The Lost Bill for Tax Relief in Cedar Rapids

                Today, the vote of a new tax for a flood prevention system in Cedar Rapids was lost by about 51% to 49% of voters.  The plan was to create a 1% local option sales and service tax for Cedar Rapids residents. The money would be used to construct structures for flood protection around Cedar Rapids. Specifically, the city wants to build a permanent floodwall at Penford, Quaker, Cargill and the North Rail Yards, removable floodwalls at downtown and Czech Village, wall openings for neighborhood connections, and a levee greenway between flood control structures and the Cedar River. Ninety percent of the money would be matched by federal funds for the construction of these structures and the remaining ten percent would be used for a property tax relief.

            I think the first problem of this plan is that they want to tax citizens for the money. If the city wants to make these improvements, they can just budget better and not just tax people when they need more money. Example A of their overspending is the new courthouse building. It is a bit to extravagant if you ask me. The old temporary offices seemed to work perfectly fine and because they were in Westdale mall, it generated extra revenue for the city. There are also a lot of other taxes being put in place already. I understand that taxes are necessary but they can get to points where people can't afford to pay them anymore. Which in turn would put them on a homeless list where they would get money and other people would have to pay money. It is like a never ending cycle.

            Second, the city and the flood victims have gotten A LOT of money already from the government and other organizations that should have helped everyone rebuild. I mean, first of all they should had insurance anyway but I still know that people that didn't have insurance weren't in a very good place anyway so the money was nice.

            Personally I think the flood preventative structures and measures that the city wanted to take are a good thing but if the next flood is anything like the last one, a few feet of a wall isn't going to make much difference. It will also cause the places downstream to flood so they may end up being a disaster anyway. (402)