Number of comments: 2 Mike Richards and Jerry McGrane are engaged in a spitting match over Poet’s Park.
The dispute – between the president of the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood Association and his predecessor, now a City Council member — is over a small flower garden that sits with a landmark stone at 12th Avenue and [...]
The Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency is moving ahead to catch methane gas from its Site 2 landfill in a way that one day might turn generators to produce electricity.
The agency’s board on Tuesday said it hold a public hearing on Aug. 21 to discuss a proposal to install [...]
City Hall is taking a fresh step in its decade-long plan to clean up nearly 50 acres of old industrial sites a few blocks from the edge of downtown.
By early August, a contractor will begin excavating “contaminated soil” at the sites of the former Iowa Steel plant and the former [...]
The city will permit a fifth consecutive bow hunt of deer this fall and early winter.
The bow hunt season inside the city limits will run from Sept. 12 through Jan. 31.
To participate, hunters must complete an annual proficiency test and attend a class on the hunt’s rules and regulations. Hunters [...]
Number of comments: 3 City Hall is still working to try to win bicycle-friendly status for the city.
It will apply to the League of American Bicyclists on July 31 and will submit a second part of the application Aug. 7 if the League gives the go-ahead.
Ron Griffith, a city traffic engineer who is leading [...]
Number of comments: 2 Another proposal — this one made public just a month ago — to build affordable housing in and around Ellis Park is apparently going to bite the dust quickly.
Johnny Brown of J Brown Development Group of Cedar Rapids had pitched an idea to build two buildings with 30 affordable apartments [...]
Number of comments: 1 Next week, the city of Cedar Rapids will begin demolishing 58 more structures damaged in the flood of June 2008.
These are structures, most of which are homes, that the city has concluded pose a public-safety danger and need to come down. The city will seek reimbursement for the costs from [...]
Number of comments: 3 The Iowa Department of Economic Development is finalizing plans for what it intends to do with the state’s latest disaster-related infusion — $517 million — of federal Community Development Block Grant funds.
In its initial draft, the state agency proposed using $245 million of the CDBG pot to buy out [...]
The flood-damaged, Grant Wood-designed window is coming out of the Veterans Memorial Building this week, each of its 58 stained-glass panels to be crated and driven to a studio in Davenport for repair.
The restoration work on the window, put in place in 1929, will take up to 34 weeks to [...]
Number of comments: 6 Chuck Swore wants to return to the City Council.
Swore on Tuesday said he will run for one of the two at-large council seats on the ballot in November, and he said he is running to return a “can-do attitude” to City Hall.
Swore was elected to the west-side District 2 seat [...]
Number of comments: 2 Greg Eyerly never seemed to fuss too much with the suit and tie the last 16 or so months when he was working on the front lines as the city’s utilities operations manager with an office at the Water Pollution Control facility.
Monday, his first full day as the city’s new [...]
Number of comments: 1 Owners of newer, nicer homes along Council Street NE just south of Robins and north of the proposed Tower Terrace Road extension can breathe a little easier.
Jim Sattler, president of Jim Sattler Inc. Custom Homes, has given up his plan to build a manufactured home park in the neighborhood.
It is [...]
Sometimes a city needs a dog-and-pony show.
At least the case could be made for the one — for the news conference — on Thursday in which state and local officials met in a new housing development in northwest Cedar Rapids to celebrate a significant infusion of federal dollars designed to [...]
Number of comments: 4 The City Council pushed ahead Wednesday evening with plans to fix the flood-damaged Ellis Park swimming pool at an estimated cost of $367,000.
Bids on the work will be opened on July 16 with work to proceed after that.
Council member Monica Vernon, though, is still unhappy with one change that is [...]
For more than 30 years, the city of Cedar Rapids has secured the top Aaa bond rating as it has sold bonds to raise money to pay for capital improvement projects.
On Wednesday, though, the city reported that Moody’s Investors Service has given the city of Cedar Rapids a lower bond [...]
Number of comments: 4 If all goes as planned, a Minnesota developer will begin construction in mid-October on the 90-unit Cedar Pond Townhomes development on 11.2 acres south of Williams Boulevard and north of Wilson Avenue SW.
The developer, EverGreen Real Estate Development, Prior Lake, Minn., on Wednesday was awarded $15.3 million in federal affordable-housing [...]
Number of comments: 2 Minneapolis developer Sherman Associates Inc. is going to start its renovation of The Roosevelt, the former downtown hotel and now an empty, flood-damaged apartment complex, yet.
