Blog > Articles by: Steve Gravelle

The funding and management of a Cedar Rapids-Linn County animal control operation are yet to be determined, county supervisors agreed this afternoon while deciding to continue considering such a plan. After a 90-minute joint session this afternoon with the county public health board, County Supervisor Linda Langston said the appointment of a committee to work with the city will be supervisors’ agenda Monday morning. “The offer’s there,” said Cedar Rapids City Councilmember Don Karr. “I hope you put it on your agenda.” Earlier ...

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Cedar Rapids and Linn County won’t cooperate on a jointly-run animal control operation if county supervisor Brent Oleson has anything to say about it. “We’d be doing the county a disservice,” Oleson said at this morning’s board meeting. Oleson was a member of the Linn County Task Force on Animal Control, which issued its report late Friday afternoon. The report was accompanied by a recommendation from county Public Health Director Curtis Dickson that the county and city establish ...

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It won't help this fall, but some Linn County residents will be asked how they want to dispose of their fallen leaves. Following a mandate from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the county in 2008 banned leaf-burning within a quarter-mile of the city limits of Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha, and Marion. The ban was adopted to meet EPA's standard for particulate (small-particle) pollution. Supervisors voted last week to mail a postcard to 2,000 to 3,000 residents affected ...

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Office and retail space will occupy downtown Cedar Rapids’ Witwer Building, its soon-to-be-new-owner says. “We’re going to fix it up and restore it and make it an incredible building,” said Charles Jones, president of Green Development LLC, high bidder for the county-owned building at 305 Second Ave. SE. Iowa City-based Green Development is paying $570,004 for the flood-damaged three-story building. Assuming a Sept. 15 public hearing raises no objections, Jones hopes to close the deal in 60 to 90 days. Jones said he ...

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The AAA is attributing an expected 10 percent increase in Labor Day travel this weekend to an improving economy. “While media reports on the state of the U.S. economy are mixed, many Americans are still interested in taking one more trip as the summer travel season come to a close,” said Glen MacDonell, director of AAA Travel Services. The auto club’s travel forecast report notes that although job growth remains disappointing, “gross domestic product, household net worth and consumer confidence have increased, ...

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An Iowa City developer is set to become the new owner of the Witwer Building in downtown Cedar Rapids. Green Development LLC’s $570,004 was the apparent winning bid when Linn County supervisors opened bids this morning. The only other bidder was Aspect, a Cedar Rapids firm that bid the county’s minimum of $450,000. Green Development has expressed interest in other flood-damaged buildings, although the Witwer would be the firm’s first purchase in Cedar Rapids. Company President Charles Jones ...

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The city, county, and state are working on an agreement to erect stoplights at the Mount Vernon Road – Highway 13 intersection, with the work tentatively set for next summer, said Linn County Engineer Steve Gannon. “There are lots of folks who think we ought to move faster, but engineers, and traffic engineers in particular, think there should be reasons why we do what we do,” Gannon said this afternoon. The state doesn’t want responsibility for the ...

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Nearly a year overdue for inspection, Linn County’s only high-hazard dam sits atop a hill in southwest Cedar Rapids, holding back a six-acre pond circled by office workers on their lunch hour. Listed as the “AEGON dam” on the state’s dam inventory, the earthen structure is one of 101 Iowa dams classified as high-hazard. But the classification doesn’t refer to the dam’s condition or chance of failure. “It’s a classification based on the downstream risk,” said  Jon Garton, Department of Natural ...

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Linn County voters will be asked in November to raise their landline telephone bills by up to $9 a year to help pay for expensive changes to the county’s public-safety radio system. “For the local jurisdictions to pick up the cost of changing the equipment out, it would be overwhelming,” said Shirley Hoppe of Robins, a member of the Linn County E-911 Service Board’s executive board. Radio operators nationwide face a Jan. 1, 2013 deadline to meet the Federal Communications Commission’s “narrowcasting” ...

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Johnson County residents won’t see an increase in their monthly telephone surcharge because they’re already paying for a new joint dispatch center that will meet a new federal standard for radio users. “Those issues are being resolved because of the new system we just put in place,” said County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil, chair of the county’s E-911 Board. The county’s new $20.5 million dispatch center, opened in late June, includes equipment compatible with the Federal Communications Commission’s “narrowcasting” standard that takes effect ...

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Hundreds of Iowa nonprofit groups stand to lose their tax-exempt status for failing to file a brief form with the Internal Revenue Service. The charity tracking and research organization GuideStar has posted a link to the IRS list of groups that haven’t filed their Form 990 over the past three years. Organizations raising more than $25,000 a year have filed Form 990s for years, but a 2006 law requires all non-profits to file the information. Those who don’t ...

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Cell phones and other portable digital devices are delivering a double blow Linn County’s police, fire, and ambulance radio systems, and county residents may be asked this fall to raise a tax to fund a major upgrade. “It’s going to be several million (dollars),” said Linn County Supervisor Jim Houser. “People are going to be shocked.” Houser, chairman of the Linn County E-911 Board, said the board may put a question on November’s ballot on increasing the county’s 25-cent monthly surcharge to ...

