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The library at the corner of Third Avenue and Fifth Street SE (now the Art Museum), was built in 1905. The new library might be across Greene Square Park from there. The Carnegie foundation donated $75,000 for the old library, which was really Cedar Rapids' first. Adjusted for inflation, that's $1.8 million today. Not clear if that was the full cost of the building, but we know the city council bought the land for the library, after what sounds like a ...

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Should Jones and Delaware County hook up? Should Keokuk, Washington and Iowa Counties start a threesome? It's all very shocking to consider, but it'd be hard to argue with if it turns out you could save a couple hundred on that property tax bill. Lots of questions come up when you talk consolidation: How do we decide which county goes with which? Where would the "county seat" go? What would we name the new regions (I vote for famous dead Iowans)? What ...

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Four of the five are in Coralville, at the annual Iowa State Association of Counties meeting. The meeting draws county officials from all over the state, and they're talking social media, the implications of state budget cuts, open records, social media, the census, fair labor standards, HR gobbledygook and a bunch of other topics. The conference started Tuesday night, and goes until Friday noon. There's also the networking. Supervisor Linda Langston said Linn, Johnson and Black Hawk County officials have discussed joining forces ...

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Len Hadley thinks not. But good luck to him on getting it changed. Hadley, retired CEO of Maytag, has been pushing for county consolidation for years, and met with the Gazette editorial board this morning to once again make the case. He makes a convincing argument. Iowa has 99 counties, many of which have fewer than 4,000 property tax-paying households. Each has its own board of supervisors, auditor, treasurer, sheriff, recorder, attorney, and associated staff and department. The counties are a relic of the ...

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A version of this story will go in the newspaper tomorrow: How does a 7-year-old boy respond when his dad dies? Logan Trumbull sat down to write. He loved to throw the football or wrestle over a fumble in the yard with his father, but what seemed at first like a pulled muscle for Ray Trumbull, and then a stomach ache, turned out to be cancer. Logan spent the next year watching his father decline. He remembers clearly the day he died. He ...

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And who can blame them? Nobody reads the paper anymore anyway. The supervisors approved a set of legislative priorities Tuesday, including a request that the statehouse ease publication requirements. Right now, county supervisors are required to publish their minutes and meeting notices in a general interest newspaper with paid subscribers and two consecutive years in publication. This costs the county, on average, a little more than $57,000 per year. Instead of paying for this, the supervisors want their online publication of minutes and ...

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So much for the idea about moving the Freeway Lounge across the Cedar River. The Linn County Board of Supervisors this morning authorized moving forward with the demolition of the building. The Freeway Lounge, located at 801 3rd St. SW in Cedar Rapids, is one of 14 flood-damaged buildings included in a demolition bid for the county. It stands on the site of a future Juvenile Courts building. The bids for the demolition were due Oct. 30. Michael Richards -- a local ...

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Results are in on where the public wants Linn County offices, and there’s really not much to report. The surveys and open houses did not secure any scientific conclusions, and even the unscientific results are, well, inconclusive. Steve & Barry’s is the public’s first choice, by a hair over an expanded Administrative Office Building. This indicates residents who were surveyed, focus grouped and open housed are less concerned about cost than might have been expected. Refitting Steve & Barry’s for government offices looks ...

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This morning's report from a consultant on where the public wants Linn County offices illustrates again that here in Cedar Rapids, the decision-making process is increasingly dominated by white boards, robo-calls and open houses. One commenter in this morning's liveblog said these surveys and open houses just show that the supervisors fail to have the "fortitude to speak with authority on this important decision" and are "glad handing a 'consultant' that offered literally no counsel and direction." Rick Smith wrote a good ...

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The Linn County supervisors will get the results Monday of a public input process meant to determine where people want county offices to go. A local communications consultant conducted surveys and orchestrated open houses to figure it out. There are four options: - The Administrative Office Building as it was before the flood. - The AOB after a major renovation and expansion. - Steve & Barry's, the current location of county offices at Westdale Mall. - Co-location with the city of Cedar Rapids. A fifth option ...

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Theisen’s Home-Farm-Auto will open a new store at the old Econofoods in northeast Cedar Rapids, the company confirmed Friday. The store will be Theisen’s (pronounced Ty-sons) 19th location. The company also plans to open a new store in Coralville, at 100 Westcor Dr. Econofoods had been one of five options the Linn County Supervisors were considering as a location for county offices. The supervisors found out a week ago the building had been sold to someone else. Developer Darryl High sold the ...

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Beth Freeman, a Cedar Rapids-based staffer for Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-Iowa), has been appointed to oversee Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She will take over Dec. 20 as director of FEMA Region VII, which is based in Kansas City. FEMA has ten regions. Freeman has worked on disaster assistance for Harkin since 1990, and is the director of the local office in Cedar Rapids. This will be her second stint as regional FEMA director. “I was down ...

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Linn County owns odds and ends of property all over the county. Auditor Joel Miller wants the county to sell or give the land away, to reduce the county's liability and get the land back on the tax rolls. "When we started talking abatements and layoffs, this is part of my leaving no stone unturned," Miller said. "Part of saving money is getting rid of excess property." The 40 parcels equal almost 18 acres, and they're all over the place. Some are ...