The start of the renovation has been pending for a few months now as Sherman Associates has worked out the details of its federal tax-credit [...]
Number of comments: 5 City Hall is moving ahead with a plan to buy two-and-a-half blocks of property just off the downtown owned by Pepsi Americas Inc., according to a City Hall report to city employees.
The city plans to put its new bus depot, called the Intermodal Transit Facility, on part of the site.
Pepsi [...]
Number of comments: 1 Put July 23 on your calendar.
City Hall is starting another public participation process — no doubt, with the room filled with poster boards, city staff and a sprinkling of consultants.
The latest push is gain public input on a City Hall energy policy.
This comes even as City Hall is already in [...]
Number of comments: 4 The city has added four brand-new buses to its bus fleet, a move that marks the city’s first purchase of new, heavy-duty, non-experimental buses in more than 20 years, reports Brad DeBrower, the city’s transit manager.
The four new buses replace ones built in 1978.
DeBrower’s predecessor was an advocate of “remanufactured” [...]
Number of comments: 5 Mayoral candidate Ron Corbett says it figures.
It’s just four months from the November city election, and the City Council — six of the nine members’ seats are on the ballot — is out with a spiffy, six-page mailing called “A Season of Progress.”
City Hall puts the cost of the [...]
A proposed 81-home development called Sugar Creek across Zika Avenue NW from the Ellis Golf Course was set aside for now by a City Council concerned last night that it was being asked to give big incentives for what really is market-rate housing.
The council has been willing to provide city [...]
Number of comments: 1 City Hall seems to be moving in two directions at the same time on downtown energy.
On the one hand, city officials are helping oversee a program to help businesses convert from the downtown steam system. And on the other hand, the City Council has agreed to spend $487,113 to conduct [...]
Number of comments: 3 News elsewhere in Iowa of small-sized buyouts of flood-damaged homes does not mean that the first round of buyouts in Cedar Rapids using funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is not on track, Jennifer Pratt, the city’s development coordinator says.
Pratt on Wednesday said the city still expects to hear [...]
Number of comments: 2 It’s not every year a City Council brings in some key local Statehouse lawmakers to a City Council meeting to applaud what they have done for City Hall and the city.
The current City Council, though, did just that.
By the council’s count, it had a good run this year at the [...]
Number of comments: 3 City Hall is ready to turn over the city’s towing contract to the lower-scoring of two bidders after a last-minute change in the bid terms prompted the top-scoring firm to drop out.
Carmela Darrah-Chiafos, owner of the top-scoring bidder Darrah’s Towing and Recovery, on Tuesday said City Hall was ready to [...]
Number of comments: 2 Let the federal government show up with $182 million for a new federal courthouse here, and most recently, with $517 million for the state of Iowa in the latest round of flood-recovery funds, and you can get to thinking that the government trough is long and deep, the spigot always [...]
Number of comments: 3 Burglars busted into mayoral candidate Ron Corbett’s home during the daytime Wednesday, ransacked the place and made off with jewelry, money, a computer, electronics, a couple bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne.
Corbett, who was in Pennsylvania at the time with four of his five children visiting his 90-year-old [...]
City Hall is investigating the possibility of providing targeted help to flood victims who received state Jumpstart down-payment assistance on a new home and now have learned that the amount of assistance will be subtracted from any buyout payment on their old home.
The local Jumpstart office two weeks ago said [...]
Number of comments: 2 Julie Sina, the city’s parks and recreation director, reported this week that design work is beginning on the city’s new dog park that is coming to 11 city-owned acres near the Gardner Golf Course at Highway 100 and Highway 13.
Sina said the proposed cost of the new dog park is [...]
Number of comments: 4 The City Council and the Linn County Board of Supervisors are working to prioritize a long list of 80-plus local projects, each of which would like a piece of $118.5 million still remaining in the state’s I-JOBS economic-stimulus pot.
Among the project details that have come to light as part of [...]
City Hall and the state of Iowa have been more than willing to throw financial incentives at proposals to build housing to replace some of what was lost in the June 2008 flood.
One problem, though, is that most of the ideas are for property around Ellis Park and the Ellis [...]
Number of comments: 9 Having just passed the one-year mark of the June 2008 flood, the city is getting closer to beginning work to renovate a few of its smaller flood-damaged facilities.
This week, the City Council will hold a public hearing to discuss renovation plans for the flood-damaged Jones Golf Course/Clubhouse. The estimated cost [...]
The dignitaries cut the ribbon at the construction site of the new federal courthouse here in late April, and work there stopped shortly thereafter.
