 12 feet of water in the Floods of 2008.

The committee also believes that redeveloping the site will serve as a catalyst for commercial development along the boulevard, which is the principal traffic artery through the area.

Building the recreation center at Ellis and J would require the purchase of three or four vacant lots, though the city has already bought most of the land at the site through the post-flood buyout program.

Scott Zeien (right) of Garrison, Iowa, and Duncan List of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, both with Terracon collecr samples from a boring machine after drilling a 36-foot hole along Dubuque St. on Wednesday, March 14, 2012, in Iowa City, Iowa. Workers with the company were drilling 12 holes at various spots along Dubuque Street near the Iowa River in preparation for elevating the street. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

City crews in Iowa City spend a good portion of Wednesday testing soil far beneath the surface of Dubuque Street.  The work was done in preparation for a massive project to raise the street over a quarter mile stretch prone to flooding.

“It’s very exciting, the city has been working on this project for a long time,” said Melissa Clow of the city’s engineering department.

On Wednesday, crews tested soil through a process known as soil boring.  The testing was done to help the city draft a final plan for the project, which they hope to have ready by Labor Day.

Construction to begin raising the street remains on schedule for next year.  It is scheduled to be completed by 2014.

Third Avenue leading into downtown Cedar Rapids is under water as the Cedar River continues to rise Thursday afternoon, June 12, 2008.(Liz Martin/The Gazette)

A legislative proposal to give some Iowa communities access to sales tax revenues to pay for flood mitigation didn’t die with the defeat of Cedar Rapids local option sales tax, according to state lawmakers.

Senate File 2217 would create a way for Cedar Rapids to keep a portion of future sales tax revenue to pay for flood walls and other flood mitigation projects had the city’s proposed 10-year extension of Linn County’s one-cent sales tax been approved by voters March. However, the issue failed by 579 votes in the metro bloc, 14,024 to 13,445.

Still, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, said that wasn’t the end of the road for legislation. That’s because unlike last year’s attempt to pass similar legislation, SF 2217 isn’t directly linked to the Linn County vote.

“The bill was written to have statewide applicability, so the outcome of the vote in Linn County doesn’t control what we do here,” Paulsen said Wednesday. He believes that the bill, as rewritten this year, offers “a greater level of confidence that it has general applicability across the state.”

“So we’ll continue to look at it,” the speaker said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Scott Raecker, R-Urbandale, agreed that action on SF 2217 is not contingent on the decision by Linn County voters.

“As chairman, I never thought action on the bill it was predicated on the success of the vote,” Raecker said.

Floor manager Rep. Chris Hagenow, R-Windsor Heights, called the vote relevant to the discussion, “but it’s not a Linn County bill.”

Still, he said, it doesn’t appear to be on anyone’s “must-do” list.

Paulsen isn’t so sure.

“If we were in the last 72 hours of the session, that probably would be true, but we’re not, so we have time to look at it,” he said.

The bill goes next to the Ways and Means Committee because it involves tax issues. Chairman Tom Sands, R-Wapello, plans to consider it, Paulsen said.

“At least conceptually, the members like putting something in place that local governments could take advantage of if we go through another tragedy like we’ve gone through in the past,” Paulsen said. “From that standpoint there is interest in looking at it.

“I know it’s got a good base of support, but don’t know if it’s got enough to get over the hurdle,” Paulsen said.

SF 2217 was approved by the Senate last month on a 50-0 vote and 21-4 by the House Appropriations Committee earlier this week.

The former Science Station on First Street SE in downtown Cedar Rapids, including its McLeod/Busse IMAX Theatre (left) and the former Cedar Rapids fire station (center), as seen in October 2006. (Gazette file photo)

The Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance will soon be moving into a new location leaders say will become a hub of economic activity in Eastern Iowa.

This summer, the Economic Alliance will move into the building that was formerly the home of the Science Station. Renovations on the building, owned by 2001 Development Corp., are presently under way.

Dee Baird, Economic Alliance president & CEO, says when the transformation of the building is complete it will be a “beacon of economic growth” with a design that reflects “a smart, innovative, progressive space.”

Read more at Business380.com

Downtown buildings photographed early Friday, June 13, 2008, in southeast Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Opponents of the local-option sales tax extension they worked to defeat Tuesday say they’ll continue working on flood-mitigation plans for Cedar Rapids, but those on the other side say they’re done.

