CENTER POINT — Angry neighbors opposed to a proposed large hog confinement operation just east of here are using public ridicule to try to persuade farmer Matt Ditch to change his mind. The neighbors have chipped in to pay $400 for a billboard and two smaller roadside signs, two in Center Point and one near the [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS — But are the turtles smiling? That’s the question from Wally Taylor, the Cedar Rapids environmental attorney who has been seeking to block the long-delayed, $200-million project that will extend Highway 100 from Edgewood Road NE west and south to Highway 30. Both of Taylor’s lawsuits on behalf of the Sierra Club [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS — One giant, ongoing dispute between the Linn County Board of Supervisors and Linn County Auditor Joel Miller has centered on Miller’s assertion that he, as auditor, should be able to investigate the county’s bills and transactions. The three-year-old brouhaha landed in Linn County District Court, where a judge in November sided [...]

City officials here and in Dubuque convinced the new Iowa Flood Mitigation Board on Monday to interpret the local “skin-in-the-game” provision of a new state funding law for flood protection projects in a way that will lessen rather than increase the costs to local communities. In the board’s meeting at Cedar Rapids City Hall, Mark [...]

One thing hasn’t changed about a rural Linn County farmer’s plan, now revised, to operate an expanded hog confinement operation east of Center Point. That is, many of Matt Ditch’s neighbors hate the idea, and they made their feelings known to the Linn County Board of Supervisor at a public hearing on Monday. “I love [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — We are safer, but not safe. That’s the message in Cedar Rapids from Mayor Ron Corbett — fresh off new flood scares here and in Iowa City — at the five-year anniversary of the city’s historic 2008 flood. Corbett’s is a cautionary message that comes despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that [...]

Chuck Wieneke was still new to the City Council as he went from soaked home to soaked home in the Time Check and Harrison Elementary School neighborhoods to see firsthand the damage that his constituents faced in the June 2008 flood. In part because his council district sustained so much property loss, Wieneke became a [...]

If elected, Anthony Brown would become the youngest member of the City Council — by far. “I’m kind of an Average Joe wanting to stand up and be a servant leader — to offer a fresh perspective and voice for the community,” says the 29-year-old Brown. “I want to give voice to the underrepresented.” Brown, [...]

CRST Inc. secured a property-tax incentive from the city of Cedar Rapids to support the local trucking firm’s plan to build a $2.8 million trucker training center on its campus along 16th Avenue SW. Mayor Ron Corbett, who works on special projects for CRST Inc., did not participate in the City Council’s discussion or vote [...]

A few hundred people on Thursday morning gathered on May’s Island in the middle of the Cedar River here to commemorate the city’s historic flood of 2008, with a firefighter clanging a bell five times at 10:15 a.m. to mark the moment of the five-year anniversary of the flood’s disastrous crest. In keynote remarks, Mayor [...]

Two well-known corporate executives, John Smith and Barry Boyer, have joined Steve Gray and Drew Skogman on the board of directors of the casino investor group Cedar Rapids Development Group LLC. Gray, founder of Gray Ventures Partners LLC, explained on Thursday that the investor group of more than 170 investors has “several big decisions” to make [...]

A few hundred people on Thursday morning gathered on May’s Island in the middle of the Cedar River here to commemorate the city’s historic flood of 2008, with a firefighter clanging a bell five times at 10:15 a.m. to mark the moment of the five-year anniversary of the flood’s disastrous crest. In keynote remarks, Mayor [...]

It’s a familiar story. Only one company has submitted a development proposal to the city to bring the flood-damaged A & W Family Restaurant on Ellis Boulevard back to life five years after the flood of 2008. The proposal comes from developer Baron Stark, the same person with whom the city earlier had agreed to work [...]

The face of the city will be changing. On Tuesday, final, unanimous actions by the City Council should mean fewer big billboards and fewer high-interest payday lender shops in the city. After months of City Hall study, the council enacted a new ordinance that will limit new payday lenders to the city’s C-2 commercial district, require [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS — To be able once again to make the Veterans Memorial Building on May’s Island — which had been home to City Hall before the June 2008 flood, but is no longer — vital and relevant remains the hope of the city’s Veterans Memorial Commission. The hope now is taking a first [...]

Ralph Russell, who retired in May from engineering firm HR Green Inc. where he was president/CEO for 26 years and worked for 44, is running for an at-large seat on the City Council. “I’m running because I think I can help our community,” Russell said on Friday. “I really look at Cedar Rapids much the same as [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — North, to Grand Forks. That’s where local leaders flew in June 2008 in the first few days after Cedar Rapids’ flood disaster to try to divine what the North Dakota city on the Red River had learned in 1997 from its own historical flood and accompanying downtown fire. The thought was that “Come [...]

Dave Elgin, the city’s public works director and city engineer, says the city’s preferred flood-protection plan remains a guiding light for the city four and a half years after the City Council adopted the plan. The council put the plan in place in the first months after the city’s June 2008 flood at some expense [...]

The long-delayed Highway 100 extension project now has secured a coveted spot on the Iowa Transportation Commission’s five-year construction funding plan, and pre-construction work on the $200-million project has begun. Even so, the Sierra Club’s Iowa Chapter continues with litigation in state and federal court to stop the project because the environmental group says it [...]

OSCEOLA – Would-be casino owner Steve Gray and casino owner Dan Kehl on Thursday shook hands and exchanged a quick pleasantry. It was a reminder of a past battle and a battle to come. The handshake was the first time the two had seen each other or spoken since they had dueled in a $3.43-million [...]