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The Linn County Board of Supervisors may soon establish a public art commission that will help select artists to create art for rebuilt county buildings. “When you’re rebuilding a community the way we are, you have that opportunity to bring in public art,” Supervisor Linda Langston said. “It’s a moment in time kind of thing.” Langston will propose a new ordinance at Tuesday’s meeting that would establish the guidelines for an art commission of nine or ten people, and stipulate that 1 ...

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A final proposal on moving the Freeway Express Lounge across the Cedar River should come before the Linn County Supervisors next week. Michael Richards, the businessman who wants to move the lounge from its spot on Eighth Avenue SW just east of Interstate 380 to New Bohemia, said a lot of research, and contact with utility companies must come first. The building would likely be moved across the river on Eight Avenue. Utility lines must be moved for the building to pass ...

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Darryl High and Scott Byers won't say who they sold the Econofoods building to, but they indicated in a letter to the Linn County Board of Supervisors that the buyer is private entity. "You will be heartened to know that the property will be kept on the tax rolls," Byers, a Realtor with Iowa Realty Commercial, wrote in the letter. The supervisors had been considering Econofoods as a potential -- albeit long shot -- location for county offices. It's no longer an ...

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Eighteen flooded properties, including the historic Cedar Springs Hotel, will be demolished beginning at 8 a.m. Monday, the county reports. Dave Rasdal wrote a story about the hotel in September that elicited some good reader response. Here's some of what he wrote: Built in 1884, the Cedar Springs Hotel was a hidden gem up the Cedar River from Palisades-Kepler State Park. Flooded in 2008, the dilapidated, long-vacant resort will soon be demolished. About 20 years ago, third-generation owner Pat Biderman sought help, to no ...

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Ella Doss uses her upstairs bathtub for lots of things. When she wants hot water in the kitchen, which doesn’t have hot water, she fills a bucket in the tub and carries the bucket downstairs. When she wants to flush the toilets, which don’t flush, she fills a bucket in the tub and dumps the water into the stool. Bad plumbing is only one of the home’s problems. The wiring is faulty, and the basement, where the electrical panel is bare, ...

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has confirmed President Barack Obama's two nominations for top federal prosecutor in Iowa. Stephanie Rose of Center Point, the nominee to be the U.S. attorney for the Cedar Rapids-based Northern District of Iowa, and Nick Klinefeldt of West Des Moines, the nominee for the Southern District, next will go before the full Senate for approval. When that happens is up to Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid. Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat representing the president's party and its majority ...

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Update: Diana Nollen reports the film will be shot in Michigan. Variety reports that the star of "Alien" and "Ghostbusters" will have a cameo role in "Cedar Rapids," a comedy to be filmed about a smalltime insurance salesman attending a big industry conference right here in the City of Five Seasons. It'll be a Fox Searchlight film, directed by Miguel Arteta. Anne Heche, John C. Reilly and Ed Helms are also in the cast. No word on whether the film will be ...

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The old guard on the Board of Supervisors flexed its majority muscle, and pounded home a measure that instructs county department leaders to budget for up to a three percent pay increase for about 140 Linn County managers. The guidelines that will govern the county's budget were passed 3-2, with Supervisors Linda Langston, Lu Barron and Jim Houser voting aye, and Brent Oleson and Ben Rogers dissenting. Budgets are due to the supervisors Dec. 18, will be reviewed through the first part ...

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A quick recount Wednesday afternoon overturned the results of one Palo city council race. "Tom Sanders is now the unofficial winner," said Tim Box, Linn County deputy commissioner of elections. The Auditor's Office conducted a recount of write-in votes cast in the Palo city council election after election officials found the number of hand-tallied write-in votes didn't match the number of write-in ballots recorded by the computers. Incumbent Al Mengler was the unofficial winner, with 98 votes to Sanders' 78. But Sanders' write-in ...

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Ownership is having problems at Hampton Courts, two apartment buildings on First Avenue SE that tenants, neighbors and police say is a problem property. "I'm trying to do something, but my hands are tied," said James D. Houghton, the partial owner whose name is listed in Iowa Secretary of State documents. Houghton, a lawyer in Iowa City, said "there's some litigation" and referred me to another lawyer, Steve Ballard. Ballard said a portion of the apartment buildings were owned by Gary Ehrenberger. Ehrenberger ...

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The Linn County Supervisors will decide tomorrow what kind of budget they're going to have in the coming fiscal year. Will it grow by a specific, across-the-board percentage, or will it only grow when the growth is specifically justified by the department head asking for the money? Brent Oleson has a lengthy discussion of the issue on his blog. Sounds like he's not getting the votes to do what he wants, which is zero-based budgeting, or requiring department heads to justify ...

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If you want to stop and say hi to a candidate tonight as the city council election results roll in, here's the list of where some of them will be: At-large Nick Duffy is planning to be at the Auditor's Office at Westdale Mall. Don Karr and Chuck Swore aren't sure where they'll be, but both may go to the Auditor's Office. Aaron Saylor will be at Zin's, corner of Second Avenue and Third Street SE, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Robert Bates wouldn't ...

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