Go to:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ia/nwis/dv?referred_module=sw&format=gif&period=30&site_no=05464500
Then hit on “National Weather Service” on the page. This will show you the current level of the Cedar River as measured at an automatic river gauge below the Eighth Avenue bridge in Cedar Rapids.
These developers are a finicky bunch. If it’s not land use, then it’s zoning or site plans.
At its work session on Wednesday evening, the City Council seemed to agree that it would speed up the city’s development-approval process without much if any downside if the City Planning Commission made final decisions on controversial site plans rather than the City Council, which has that task now.
Council member Chuck Wieneke said he didn’t particularly like the notion of the council’s appointees on the planning commission making final decisions on the tough stuff. But council members Brian Fagan and Monica Vernon argued that neighbors or others objecting to a developer’s site plan would have the ability to appeal the planning commission’s decision to the City Council.
It’s hard to just talk about site plans once you start talking about the city’s development-approval process. And the council proved that during its discussion Wednesday evening.
At times, a developer can have an idea for a piece of property, which requires three approval steps: a change in the city’s future land-use map; a rezoning of the parcel; and then a site approval of the details of the actual building that the developer is going to put on the site.
For instance, on May 28, the council approved a land-use change to help clear the way so a developer can build a new Walgreens drug store on C Avenue NE just north of a Road Ranger convenience store, which sits at the corner of C Avenue NE and Blairs Ferry Road NE.
In the latest council discussion, council member Vernon - who spent a number of recent years on the City Planning Commission and was chairwoman of the commission for some of those years - noted that the commission and then the council always considered a developer’s request for a land-use change and a zoning change at the same time.
Now, in an apparent recent change, the commission and then the council first consider land use, and then, in a second round of meetings, they consider the zoning change.
There’s probably a great reason for the change.
But one thing that comes with the change is also a change in how the city notifies the public.
The city posts little orange signs on a piece of property announcing that it is being considered for a change of zoning.
However, the city only sends what it calls “courtesy” letters to adjacent property owners within 200 feet of a proposed development announcing a proposed land-use change.
As it worked previously, zoning and land-use decisions were made at the same meeting, so interested neighbors who don’t get letters might still see the little orange signs and know that City Hall is readying to act on a coming development.
Separating the two matters seems to open up the possibility that a developer can win a change on the land-use map before a wider group of neighbors ever knows about it via the orange zoning signs.
Such almost was the case in the proposed Walgreens development on C Avenue NE.
In late April, not a single objecting neighbor showed up at the City Planning Commission meeting in which the commission considered the land-use change from residential to commercial to clear the way for the proposed Walgreens drug store. To the contrary, the developer did a remarkable thing, giving each adjacent property owner (the ones who were entitled to get courtesy letters) a piece of property to buffer them from the coming drug store. The adjacent property owners loved it and the commission loved it. In fact, the commission meeting was something of a lovefest between the commission and the developer’s representative.
By the time the Walgreens matter got to the City Council on May 28, objecting nearby neighbors beyond the reach of the courtesy letters showed up at the council meeting. Among them was Sarah Henderson, who preceded Vernon as District 2’s council member. The only reason they knew to show up at the council meeting was that the developer inadvertently put up the little orange signs too early for the second, separate step in the development approval process, rezoning.
Henderson and other neighbors had questions about the Walgreens store so close to a residential neighborhood and about additional traffic problems on what is already a busy street.
But one of Henderson’s central points was this: Can’t the city require the developer to put the little orange sign up for land-use changes, too?
Council member Vernon last week asked city staff when it had made land-use and rezoning two different steps requiring two different travels through the city’s development approval process.
Vernon noted that once the land use is changed, the zoning typically follows.
The inference: Why limit who City Hall informs about a proposed development until the crucial land-use change already has been made?
City Manager Jim Prosser said “the most important decision” is the zoning, not the land-use change.
The development-approval process was in front of the council because of recommendations made at what City Hall calls a “LEAN event” in April. The event was designed to “lean” or streamline the city’s process.
Council member Justin Shields asked who participated in the event, and Prosser and Vern Zakostelecky, the city’s land development coordinator, noted that city staff and members of the development community had.