But Jim Snedegar, project manager for the U.S. General Services Administration, said in a return e-mail — at 10:05 p.m. Monday — that the start of foundation [...]
Number of comments: 3 George Hollins, the University of Iowa’s business manager who has worked on the university’s flood fighting and recovery, appears to be the front-runner to fill a new city of Cedar Rapids post, flood-recovery director.
Late Monday afternoon, City Hall released the weekly City Council agenda with agenda item #39 stating, “Resolution [...]
Number of comments: 1 A Davenport firm has been selected from among five bidders to repair the flood-damaged, Grant Wood stained-glass window at the Veterans Memorial Building on May’s Island.
Winning bidder Glass Heritage LLC of Davenport has told the city that the firm will take between 12 and 15 days to remove the window’s [...]
Number of comments: 1 Nick Duffy, who took a shot at securing a Cedar Rapids school board seat in 2006 as a 20 year old, says he is running for an at-large seat in this year’s City Council election.
Two at-large seats are being contested this year. Those two are currently held by Brian Fagan, [...]
Number of comments: 6 Council member Monica Vernon, fresh off her decision on Tuesday not to try a run for mayor, took time at Wednesday evening’s council meeting to tear into City Manager Jim Prosser.
Vernon, who for many months has made it clear she thinks the current City Council has acceded too much power [...]
Neighbors next to the Police Department’s regional outdoor shooting range have been trying to get someone to do something to quell some of the range’s racket for years.
The Iowa Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman spent the last couple years reviewing the matter before, in April, sending City Hall a letter suggesting that the [...]
Number of comments: 2 Ask and you shall receive, it seems, can often be what happens with the City Council when a business shows up seeking a little financial consideration for doing something.
The current City Council has put something of an elaborate apparatus in place to try to help it judge whether a request [...]
Number of comments: 4 Monica Vernon has pulled the plug on her thought to take on mayoral candidate Ron Corbett and any other comers in this year’s mayoral race.
District 2 council member Vernon, founder and president of Vernon Market Research, on Tuesday afternoon said running for mayor calls for a “huge commitment” at a [...]
KZIA Z102.9 radio may need to rev up anew.
The local radio station took to the airwaves last December to make the case against a salvage company that wanted to open a salvage operation at 2525 12th St. SW next to the radio station’s studio.
The radio station’s position prevailed. The Cedar [...]
Number of comments: 2 There has some talk here in recent weeks and months about the city’s ambition to win a designation from the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle-friendly city.
The city intends to submit a formal application to the League in August.
The enthusiasm in trying to secure such a cool-factor designation stands [...]
It’s called “flattening” the organization.
Police Chief Greg Graham detailed to the City Council this week how he is shifting the Police Department’s table of organization to have fewer top dogs and, so, a few more dogs to work the streets.
His changes will eliminate two captain slots – now vacant because [...]
The city on Wednesday secured a $253,406 Iowa Power Fund grant to help finance the city’s plans for a 21st Century Green Energy Project.
The city must match the grant.
Greg Eyerly, the city’s utility operations manager, on Wednesday said the city also secured a $1.29 million federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation [...]
Number of comments: 1 The renovation of The Roosevelt, the flood-damaged apartment complex that once was a hotel, may now begin by month’s end, Jackie Nickolaus, vice president of developer Sherman Associates, said Wednesday.
Nickolaus was providing the project update as the Iowa Finance Authority, which met in Cedar Rapids, approved an additional $804,750 in [...]
The city has had the idea of selling excess city property for a couple years now, and last night the City Council agreed to sell some.
In one instance, the council will sell two quarter-acre lots in the 2100 block of 20th Street NW next to the city’s Ellis Park Golf [...]
Number of comments: 1 It was possible to imagine a future Tuesday in which hundreds and hundreds of flood-wrecked Cedar Rapids homes no longer are sitting, empty and ugly.
A much-awaited announcement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will be sending a new round of Community Development Block Grant funds into Iowa [...]
Two pieces of news on the flood-damaged Time Check Recreation Center:
At noon Tuesday, the office of Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, announced that the Federal Emergency Management will pay the city $1,638,155, which is the amount FEMA has determined is the cost to replace the building. Harkin’s office noted that “biohazardous [...]
Number of comments: 3 City Hall is preparing to eliminate four management positions at the same time that it will fill a newly created, top-echelon post of flood-recovery director.
On Wednesday, the City Council will be asked to eliminate two police captain positions, an animal control supervisor slot and a housing and zoning manager position. [...]