“We gave it our best try yesterday and our group is done with the issue,” said Gary Ficken, chairman of the pro-extension Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax (CREST), said Wednesday. “In our view the city has spoken, and the city does not seem to have any interest in west-side flood protection.”

That’s not the message extension opponents took from their 579-vote, 52-48-percent victory.

“This vote was not about flood protection, it wasn’t,” said Lisa Kuzela, a northwest Cedar Rapids resident and founder of We Can Do Better CR. “They will not admit that the people do not trust how they’ve spent their money. That is the reason why they defeated it. The people do not trust the city, that’s the message they need to hear.”

The $200 million the 10-year extension of the tax would have raised in Cedar Rapids would have been earmarked for flood protection on both sides of the Cedar River.

Kuzela and Eric Rosenthal, We Can Do Better’s chairman, say the group will remain active, promoting an alternative sales-tax question they could put before voters yet this year.

Mayor Ron Corbett thinks it’s too late.

“The longer you get away from the disaster, the less people think it’s going to flood again,” said Corbett, noting the tax extension lost by its widest margin — 964 votes — in Cedar Rapids. Last May’s vote on a 20-year tax extension was defeated by about 700 votes within the city.

“Only a handful (of precincts) passed it so we actually lost ground,” Corbett said.

Rosenthal said he’ll urge local legislators to continue pressing the case for a flood-mitigation package now moving through the state Legislature. The plan would use state sales taxes to fund a $30 million pool to match local governments’ flood projects.

“Don’t just abandon the flood legislation,” Rosenthal said. “The message from over here is the voters would like some specificity, some accountability.”

“We’re still going to push for them to pass the legislation, but I think it’s a little steeper hill for us,” Corbett said.

Rosenthal thinks We Can Do Better can provide the foundation for a flood-control coalition.

“We have a broad coalition of folks, folks that would never vote for it and folks that would vote for a more specific thing,” he said. “But to have a dialogue it’s incumbent for both parties to communicate. They thought they could win it, and they ignored us.”

But Corbett said tax supporters listened, cutting the sales-tax extension from 20 to 10 years and dropping other spending provisions from the ballot.

“We tried to work with them last time,” he said. “We took their advice on that.”

Rosenthal said We Can Do Better’s petition has about 1,000 signatures, and the group could launch an effort to bring yet another tax extension before voters as early as late summer, but he concedes there’s a fatigue factor.

“Because people were so upset it’s twice now in 10 months, we have to be sensitive to it,” he said. “I will push the group to move and hopefully we can have dialogue with our leaders.”

Meanwhile, Corbett said, the city will work with the Army Corps of Engineers to develop a plan for flood protection on the east bank. The Corps can’t justify west-bank protection under its cost-benefit formula.

“I’d hate to be the mayor of a community that only wants to protect one side, but the voters have turned it down twice now,” he said.

Board Chair Gary Rozek (right) talks to journalists during a tour of construction at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011, in southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (SourceMedia Group News/Jim Slosiarek)

A repeat of the three presidents’ 1995 dedication of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library won’t be happening, at least not this year.

Museum officials had hoped to have the sitting presidents from the Czech and Slovak republics and the United States attend the museum’s reopening this summer.

The schedules of the two European presidents, however, combined with the election year here made that impossible, museum spokeswoman Diana Baculis said.

“To get them here between July 14 and Nov. 2 – it’s just too complex,” Baculis said, referring to the museum’s opening date and the weekend before the general election.

Once it gets into November, cold weather is more likely, which museum officials want to avoid.

Unusually frigid temperatures greeted then-presidents Bill Clinton, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Michal Kovac of Slovakia in October 1995 when the museum was first dedicated at 30 16^th Ave. SW.

The event drew a crowd of 7,000 people and attracted international attention.

Baculis said the goal is to officially dedicate the museum in warmer weather in 2013, hopefully with three sitting presidents.

The Czech and Slovak presidents travel to the United States just a couple of times each year, so museum staff will start with those scheduled dates, she said.

In the meantime, plans for July 14 include a pageant parade with representatives invited from all 50 states. Ambassadors from the Czech and Slovak republics and state and local dignitaries have been invited.

The museum was flooded in June 2008 and has since been moved nearby to a higher elevation than the previous site along the banks of the Cedar River.