Shields wondered why “no one from the general public” had, and Prosser explained that city staff had the responsibility to “make sure we were expressing those process concerns.”
Council member Brian Fagan had commented that the changes in the city’s handling of site plans seemed to have “checks and balances” in place. And Shields, with some sarcasm, picked up on that, saying “we have all kind of checks and balances” when Prosser said that city staff was protecting the general public.
At one point, Fagan raised the point about appropriate public notification in the development-approval process. But he seemed satisfied with the way things are.
Only Vernon seemed to place any value on former council member Sarah Henderson’s recent suggestion that the city post the little orange sign when the crucial discussion about land use is on the City Hall plate.
The board of directors of the Cedar Valley Humane Society on Friday said it heard Marion Police Chief Harry Daugherty earlier this week and now wanted to respond.
Daugherty on Tuesday reported that the Marion Police Department was recommending that the Linn County Attorney file felony theft charges against the person at the Humane Society’s animal shelter responsible for handling billing.
The chief did not name a suspect, but did say, “Somebody down there has to be responsible.”
Linn County Attorney Harold Denton is now reviewing the Marion Police Department’s recommendation.
On Friday, the Humane Society board, through attorney Mark Brown of Cedar Rapids, said that the board “supports fully” all of its employees and volunteers. The board further said that it has and will cooperate with the Marion Police Department investigation and hoped that it would come to a “just” result.
The Marion police raided the shelter, at 7411 Mount Vernon Rd., and seized billing records after a preliminary investigation and a former shelter employee raised questions about the shelter’s billing practices.
On Tuesday, Daugherty said his investigators recommended that a first-degree theft charge be filed in the matter, a severity of crime that requires the theft of more than $10,000.
Daugherty said his investigators looked at the animal shelter’s billing records from 2006, 2007 and 2008.
By way of example, Daugherty said one allegation is that the shelter billed the city of Marion after picking a stray animal up in Marion even though the owner came to the shelter and paid the fee.
The Humane Society animal shelter is different than the city of Cedar Rapids’ animal shelter. The Humane Society’s facility serves the Linn County area outside of Cedar Rapids, although the city of Marion, for now, is using the city of Cedar Rapids’ services.
The city’s new police chief, Greg Graham, was on the job one day this week when City Hall heard via letter from Ron Sims, the Cedar Valley Neighborhood Association. Sims was protesting what he said was the absence of police patrols in the Cedar Valley neighborhood, the Rompot Street SE area in the city’s far southeast quadrant.
Sims reported a “large fight” on Rompot Street SE on June 2, a fight that featured what he called ”hand-held weapons.” He said it took 15 minutes to get a police squad car into the neighborhood, and he suggested the reason was that the Police Department was using its officers for other southeast Cedar Rapids neighborhoods.
Sims said police patrols in Cedar Valley have been non-existent for the last six months.
“This neighborhood is in need of daily patrols like we had a year ago because the problems are mounting to serious limits,” he said. “… We do want to see a black and white patrol car drive through daily.”
He said police officers provide great service when they get there. But he said he wanted to see preventive patrols, not just reaction when something blows up.
Council member Tom Podzimek reports that the city of Cedar Rapids helped out the University of Iowa this week by loaning the university 3,000 empty sandbags as the Iowa River was rising and readying to flood in Iowa City.
The city of Cedar Rapids also offered to provide the university with “sweeper sand,” the sand picked up off city streets this spring from its use on city streets this winter, according to an internal City Hall e-mail made public by Podzimek.
The university didn’t need the sand.
In the e-mail, Craig Hanson, the city of Cedar Rapids’ public works maintenance manager, reported that the city had 120,000 empty sand bags on hand. He called the sharing with the University of Iowa “being a good neighbor.”
In the e-mails shared by Podzimek, City Manager Jim Prosser applauds Hanson for his decision and “excellent preparations” to have sand bags on hand to loan out.
Prosser called it “an example of the fact that so much of our best work goes unnoticed because we avoid problems.”