Number of comments: 8 Linda Langston, Linn County supervisor, says she won’t run for the job of Cedar Rapids mayor.
A month ago, Langston acknowledged that some had urged her to make a mayoral run, a request she said on Thursday that she found flattering.
However, she said her strong interest in issues distinctively a purview [...]
Number of comments: 8 City officials report that they will hold three public open houses over a three-and-half-month period to get the public’s input on what the city should do with its key flood-damaged buildings.
The open houses will be held June 23, Aug. 18 and Oct. 6.
The dates were noted Wednesday during an hour-long [...]
Number of comments: 3 Ron Corbett is still out there running for mayor all by himself, though word is that council incumbents Monica Vernon and Brian Fagan – if not others – are biding their time, waiting to enter the race.
On Tuesday, Corbett, a former Republican state legislator and former president/CEO of the Cedar [...]
Number of comments: 4 The City Council isn’t rushing to go near May’s Island, home to the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building, which houses City Hall.
On its agenda this week, the council says it will discuss at its next meeting, on June 10, a proposal to extend its lease at City Hall’s temporary location, 3851 [...]
Vote Yes for Our Neighbors, the Cedar Rapids grass-roots effort that successfully campaigned to secure passage in early March of a 1-percent local-option sales, has donated its leftover campaign funds — $24,183 — to Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity.
In less than a month, the Vote Yes campaign raised $85,343.46 from [...]
Coe College and St. Luke’s Hospital are the first victors in the local competition to secure disaster-related funds from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA).
Iowa’s senators, Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley, have announced that the college and hospital will use a $4.65 million EDA grant to build [...]
Number of comments: 1 Rep. Dave Loebsack and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials were on the Cedar River last week to talk about protecting Cedar Rapids and other flood-prone cities against another flood.
Both the Congressman and the Corps said flood-protection systems and watershed management were both necessary ingredients in flood protection.
As proof of [...]
Number of comments: 1 Congressman Dave Loebsack and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say they can think of more than one thing at the same time when it comes to flood control and water management.
Actually, it’s the ability to think of two or more parts of the same issue — in this case, [...]
Number of comments: 1 Seventy down, the next 71 or so at the ready, 1,150 or so to go.
The City Council this week gave the go-ahead to demolish 71 more flood-damaged properties.
The demolition of a first group of 70 properties, most of which were homes, was completed at the end of April.
This next group [...]
Number of comments: 7 Frank, some things at City Hall probably are kind of done deals.
Frank King, president of Northwest Neighbors, has opinions and insights, which he often shares with the City Council at their Wednesday evening meetings.
Thursday afternoon, King couldn’t have been more disappointed.
The evening before, King told the council, during its public [...]
Number of comments: 1 Advocates for returning city government to the flood-damaged and iconic Veterans Memorial Building/City Hall on May’s Island might want to talk to Lu Barron, chairwoman of the Linn County Board of Supervisors.
On June 23, the city of Cedar Rapids will begin the first of a series of open houses in [...]
In routine fashion, the City Council last night reassigned its Ice Arena rental lease to a new owner of the RoughRiders junior hockey league team.
Newco Riders LLC – a six-member ownership group which consists of three couples including RoughRiders head coach Mark Carlson and his wife – is purchasing the [...]
The City Council this week will decide how it wants to dispense $21 million in federal and state dollars to help users of the downtown steam system convert to their own replacement systems.
A city review team — which includes city staff members, downtown business representatives, state leaders and large and [...]
Number of comments: 6 The much-anticipated series of public open houses will start June 23 to help the city determine the future of flood-damaged city buildings.
And Wednesday evening, the City Council hired OPN Architects Inc. of Cedar Rapids for $400,000 to help lead the several-month process.
OPN not only will help conduct the public open [...]
One flood-recovery landmark has been reached.
All 70 of the worst-damaged properties – the ones with purple placards signifying they were too unsafe to enter – have now all been demolished, City Hall reports.
The last of the properties, most of which were homes, came down at the end of April.
The demolition [...]
Number of comments: 2 One of the last times Robert Bates — a City Council candidate in 2005 who is open about his criminal and prison past — showed up at a City Council meeting, he ended up getting arrested.
That was in early September, and the misdemeanor criminal charge of disorderly conduct for disturbing [...]
Number of comments: 7 City Council member Monica Vernon, the City Council’s “steam team” chief, reports that the city’s Pat Ball, utilities director, and Mike Sable, a special assistant to the city manager, are helping to work up an approach to dispense $21 million in state funds to help those in the downtown steam [...]
