Leaders at all levels are failing Cedar Rapids.
We need to get tough. We need to get mean. And we need to do it now.
I remember after last June’s floods, I got tired of all the e-mails I would receive, both from Iowans and from people outside the state, who found some sort of virtue in comparisons between gritty Iowans who weren’t begging for federal handouts and the pathetic people from New Orleans who did.
That was balderdash then and it’s way past balderdash now. The federal government and the state government have an obligation to help in disasters. Iowa leaders at the local, state and federal level need to be loud and insistent about meeting that obligation faster and stronger than anyone has so far.
This is no handout we need. No community can absorb a disaster without help. Iowans’ tax dollars have supported federal relief for disasters ranging from hurricanes to earthquakes to terrorist attacks. We shouldn’t be begging for a handout, but insisting on justice.
B.J. Smith of Cedar Rapids runs a pleasant blog called “Iowa Nice,” celebrating how nice this state is. That’s an admirable trait to our culture, but let’s not forget that Meredith Willson also described us in “The Music Man” as “Iowa stubborn.” We need to put Iowa Nice on the shelf for a while and turn Iowa Stubborn loose on Washington and Des Moines. Along with Iowa Furious and Iowa Indignant.
At the local level, we are leaderless. From the day the waters hit, people have been asking where Mayor Kay Halloran was. Some council members have been more prominent than she has in responding to the challenges of the flood. City Manager Jim Prosser is an administrator, but the city has no strong leader.
The change in city government is no excuse. Leadership is not a function of structure but of the ability of the leaders and how they respond to challenges.
County supervisors are not in as strong a position as city officials to lead in this disaster response, but they certainly have enough power that someone could fill this vacuum.
Gov. Chet Culver and state legislative leaders sounded downright timid in their explanations about why the Legislature did not meet in special session last year to address this problem. They feared that making state money available would mess up our chances for federal aid. Or maybe a swift state response, accompanied by strong leadership demanding a swift federal response, would have underscored the urgency of the problem.
Instead, nearly eight months after the floods, the Legislature last week approved less than 1 percent of the need.
Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley have more than a half-century of experience combined in the U.S. Senate. What good is that experience if they can’t deliver better federal aid more swiftly than they have following the worst natural disaster in their state’s history?
President Barack Obama (and for that matter, President George W. Bush before him) got his launch to the White House from Iowa. Both of them visited flood zones and flood victims. Was that a photo opportunity rather than a call to action?
Editors normally don’t like it when their bosses get involved in community affairs. It makes us uneasy because people might think that involvement will skew our coverage. The Gazette Company CEO Chuck Peters joined a trip to lobby Department of Housing and Urban Development officials in Washington last month and Publisher Dave Storey will be in Washington this month to lobby with other Chamber of Commerce members.
That doesn’t bother me right now. I can deal with any conflicts and perceptions their involvement might create. Mostly I hope they get something accomplished. This leadership shouldn’t have to come from the business community. But it’s about time it came from somewhere.
Very well stated!
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This reminds me of the movie “Gran Torino,” which I saw just the other day. Clint Eastwood’s character tries to get a Hmong youth to “man up.” Sexism aside, maybe that’s what we need around here.
I’m not smart enough to know how the city council or manager can do better on flood recovery, but I do know that Culver, Grassley and Harkin have been big-time disappointments on this. There was, and is, no excuse for failing to call a special session and for failing to get serious federal aid here in a hurry. We wound up hiring lobbyists to try to do what Grassley, Harkin and our congressmen were elected to do, and we send other relative lightweights to go and say “please.”
All due respect, Senators, but why have you not delivered? Man up and explain yourselves. Do your jobs.
I won’t even bother to ask Gov. Culver.
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[…] you have stories that are better labeled Iowa Stubborn, Iowa Furious or Iowa Indignant, feel free to share those, too. We can be flexible […]
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Bravo, Steve, bravo! I would add that leadership is not about making all the meetings and convenient diatribe in front of the camera. That’s easy stuff and, frankly, I’m hardly impressed by their administrative attentiveness to their schedules. We need leaders who will attack this as a community problem and press that attack again and again until, at the very least, proper support is garnered just to shut our leaders up. The circumstances of the flood and the after-effects are the literal “lonely moment” for leadership. This is when the perfect answer is not obvious, when dissenting opinions are guaranteed and when the need for action is clear to everyone. There is a thing called the OODA loop, popular in military strategy and tactic. Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. There is no “W” for wait, no “M” for meetings and definitely no “R” for request.