Have you seen the 1993 movie, “Dave?” In it, Dave Kovic, played by actor Kevin Kline, turns out to be an exact look-a-like of the president of the United States. The conservative president suffers a stroke; Kovic takes over the job; and, in one scene, he decides to he needs to find some money in the federal budget for a homeless shelter. With the national press corps in the room, Kovic turns to the secretary of commerce for some help, and the reluctant secretary looks at the cameras pointing at him and agrees he can give up some of his department’s funds for the cause.
It was a little like that at last night’s City Council meeting when council member Brian Fagan at one point said he was sick of talking about problems with downtown parking and wasn’t sure he needed to hear any more proof that they existed.
He said he was ready to take on the question of the moment, should the council turn to a private manager to run the city’s parking operation instead of using city employees?
Then Fagan’s head turned to the left, facing the crowd, which included a group of a dozen or so city employees who would lose their jobs in a privatization move. He saw them looking back at him. “Of course, I don’t want to hone in on that” is what it sounded like he said. He then made reference to the fact that many of employees had 20 years of service to the city.
What is it that the city can do, he asked, to improve its downtown parking services with the employees? But he said, too, that he wanted to see the more-detailed report about Republic Parking System, the Chattanooga, Tenn., company that the City Council has been asked by a city committee to take a look at.
Last night’s hour-long council debate on public versus private was as spirited and delightful to watch as any council debate you can find.
When quiet finally came, it was clear any plan to turn the city’s downtown parking operation over to a private manager and send about a dozen long-time city employees packing isn’t anywhere near happening.
No one on the City Council last night seemed eager to hire a private management company to run the city’s parking operation, although Doug Neumann, president/CEO of the Downtown District, said many cities swear by the move to privatization as a way to get improved service, more expertise, newer technology, customer amenities and better-maintained parking facilities.
Confronted by council member Monica Vernon at one point about just what the problem was, Neumann pointed to a recent downtown parking study and years of displeasure from downtown property owners over the ways in which the city’s downtown parking operation hurts the downtown.
Neumann, though, made it clear that the Downtown District was stopping short of pushing for privatization of the parking system. The downtown property owners would settle for a plan in which the city figured out a way to provide better service and more expertise on its own, he said.
Getting the current city operation to become something more than it has been is one thing several council members, including Fagan, Tom Podzimek, Justin Shields and Vernon, seemed to want to know about.
Todd Taylor, a state representative in House District 34 in Cedar Rapids and a staff representative for AFSCME, spoke to the council last night on behalf of the city parking employees who stood to lose their jobs if the council decided to privatize the operation.
Taylor called on the council to ask the employees - whose average years of service to the city was 17, he said - to help come up with ideas to make the current parking operation better.
Council members Shields, president of Hawkeye Labor Council, Jerry McGrane and Chuck Wieneke said they had no interest in eliminating the jobs of employees simply because many of them now were at the top of their pay grades and had good city benefits.
Shields said this City Council talks on and on about its vision for a better city, adding that replacing good-paying jobs with low-paying ones wasn’t part of the vision.
McGrane said cutting these jobs would send a bad signal to the rest of the city’s loyal employees.
Wieneke, who has been an executive with Iowa Workforce Development, questioned if Republic Parking System really could limit annual turnover to 25 percent of their employees when they were paying low wages.
Last night’s debate featured some testy if civil exchanges between Vernon and Fagan and Fagan and Shields.
After Vernon said she had not heard a clear statement of what the parking problem was, Fagan pointed to a 2005 study that all council members were given to read in recent months. Fagan said the problems were well-known, he was sick of talking about them and he said reading studies and listening over and over to downtown property owners was part of being a council member.
Shields, sitting next to Fagan with his face just a couple feet away, said how come nothing had come of the 2005 parking study if it was so important.
Casey Drew, the city’s finance director, said Republic Parking System could save the city an estimated $117,646 a year in personnel expenses.
Council member Pat Shey said that wasn’t much money unless someone could make a “compelling” case for how a private manager could significantly improve service.
Shey agreed that parking in the downtown is a crucial matter for the City Council to figure out, and the Downtown District’s Neumann said it was crucial if the downtown was to become all it could as a business park, entertainment center and residential center.