The business community apparently continues to want to create new entities to try to help the City Council.
This time, City Council member Justin Shields told his council colleagues Wednesday evening that a noontime meeting Wednesday of some local business and other leaders led to the suggestion of a special new [...]
Number of comments: 5 The local cadre of public relations pros isn’t responsible.
In any event, NBC News’ national operation is in Cedar Rapids to work up a news piece on Cedar Rapids’ flood recovery.
SanDee Skelton, a flood victim still in a FEMA trailer who expects to return to her renovated home at 1125 10th [...]
Number of comments: 3 Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston, a big-time local Democrat, is a big-time national Democrat, too.
Langston has been elected president of the National Democratic County Officials, a position that also gives her membership on the Democratic National Committee.
Only six other Iowans are on the DNC.
Both new positions prompted the question to [...]
Number of comments: 6 Mayoral candidate Ron Corbett keeps running for office even if no one yet has joined him.
In his latest campaign video on his campaign Website, Corbett is calling into question a change in state law, which applies to Iowa jurisdictions recovering from last year’s natural disasters and allows them to pass [...]
Number of comments: 1 Terry Bilsland, longtime president of the Wellington Heights Neighborhood Association, this week invited the City Council on a 20-block-long neighborhood walk the evening of May 21 to help concerned citizens make it clear they aren’t going to put up with criminal activity.
The walkers will travel through parts of both the [...]
Number of comments: 1 Jade Harper-Hronik, the seemingly battle-weary owner of Bricks Bar & Grill downtown, has thrown in the towel.
In a terse one-sentence note to City Hall, Harper-Hronik has told the Police Department and City Council to forget the fight between the business and the city over the renewal of her liquor license. [...]
Number of comments: 4 The City Council approved a contract extension last night for John Levy.
The extension takes Levy’s contract through June 30, adds $186,400 to the cost of it and brings the total cost to $786,400. The contract began Oct. 1.
Levy showed up at City Hall even as flood water was receding last [...]
Number of comments: 2 The chase continues for federal dollars from the U.S. Department of Commerce that the Cedar Rapids community never really knew much about until it started trying to recover from last June’s flood.
A line of local projects is lined up for a shot at this pot of federal funds, and each [...]
Number of comments: 1 The city is taking the steps it said it would take to set up a system to expedite the buyouts of some 1,300 flood-damaged properties once federal money arrives to pay for much of the buyout expense.
This week, the City Council is expected to approve a contract with JCG Land [...]
Number of comments: 1 The Federal Emergency Management Agency will continue to pay to control the temperature and interior climate of six unoccupied, flood-damaged city buildings through at least November 30, 2009.
The cost to continue the climate-control contract from June 1 though Nov. 30 is $5,012,526.
Four companies bid for the contract, with Munters Corp. [...]
Call the Port ‘O’ Jonny a testament to the fact that there is much yet to do in the city’s flood-hit neighborhoods.
The city has agreed to extend what it calls its “emergency” contract with the portable toilet company to provide portable toilets in the cities flood-damaged neighborhoods through the end [...]
Number of comments: 8 Three government buildings damaged in last June’s flood sit on May’s Island in the middle of the Cedar River.
Why is it that the Linn County Courthouse and the Linn County Jail are now back in business, while the Veterans Memorial Building that houses City Hall remains empty with no plans [...]
Number of comments: 1 The Veterans Memorial Commission last night held its first meeting in the Veterans Memorial Building/City Hall on May’s Island since the June 2008 flood.
It was a something of a sobering event.
The commission designed the agenda to try to encourage City Manager Jim Prosser to get work on the building started [...]
Number of comments: 3 At a budget meeting this week, the City Council learned that it will cost as much as $55,000 to renovate a vacant storefront at 1501 First Ave. SE as the Police Department turns the space into its first district station.
In the last few weeks, Police Chief Greg Graham noted that [...]
Late last year, the City Council presented its state lobbyist — former state lawmaker Larry Murphy of Oelwein — with a wish list of requests to take to Des Moines when the state legislative session began in January.
At one meeting last fall, Murphy went over the list with the council [...]
Number of comments: 2 Gary: Two pieces of suggested reading — the city charter and the city’s nepotism policy.
Mayoral prospect Gary Hinzman asked the city’s Board of Ethics a simple question: Do his wife, Linda Hinzman, and daughter, Paula Hinzman Mitchell, as well as a brother-in-law have to quit city employment if he is [...]