An addition is nearing completion, which will enlarge the museum and add room for more events and displays.

By Steve Gravelle and Patrick Hogan

CEDAR RAPIDS — Lisa Kuzela slid out of her booth at Buffalo Wild Wings Tuesday night to get a closer look at the results on the television.

“Is that saying that we won?” she asked.

Her voice rose to a shout. “We did it again. We beat them.”

What started out as a low-key gathering at the Edgewood Road Buffalo Wild Wings of about six members of We Can Do Better CR, an organization opposing an extension of the 1 percent local-option sales tax for 10 years beyond 2014, turned into a victory celebration as the measure was defeated by 579 votes, 14,024 to 13,445.

Kuzela, who managed the campaign against the tax, characterized her group’s campaign as an uphill struggle against an opponent with more resources and funding.

“We had half the money and half the time, but I had faith that if the voters were educated, they would do the right thing,” she said.

At a subdued gathering at the CSPS Hall in the New Bohemia neighborhood, Mayor Ron Corbett said city officials have some hard thinking to do now that the tax extension has failed for a second time.

The city had earmarked the $200 million it would have received from the tax extension for flood protection on both sides of the Cedar River.

“This council and the previous council have been pretty firm about protecting both sides of the river and not just protecting the east side,” a disappointed Corbett said. “We’re going to have some discussions about this now.”

The tax extension carried only 10 Cedar Rapids precincts and 19 of 65 in the metro bloc of Cedar Rapids, Fairfax, Hiawatha, Marion and Robins.

Marion would have used most of the funds it would have received for street and sewer work. Robins would have spent the money on street, water and sewer construction and other community projects. Hiawatha and Fairfax would have used the money for “any lawful purpose.”

Close to May vote

Tuesday night’s margin is statistically close to the 51-to-49-percent rejection last May, but extension opponents picked up another 358 votes. A direct comparison isn’t possible because redistricting changed precinct boundaries, but there were 4,462 fewer votes cast Tuesday in the metro bloc.

Turnout was 22.4 percent of registered voters.

“It hasn’t been resoundingly defeated,” Corbett said. “It’s been close, so obviously the community is either divided on whether we should have flood protection or not, or they’re divided on how we should pay for flood protection.”

Rural residents passed the extension by 42 votes, but its defeat in the metro bloc of Cedar Rapids, Fairfax, Marion, Robins, and Hiawatha means the tax will be collected only in the unincorporated precincts — a huge cut in revenue for rural roads, property tax relief and conservation projects.

The Army Corps of Engineers is planning a system of flood walls and levees on the river’s east bank near downtown Cedar Rapids. Tax extension backers argued city and state funding is needed for similar protection on the west side, which doesn’t qualify for federal funding under the Corps’ cost-benefit formula.

“The Corps is moving ahead,” Corbett said. “It just seems odd to only protect one side of the river and not the other. Certainly everyone knows that the federal government can’t support west-side protection because of their formula, that we needed local dollars along with state dollars to help build the west side.”

“I’m a little stunned at how a community wants to move forward without protecting everyone, but the voters have spoken,” said Gary Ficken, chairman of Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax (CREST), which worked to pass the tax extension.

“They certainly at some point will have to make a decision,” said Linda Seger, president of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association and one of the first to return to her flooded neighborhood. “Maybe not in my lifetime, but sooner or later someone’s going to have to put a wall on both sides.”

State funding plan

The defeat will make it harder for local lawmakers to make the case for a flood-mitigation funding plan moving through the state Legislature. The measure, passed unanimously in the Senate and up for final House approval as early as next week, would appropriate up to $30 million a year for 10 years to match local and federal funding. Local projects like Cedar Rapids’ could receive up to $15 million a year.

“(The defeat) is going to make it a little harder to get that passed,” Corbett said. “That doesn’t mean that that bill’s dead. We’re still going to work to get it passed, but it would have been a little easier had we had a victory here tonight.”

Seger said the extension’s opponents should lobby state lawmakers and work with the City Council.

“I just hope the people who said they can do better will come forward and offer a better plan,” she said, referring to We Can Do Better CR.

Counterproposal

The We Can Do Better CR group already has begun to circulate a counterproposal. It addresses some of the group’s most common concerns, relating to a lack of specific language on the ballot on what money would be spent on.