Neumann, for instance, talked about the need for “capacity management” so all the parking spots in a parkade are being used to their maximum. He pointed to instances in which downtown employers asked for parking spaces in a particular parkade, were told none were available and yet 100 spaces typically sit empty in the same parkade in any given day.
Fagan talked about the phone calls he and other council members have gotten when motorists have had to sit for an hour or more in a parkade waiting a turn to pay a cashier and get out.
Shields wondered why the private parking company was being championed as having so many years of experience in parking. How many years has the city run its own parking operation? Shields asked. How is it, he asked, that the city, after all those years, doesn’t know anything about the business?
Vernon admitted that she’s intrigued about some of the premium amenities that private-sector parking companies offer to parkers. For instance, customers can have the company arrange to have their oil changed during the day while the customers are off at work.
Vernon, though, wondered how many customers really pay an extra fee and use the service.
City Manager Jim Prosser said it could be more complicated for the city to try to offer a similar service because the city might be criticized for picking one vendor over another. However, council member Tom Podzimek wondered why the city’s own fleet management operation couldn’t provide the service and make some extra money for the city.
When Prosser explained to Vernon that the parking company also would get a vendor to do the oil changes or minor vehicle repairs, Vernon responded, “So it’s something outsourced by the outsourcers.”
A downtown parking committee, which includes city staff and Doug Neumann, the president/CEO of the Downtown District, has met for some months to explore the prospects of turning some or all of the city’s downtown parking operation over to a private manager.
The committee selected from companies interested in the work, and interviewed two finalists a couple months ago. Republic Parking System, Chattanooga, Tenn., which manages parking systems in Lincoln, Neb., and Rochester, Minn., in the Midwest, is thought to be the frontrunner. Also interviewed was Ampco System Parking, Cleveland, which manages the parking at The Eastern Iowa Airport and the parkade system in Des Moines.
Part of the City Council debate tonight surely will come down to philosophy.
To his credit, the Downtown District’s Neumann has not glossed over what he says is a fact of privatization: higher-paid city employees would lose jobs and be replaced by the private manager’s employees, who would be paid less.
This clearly has not escaped the notice of council member Justin Shields, who is president of the Hawkeye Labor Council. Last month, Shields said he considered voting against hiring Greg Graham as the city’s new police chief because City Manager Jim Prosser had increased his pay above what Mike Klappholz was receiving as chief before his March retirement. Shields said he it was inconsistent to pay the chief more as the city was contemplating eliminating jobs in the city’s parking operation so less-well-paid private-sector employees could do the jobs.
“I don’t understand how that fits together,” Shields said. “If the philosophy is to cut wages,” then why raise the chief’s salary?
Council member Chuck Wieneke two weeks ago expressed displeasure that there was much discussion at City Hall about privatization of parking and he hadn’t heard anything about it.
This week, the Downtown District’s Neumann said he likely will speak to the council at its work session Wednesday evening. Neumann said he was not going to advocate for public or private, but for better parking service.
“I’m going to make it clear that the status quo is not an option,” Neumann said.
He said privatization offers many of the services, best practices and responsiveness that the downtown thinks it needs to be a “vibrant business park, entertainment center and residential center.”
“If those same marks can be met by the public sector, that’s fine,” he said. “It’s not an issue of who operates so much as it’s an issue of service levels.
“We feel - strongly - that current service levels are unacceptable.”
He said the issue is not private versus public, but private versus “much-improved public sector service.”
Nine full-time city employees, three half-time ones and a less-than-half-time one would be out city jobs if the city privatizing its entire parking operation.
The Cedar Valley Humane Society on Tuesday reported good marks from both the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Cedar Rapids Civil Rights Department on the performance of the Humane Society’s animal shelter at 7411 Mount Vernon Rd.