I am incredibly disappointed the power vacuum of leadership is being filled by business people and other non-elected people on a consistent basis. Our elected officials should hang their heads in shame, but rather they choose to spend their time publicly lamenting the issues in compassionate tones. I will concede the fact several have made trips to various seats of government, but the results have been unsatisfactory. The state and federal government officials should be getting absolutely pounded with emails, phone calls and confronted on a face-to-face basis at every turn until proper action is taken. Cedar Rapids is being left to its own devices because our leaders have failed to be the proverbial squeaky wheel. Anyone who has spent any appreciable time near D.C. knows EXACTLY how this works (and, yes, I spent 4 years there).
Rise up Cedar Rapidians and DEMAND action. Not just once, but keep pressing, poking and drilling our elected public servants to be decisive and forceful. They work for us and are accountable to us. I would normally recommend everyone go to http://www.cedar-rapids.org/council/ to get contact information for our mayor and council members. Sadly, most of the city’s site was hacked by some group call “linuXploit_crew” and the city IT department has yet to fix it. Figures.
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Thank you Mr. Buttry,
You and the Gazette are right on. The old “Vickers” gas station at the corner of 1st Avenue and 1st Street West is symbolic of what has happened to our city. Is it just me, or does anyone care about how we look, how we respond, or whether or not we want to take ownership in our city? We have not begun the small task of just adressing minor issues like this, let alone the major ones. Sure, we have cleaned up and volunteers did a great job, but the ball has been dropped on so many other fronts. The legislature should have met last summer, lawmakers should not be whining abount allocating money and offending the feds or even waiting on the feds to take action–by the way–they could have easily had $200 million in our hands by now…..Grassley, Harkin and the rest could have done that along with all their friends…..do you remember Peter Finch in the movie “Network”? That would’ve been me if I was still in office!
Sincerely,
Wade Wagner
Former Parks Commissioner
319-981-2525
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I’m curious…has anyone researched just how much federal money came into the recovery efforts after the great flood of 1929?
I get serious heartburn over the idea that we should be chastizing the federal government for not rescuing us, and especially over the notion that no one can “absorb” a natural disaster without federal help.
I just don’t believe that “fixing you up after a disaster” was written anywhere in the constitution…and I don’t think it’s the right mindset for a state like Iowa, long a “states rights” and “freedom of information” advocate state, should have.
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Just to clarify, I’m not suggesting that Iowa or it’s cities should have no relief, and accept no federal assistance…but I do think it would be dead wrong to begin promoting the idea that we should “demand what is rightly ours”, because what is rightly ours in terms of financial assistance, from a constitutional and purely “American” standpoint, would be pretty much nothing.
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DebV,
Steve never implied there was any constitutional guarantees regarding federal disaster aid. To trek into the details just a hair, formal declaration of federal disaster areas does bring with it a federal “obligation” (note term used by Steve) to make available appropriate resources and assistance. You are spot on when noting it is not constitutional, but it is most definitely a matter of federal law. With a federal declaration of a disaster area, there are rightful expectations an area can and should have of the federal govenment. All of us pumped a good deal of tax money in at the federal level, it has been programmed for situations such as this and it would be more “dead wrong” to let those opportunities slip by through a lack of due diligence.
As to our states rights and the real mindset of the area, it appears we will hit a culminating point on March 3rd. We will all find out how the community feels about putting out additional local tax revenue towards the challenges. In my mind, it is both a vote on the tax and either an implied judgment of our elected officials: endorsement or indictment.
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We can not progress without a start . Declare the line of the 08 flood as uninhabitable and move on.
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[…] Editor Steve Buttry said we are “leaderless”. The paper’s Sunday editorial, titled “Our Leadership Gap,” got more specific: […]
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[…] Time for Cedar Rapids to get pushy (stevebuttry.wordpress.com) […]
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[…] Time for Cedar Rapids to get pushy (stevebuttry.wordpress.com) […]
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I’d like to see a comparison for how much Cedar Rapids / Iowa has received in the year following our disaster relative to other disasters of a similar scope (New Orleans being one). As I understand it, we had the 2nd largest disaster from a financial standpoint, something like the 4th from a landmass standpoint, etc. How does our federal support correspond?
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LSmith, I think our flood anniversary coverage will provide the kind of comparisons you are looking for. I can’t vouch for your rankings of the disaster.
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I moved to Cedar Rapids two years ago, and it was the worst decision of my life. The people here are yokels. There isn’t a decent restaurant or grocery in miles. Books? Who reads here? I’m ready to jump in the car and head back to Minneapolis.
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[…] Time for Cedar Rapids to get pushy […]
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[…] Time for Cedar Rapids to get pushy […]
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