Their version of the petition, which was being passed around Tuesday night, calls for a sales tax to be spent on specific projects, such as flood protection for the east side of the Cedar River, dredging the river and securing the city’s water supply.

Eric Rosenthal, the group’s chair, said he hopes to gain enough signatures to call for a summer vote on the proposal.

“We’re not an anti-tax group,” he said. “We just want to make sure there is proper accountability for what’s a flood project.”

Distrust of the city was a common thread among the celebrating opponents Tuesday night. Many, including Kuzela and Rosenthal, accused the city of planning to use a loophole in Iowa law to spend extra money collected past the base year on non-flood related projects. The prospect of a local-option sales tax funding downtown projects such as a downtown amphitheater or rebuilding the city’s ground transportation center was mentioned several times.

Others, such as Bill Dahlsten, called into question the very idea of comprehensive flood protection, judging by his own experience with floods in Cedar Rapids and Burlington.

“You might be able to hold it off, but he who defends few defends nothing,” he said.

We Can Do Better CR’s petition for a vote can be found at http://www.wecandobettercr.com/Documentation/Petition_423B.1Cover_Letter.pdf

Boat houses from the Ellis boat harbor and other debris are smashed against a railroad bridge near the Timecheck neighborhood in the view looking towards Mays Island Monday, June 16, 2008 in Cedar Rapids. (Brian Ray/The Gazette)

Sue Covington, (front left), Helane Golden, Mike Wyrick, (back left), Candy Nanke, Scott Gasway, Brad Hart, and Mayor Ron Corbett, all of Cedar Rapids, look intently at the TV for the voting results at the CSPS, where those in favor of extending the local option sales tax gathered, on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. (Nikole Hanna/The Gazette-KCRG)

Bill Balhsten pf Cedar Rapids and We Can Do Better CR founder Lisa Kuzela watch as the results of the local option sales tax coming during a gather of opponents at Buffalo Wild Wings in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. (Cliff Jette/The Gazette-KCRG)

Rising water of the Cedar River flows past City Hall and Mays Island on Wednesday, June 11, 2008, in southeast Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

DES MOINES — Legislation calling for a cost-sharing approach toward flood protection and rebuilding efforts in Cedar Rapids was approved by the House Appropriations Committee 21-4 and will move to the full House as early as next week.

The action came on the eve of a referendum in some Linn County jurisdictions on extending a 1 percent local-option sales tax for another 10 years. If the measure passes in Cedar Rapids, all of the money would go to “establish and maintain” a flood protection system on both sides of the Cedar River.

The bill, approved by the Senate last month on a 50-0 vote, would create a way for Cedar Rapids to keep a portion of future sales tax revenue for flood walls and other mitigation projects.

It would establish a 10-year state flood mitigation program capped at $30 million annually in state sales tax revenue, with a maximum award of up to $15 million a year for any qualifying community to match local and federal funds to be spent on flood protection projects.

Under the proposal, which is similar to one the Legislature set aside last year after voters rejected a 20-year local-option sales tax extension, would let Cedar Rapids and other communities keep some of the sales tax revenue that would otherwise go to the state and use it locally to prevent future flood damage.

Although she acknowledged the need for flood mitigation, both remedial and preventive, Rep. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, was a “no” vote because the bill’s effect on other priorities is unknown. As much as $30 million a year could be diverted from the general fund, she pointed out to the committee.

“I don’t know how that fits into funding for education, mental health” and a plan for the state to pick up a larger share of school funding, Winckler said.

“At a time when we shortchange everything else, we are creating something that comes off the top,” she said.

She was joined by Rep. Mary Gaskill, D-Ottumwa, Rep. Ralph Watts, R-Adel, and Rep. Jason Schultz, R-Schleswig, in opposing the bill.

Rep. Pat Murphy, D-Dubuque, said there was general agreement “that we should allow communities to do this … not only for things that happened in the past, but to prevent things in the future.”

Earlier in the day, Victoria Daniels of the Department of Revenue warned lawmakers that the bill would strain her department’s resources.

She said there are several proposals this session to create sales tax carve-outs for communities.

“With our current staffing levels, it’s going to be difficult at best,” she said. “At some point (the) Legislature has to determine whether it’s more important to administer these programs or to collect revenue.”