However, on Wednesday, Linn County Attorney Harold Denton confirmed that the Marion Police Department investigation into billing irregularities at the animal shelter is complete. Denton said the Marion findings are now in his hands for review and the possible filing of criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Marion Police Chief Harry Daugherty on Wednesday reported that his investigators are recommending that Denton file felony theft charges against the management person at the animal shelter who has been responsible for billing. He did not name a name. “Somebody done there is responsible,” the chief said. He added that the Humane Society’s board of directors has been apprised of the status of the police investigation.
It was back in April that the Humane Society’s board of directors asked both the state and city agencies to take a look at its shelter operation following on the heels of a Marion Police Department raid in March in which investigators seized the shelter’s billing records.
In addition to the police raid, a former shelter employee filed a complaint with the state veterinary board, raising questions about the shelter’s treatment of animals. The former employee also alleged that the shelter was a “hostile workplace.”
According to Humane Society board member and spokeswoman Stephanie Holub, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship conducted a random animal welfare inspection at the shelter on May 20.
“All findings in the report were positive, including the condition of the housing facilities, premises, sanitation, veterinary care and records,” Holub reported.
A look at the state department’s report on Wednesday revealed as much. The state inspector gave appoval ratings on all 36 different items it reviewed at the shelter.
The Humane Society’s Holub said Michelle McMurray, an investigator with the city of Cedar Rapids’ Civil Rights Department, also conducted a review of the shelter and filed a report in May.
Holub quoted McMurray’s report: “It appears that the staff commitment to animals and the facilities’ customers is unwavering. There were no reported issues amongst staff members. … It is evident that the staff has a commitment to the animals and their jobs. Staff members appear to work well as a team.”
Holub noted that Doug Fuller, a Humane Society board member and retired Cedar Rapids police detective, continues to serve in an informal leadership role at the shelter. He is providing daily oversight of record-keeping, billing and personnel and volunteer activities, Holub said.
The board of directors has concluded it no longer needs an additional independent consultant to help with the shelter’s management, she said.
Not doing a thing can be a good thing to do, and in two significant instances, the current City Council arguably did just that.
In one case late last year, the council decided not to build a new $13-million Intermodal Transit Facility two blocks from what the council now believes is a poorly positioned Ground Transportation Center bus depot.
In a second case 18 months ago, the council put on hold a $3-million-plus plan to rebuild Third Street SE, between Eighth and 14th avenues SE, into a special avenue identifying it as the heart of the New Bohemia arts and cultural district.
Creating a Third Street SE arts district is a decade-old idea and it is part of the community’s Fifteen in 5 initiative to reach 15 identified goals in five years.
But in late 2006, the council, with direction from city staff, decided that there was no rush to transform the street that, in the short run, was being used to haul loads of demolition debris from the former Sinclair packing plant at the end of Third Street SE at 14th Avenue SE.
At the same time, a dispute about the design of the street had exploded between New Bohemia arts types and major property owners along the street, including banker Ernie Buresh and the Brosh Funeral Home.
So the council decided to set the entire matter aside for a time rather than try to pick between a modern design for the street and Buresh’s wish for a more historic design similar to the one across the river in Czech Village.
That was then. It’s a new day. Now they are back at.
On Monday evening and at the City Council’s direction, a steering committee of Third Street SE interests decided to follow the council’s directive. The committee selected a facilitator to help the group find common ground so the Third Street SE project can move ahead quickly.
Gary Petersen, the city’s traffic engineer, ran the Monday evening meeting, and he insisted that the group follow the council’s wish and hire a facilitator.
Those among the group who were talking most suggested that the controversy had ended and there was agreement on what Third Street SE should look like.
However, Petersen pointed out that many people were not at the meeting (or were at the meeting and not speaking) and had had strong feelings about the Third Street SE project. And for that reason, he said, a facilitator and a process of public input were needed to give everyone a chance to have their wishes heard.
Agreeing, the 10-member steering committee, which includes some of key central players in the Third Street SE debate, said it wanted the city to use the same facilitator that brought a successful resolution last year to another Third Street SE issue — getting semi-trailer trucks headed to the Penford Products plant off the street.
Before and after Monday evening’s meeting, Buresh, owner of Village Bank & Trust, 1201 Third St. SE, still expressed strong feelings about having Third Street SE look similar to the new historic look across the river in Czech Village.