Number of comments: 2 It’s been something of the Great Waiting at City Hall.
State officials who have come to Cedar Rapids in recent weeks, and city officials themselves, have said that the federal government would make a crucial disaster-funding announcement by the end of April on how it intended to divvy up a huge, [...]
The city can buy basic flood protection for 46 of the city’s flood-damaged city buildings for $101,129, a sum considerably less than an earlier estimate of $280,000.
The purchase of this basic line of insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program provides $500,000 in coverage for damage to a structure and [...]
Don’t forget about mayoral prospect Gary Hinzman, long-time director of the Sixth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services and a former Cedar Rapids police chief.
In a talk with Hinzman on Wednesday, it was clear Hinzman isn’t going to let some successful fund-raising by mayoral candidate Ron Corbett, a former Republican [...]
Number of comments: 5 Council member and mayoral prospect Monica Vernon says her jump from the Republican to Democratic Party on Tuesday has nothing to do with her plans to run or not run for mayor.
She declined to say if she was in or out of the mayoral race.
A Republican since she first registered [...]
Number of comments: 4 First it was U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter. Now it’s Cedar Rapids council member Monica Vernon.
In recent days, Specter changed his political party affiliation from Republican to Democrat as he readies to try to keep his seat in the U.S. Senate from the state of Pennsylvania. He said he couldn’t win [...]
The job description for City Hall’s new flood-recovery manager sounded worthy of Superman when it was released a few weeks ago.
However, the job description hasn’t intimidated applicants. Twenty-two people applied for the position before Monday’s “preferred” application deadline, reports Conni Huber, the city’s human resources director.
Others still can submit applications, [...]
Number of comments: 7 Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston says she’s been asked to consider running for mayor of Cedar Rapids, “so I’m considering it,” she says.
Langston commented on Monday after she was asked about rumors that she might try a go at the mayor’s race.
She said she would make a decision soon.
“I really [...]
We have a City Hall council race.
Kathy Potts, a self-described homemaker and community activist who ran unsuccessfully last fall as a Republican for a spot in the Iowa Legislature, will compete to unseat incumbent Jerry McGrane for the District 3 seat on the City Council.
Potts, 50, who grew up in [...]
Bars aren’t churches, but, nonetheless, City Hall has some new expectations when it comes to the annual renewal of a liquor establishment’s liquor permit.
So the saga of the downtown Brick’s Bar and Grill, 320 Second Ave. SE, continues.
At the start of April, the City Council set aside a request from [...]
Number of comments: 2 The pleas from property owners next to the Police Department’s regional outdoor shooting range out on Old River Road SW reach back to at least 2004.
Those neighbors, led by retired Cedar Rapids firefighter Don Sedrel, made their way to the state office of Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman, which asked the neighbors to [...]
Number of comments: 5 City Hall and the Police Department weren’t kidding.
The two have now moved ahead and are seeking proposals, due May 18, from contractors who will install and maintain red-light enforcement cameras at up to 10 intersections as well as a mobile speed-enforcement camera and a fixed speed-enforcement camera.
For the contractor who [...]
Number of comments: 1 The flood of 2008 also loused up and eroded the banks of the Cedar River in places.
Sufficiently so as the 2008 flood damage, that the city, in concert with the federal Emergency Watershed Protection program, is spending up to $815,065 to stabilize the riverbank in six crucial spots. Without the [...]
Number of comments: 3 The city’s nearly unending supply of sewage sludge keeps costing even as it keeps farmers in a steady supply of fertilizer with no expense to them.
The city’s travails with biosolid sludge, which is the byproduct left over after the waste water treatment process at the city’s huge Water Pollution Control [...]
Number of comments: 1 The Indian Creek Nature Center has named 28 newly acquired acres of woods at the corner of 44th Street and Otis Road SE the Vecny Woods. That’s pronounced VEE-etch-nee.
It means “perpetual” in Czech. The nature center’s board of directors chose the name to honor Czech immigrants who settled in the [...]
Number of comments: 7 Do you hire a professional firm because it’s a local one with a less expensive proposal even if a City Hall review team has concluded another firm from out of state has a better proposal and brings more horses to the task?
That was the central question this week that provoked [...]
Number of comments: 2 This year’s mayoral race looks like it will be richer than the 2005 race in which Kay Halloran, a retired attorney and former state lawmaker, defeated Scott Olson, a commercial Realtor and architect, in a close contest.
That conclusion comes after mayoral candidate Ron Corbett’s fund raiser downtown Thursday evening in [...]