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Justin L. Wisner fought with police early Wednesday as they arrested him for drunken driving, adding assault and interference charges to the drunk-driving and drug counts, according to court documents. The incident began about 1:30 a.m. when officers on patrol spotted a man revving his motorcycle’s engine in the parking lot of Dancer’s Ranch, 3000 Sixth St. SW, police Sgt. Cristy Hamblin said. When the man, later identified as Wisner, saw the officers, he got off the cycle ...

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Linn County supervisors acted this morning to keep one major flood-recovery project working and set the groundwork to launch another. Supervisors approved the $11 million bid this morning from Miron Construction of Cedar Rapids and approved a $14.8 million total budget for the Jean Oxley Public Services Center, which will replace the former Administrative Office Building, 930 First St. SW, with a new complex built in and around its gutted shell. The total budget includes security, fire alarm, and climate ...

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Darterio R.L. Johnson fired a handgun at an occupied car early Sunday in southeast Cedar Rapids, striking it three times, police said. No one was hurt in the incident at Second Avenue and 14th Street SE, where police responded about 4:45 a.m. The victims, two women age 17 and 21, told officers they were in their car when another car pulled alongside and someone inside began firing, police Sgt. Cristy Hamblin said. The women knew one of the ...

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Efforts to understand and manage flooding along the Cedar and Iowa rivers may benefit from the chance rediscovery of years of research into the subject. The lack of progress decades after the reports were published, though, also demonstrates the power of inertia. “We’ve got to figure out the way to do this,” said Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston. “The thing that I found most troubling is, we had this research in hand.” Langston is the temporary curator of volumes of research discovered three ...

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Efforts to understand and manage flooding along the Cedar and Iowa rivers may benefit from the chance re-discovery of years of research into the subject. But the lack of progress decades after the reports were published also demonstrates the power of inertia. “We’ve got to figure out the way to do this,” said Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston. “The thing that I found most troubling is, we had this research in hand.” Langston is the temporary curator ...

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The board governing the state’s I-JOBS program today approved $12.8 million to fund flood recovery projects in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. The board also approved $300,000 for a Norwalk project: Former Federal Courthouse, Cedar Rapids - $2 million for flood mitigation and renovation in and around the former federal courthouse. Veterans Memorial Building, Cedar Rapids – $4.4 million for the renovation of the existing city hall building in Cedar Rapids. Jean Oxley Public Service Center, Linn County - $4.4 million for building ...

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Jamison L. Downing, 21, was charged this morning with third-degree sexual abuse, according to court records. Downing is charged with having intercourse June 10 with a 13-year-old girl at a Marion residence, the complaint said. He admitted the sex act, and the victim told police “the sex act was done by force and against her will.” Downing, who listed no address, remains in the Linn County Jail in lieu of $25,000 cash bail.

James W. Hansen, 28, was charged today with indecent contact with a child, according to court documents. Hansen, of 57 Devonwood Ave. SW, touched a 10-year-old boy “on the genital area over the clothing,” the complaint said. Hansen admitted the touching, which occurred between Jan. 1 and Tuesday. Hansen was released from jail after a court appearance.

He’s not sure what to do about it, but Linn County Auditor Joel Miller knows where the county’s most apathetic voters are. “I haven’t figured out what to do with it, but I’d like to figure out if anything I would do would do any good,” said Miller. Using voter registration information, Miller’s staff found that barely half the 769 voters in Cedar Rapids' Precinct 6 have voted over the past two years. That 50.2-percent non-participation rate is the ...

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David A. Janish, 27, was charged with theft and assault after an incident Saturday over a stolen vehicle, police said. Daniel Kolsto of Cedar Rapids spotted his pickup, reported stolen July 24, about about 5:15 p.m. Saturday outside the Autozone auto parts store, 1605 16th Ave. SW, Sgt. Cristy Hamblin said. Kolsto, 35 confronted Janish in the store. Janish pulled a knife, cut Kolsto on the left forearm, and left the area on foot. Kolsto called police and ...

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“I want to see my dad,” Taylor Long said, peering behind the big curtain that split the U.S. Cellular Center this morning. But Taylor, 5, couldn’t pick Sgt. Dennis Long from among the 340 identically uniformed members of the 2/34th Brigade Special Troops Battalion mustering for their official deployment sendoff. First, she and about 50 members of her extended family, many wearing bright blue T-shirts with Long’s name, cheered as the troops marched into the auditorium. “These are ...

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When a perfect summer afternoon broke a string of miserably humid days, Harold Annis headed for the bridge above the Troy Mills dam on the Wapsipinicon River. “Better than sitting in the chair sleeping,” Annis said as he dropped a pair of lines over the bridge’s railing. “They’ve really been biting.” Annis, 73, wet his lines off the east side of the bridge, about 30 feet downstream from the rain-swollen Wapsi’s tumble over one of Iowa’s 3,374 dams. Like the Lake Delhi dam ...

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You have until the end of the month to make an offer on a piece of historic downtown Cedar Rapids real estate. Linn County is putting the Witwer Building, 303 Second Ave. SE, on the market. “We have an ad coming out on Sunday, and we’ve sent out brochures to commercial realtors,” said Jan Every, an administrative secretary with the county. Before the 2008 flood, the building housed county Community Services and the Witwer Senior Center, where noon lunches were ...

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