Clearly, though, Buresh did not care to mix it up at Monday night’s meeting with those who have favored a more modern, artsy street design, including Michael Richards, a New Bohemia member and president of the Oak Hill Jackson Neighborhood Association.
In some respects, though, Buresh seems to have gotten much of his way.
Richards and others, for now, willingly have set aside many of the original design ideas that they had favored — gateways, flood lights shining on buildings, kiosks, special graphic treatments.
On Monday night, Richards, Jim Jacobmeyer, president of the New Bohemia group, and Fred Timko, president/CEO of Point Builders who is converting the former Osada building into the Bottleworks condominiums, all spoke in favor of what they called a basic, “neutral” street plan with some benches and planters and pavement design work at two intersections along the street. The street also will be a little narrower and will have wider sidewalks than now for a couple blocks to make it more pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly.
Jacobmeyer noted that past problems have centered on design “enhancements” to the street concept. He said it made sense to get the street in place and then worry about enhancements.
Richards said neutral was best and would better fit what will be the mix of existing, historic buildings on the street and new ones that will come in the years ahead.
In fact, Richards suggested that it might be best to spend less on Third Street SE if it meant it would make money available to also redo 14th Avenue SE from Third Street SE to the Cedar River and the Bridge of the Lions that connects to Czech Village.
The city’s Petersen noted that the city had sold $3.38 million in bonds to help pay for the Third Street SE replacement, but the city had not made any financial arrangements for an improvement on 14th Avenue SE. Trying to add the 14thAvenue SE work into the Third Street SE one would surely delay matters, which David Chadima, owner of the Cherry Building, did not want to see happen.
Clearly, some in the group were still adjusting to the fact that owners of property along Third Street SE likely will be expected to contribute some to the street’s renovation. A few years ago, the City Hall idea was that the street would be transformed at City Hall expense as part of a larger, Vision Iowa-supported Cedar Bend revitalization project. Cedar Bend, though, fell apart.
The new City Council has made it clear that they expect the owners of property to contribute, or as Timko put it Monday night, “to have some skin in the game.”
Dave Elgin, the city’s public works director and city engineer, said the council did not want to build a new street, instantly increase the value of property along it, and then see the owners of that property sell their property quickly for what would be an unearned profit. Instead, the council likely would expect the owners of property to pay a special assessment or to otherwise show that they have invested to upgrade their properties as the city is upgrading the street.
Issues related to who is paying for the street is one of things that the facilitator will help the group address.
The city’s Elgin encouraged the group to move quickly to work with the facilitator.
Several people also talked about joining forces with Czech Village across the river and working to create a special taxing district similar to one in place downtown. Extra tax money collected in the district would be used to support the district.
Several other things are happening on Third Street SE:
Timko has begun the renovation of the former Osada building into the Bottleworks condominiums at 905 Third St. SE.
The City Council has selected the site across the street from Timko’s project as its preferred location with the city’s new Intermodal Transit Facility.
And the city is finally readying to demolish the former Quality Chef industrial buildings just down Third Street SE. New Bohemia’s Jacobmeyer said the city’s development director has reported that the city has decided to demolish all of the Quality Chef property - the city purchased it a few years ago - and plans to decide on a demolition date by the end of the month.
Vandals are beating us up, says Dave Smith, city parks superintendent.
The list of city parks victimized this past weekend and the weekend before is nearly too long to list, says Smith.
Smith says Riverside Park and the city’s skate park and restroom there have been particularly hard hit. Meanwhile, racist graffiti, he said, has been splattered in the rest rooms at Van Vechten Park.
He calls the damage “extremely heavy” a weekend ago and ”very heavy” during the weekend just ended. He terms the racist spray-painting “troubling.”
Unfortunately, he adds, vandalism is part of the reality of running a park system.
The period when youngsters get out of school in the spring, he says, can be the toughest time for parks.
“Those first few days, when it turns warm, it’s like a shark smelling blood,” Smith says of youngsters. “They just get wild. We’ve taken this kind of licking before. It’s not unprecedented. But it will get your attention.”
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