CEDAR RAPIDS — Mayor Ron Corbett and a City Hall delegation won an initial victory at the Iowa Statehouse on Wednesday in their effort to find state funds to help Cedar Rapids build a flood protection system able to protect against a repeat of the Floods of 2008. A key caveat with the legislative [...]
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Last spring, the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent out letters telling 180 Iowans to return payments made to them after natural disasters in 2008 and 2010. Those included 40 applicants whom FEMA said improperly received $229,057 in benefits in Cedar Rapids and Palo and seven applicants whom the agency said improperly received $61,433 in benefits [...]
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UPDATE: Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett says he believes prospects are better this session for a cost-sharing approach toward flood protection and rebuilding efforts in Iowa communities to clear the Legislature and get signed into law. “I think we have a really good chance this year,” said Corbett, a former House speaker, after a Senate [...]
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A new, second-try City Hall task force convened Thursday and expressed no interest in building the city’s new west-side recreation center on Harrison Elementary School property as a way to get the school off a school-closing list. Instead, the recreation-center task force members made it clear that they want to focus their attention for a [...]
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Some history here is on target to be saved. Nine months ago, City Hall made it clear it wasn’t going to let the wrecking ball get a little, century-old, neighborhood fire station at Fifth Street and E Avenue NW. And on Thursday, city officials set a public open house for Monday, Feb. 13 to get [...]
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The city’s 40-year-old marketing slogan, “The City of Five Seasons,” continues to confuse even as the unfortunate tagline that came to accompany it, “The City of Five Smells,” sturdily remains in place. In recent weeks, the five-smells moniker has been embraced by some making the case against Penford Products Co.’s proposed industrial expansion into a [...]
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City Hall on Tuesday unveiled a picture of what the city’s new Public Works Facility will look like once it is in place in 2014. The image comes as city officials prepare to hold an open house on Wednesday, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., on the second floor of the existing Public Works Facility, 1201 [...]
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The University of Iowa next week will give an update on the rebuilding of Hancher Auditorium, the School of Music and the Art Building facility, as well as Iowa Memorial Union repairs and flood mitigation. The forum will be at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 7, in the large auditorium of Art Building West, 141 N. Riverside [...]
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CEDAR RAPIDS — At face value, the two flood-damaged buildings in the middle of the New Bohemia district might seem unworthy of repair. But businessman Jon Jelinek saw things differently, and now the homes will be restored with the help of a $50,000 challenge grant through Main Street Iowa. “It’s going to complete that side [...]
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Six University of Iowa pianos moved to rented space in 2008 to avoid floodwaters have sustained heavy water damage from a leaky toilet and sink pipe at the building where they’d been moved. University spokesman Tom Moore told the Iowa City Press-Citizen that an Iowa City police officer noticed water coming from the building a [...]
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