Alliant customers Coe and St. Luke’s seek federal disaster funds for their own steam plant

Coe College and St. Luke’s Hospital are preparing to build their own operation to produce steam now that Alliant Energy has signaled it does not plan to rebuild its flood-damaged Sixth Street Generating Plant.

 

In a memo to City Hall, Coe and St. Luke’s said they will be seeking the City Council’s backing as the two entities pursue federal funds in the $4-million range from the U.S. Department of Commerce for a replacement steam system.

 

The memo, signed by Ted Townsend, president and CEO of St. Luke’s Hospital, and James Phifer, president of Coe College, states that proposed charges to customers that Alliant said were needed to rebuild the Sixth Street Generating Plant “were not economically viable” for either Coe or the hospital.

 

Using a temporary steam setup this winter, Coe is facing energy costs of $1 million more than they had been paying a year when the Alliant plant was making electricity and also steam for the downtown and near downtown, Coe’s Phifer says.

 

St. Luke’s and Coe are among a small group of larger users of the Alliant steam operation that includes Quaker and Cargill while a larger group of smaller users in and near downtown also have depended on the cheap steam from the Alliant plant.

 

The City Council has talked for a few months now about wanting to play a role in keeping a viable steam system in place downtown even if Alliant is not involved.

 

Both Coe and St. Luke’s say they are still open to a collective solution with other partners. At the same time, they need to get something more affordable in place by next winter, the entities’ executives say in their memo to the city.

 

Living legends might be among those in the hunt for Cedar Rapids mayor

It’s not easy getting your name affixed to a public building, especially if you have not given oodles to build the thing or you’re still alive.

Even so, two individuals mentioned in the last week as possible candidates in this year’s Cedar Rapids mayoral race — Ron Corbett and Gary Hinzman — both have managed to get their names on public buildings.

Corbett’s name is on the Corbett-Miller residential cottage at the Iowa Boy’s Training School at Eldora.

And Hinzman’s name is on the Gerald R. Hinzman Center, a residential correctional facility on the southwest Cedar Rapids campus of the Sixth Judicial District Department of Correctional Services. Hinzman has been executive director of the department since 1989.

Corbett’s placement of his name on a building came in 2000, the year after he left the Iowa Legislature as Speaker of the House to become president of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. He left the Chamber in 2005 to become a vice president at CRST Inc., a Cedar Rapids trucking firm.

Corbett, as House speaker, shares space on the Training School cottage with Tom Miller, the Iowa Attorney General. Both were credited with working “to develop a spectrum of services for troubled juveniles,” according to the legislative action placing the Corbett and Miller names on the Eldora cottage.

Hinzman, a former Cedar Rapids police chief, joined the Department of Correctional Services 20 years ago.

In that time, he moved the department’s operation from a neighborhood setting to a campus in an industrial area on the edge of town. From there, the campus and its services have expanded. His department’s board decided to affix his name on one of the new buildings that has gone up on the campus over the years.

Three other names also have been circulated now as mayor possibilities. They are current council members Brian Fagan, an attorney, and Monica Vernon, a business owner, and former mayoral candidate Scott Olson, a local Realtor.

Mayor Kay Halloran said she won’t comment on a reelection bid until after the Iowa Legislature is done with its work, which usually comes in April.