Culver praises resiliency, pledges more help for flood victims

CEDAR RAPIDS — Iowa is “resilient,” Gov. Chet Culver proclaimed during his Condition of the State address last week, because Iowans are resilient. And within hours of making the remark, he and Lt. Gov. Patty Judge were on the road to places throughout the state where examples of such resiliency could be seen in action.

While few Cedar Rapids residents would balk at that description, they would also acknowledge continued difficulty in meeting the dual challenges of flood recovery and a historic economic downturn. One week prior to the governor’s tour landing in Cedar Rapids last Thursday, a local restaurant believed to have successfully migrated through the challenges shut its doors, an apparent victim of recovery-related debt and a less prosperous downtown.

Gov. Chet Culver's message of Iowa's resiliency was brought home to Cedar Rapids this week when he visited the Raining Rose Inc. manufacturing plant. (Photo: Iowa Independent/Lynda Waddington)

Culver was in Cedar Rapids offering praise to a local body care products manufacturer that has not only managed to recover from devastating 2008 flooding, but has thrived. The company, Raining Rose Inc., began in 2003 with 15 employees. At the time of the floods, the company employed 52 individuals, but now boasts 65 — and, according to operations manager Kyle Hach, is now considering if it needs to relocate in order to further expand.

“We got 8 to 9 feet of water [in our plant], and it destroyed everything,” Hach said. “During that time, we spread out to any available building we could find in Cedar Rapids. I think at one point in time we had over eight locations for our different departments — sales, packaging, warehouse, production — while we worked on rebuilding our facility here.”

Although the company took advantage of Jumpstart Iowa Small Business Assistance Program offered by the state, Hach says that the owners approached recovery as if they would not receive any assistance.

“Chuck, the business owner, built this business conservatively. He built it the right way,” Hach said. “We went into the rebuilding process with the expectation that we were not going to get a single dollar of help. … So, [looking longer term,] we are doing okay. We have rebuilt and are actually looking at moving to a new building in two or three years because we have simply outgrown this location. Financially, the company is doing really well.”

For the governor’s office, there could be little better place to tout a vision for “Moving Iowa Forward,” the name of the statewide tour. Culver arrived, shook hands, and took his place behind a lectern to expound on the number of state assistance programs passed during the last legislative session that have helped speed recovery in hard-hit locations like Cedar Rapids.

“I’m really here to highlight the resiliency of this company, their employees, the City of Cedar Rapids,” Culver said. “We have overcome and we continue to work to overcome the floods of 2008 — the challenges that came with that — and also the economic challenges caused by this worldwide recession that is affecting 48 states, nearly every business and homes across Iowa as well as families across the state and across the country. I am inspired everyday by the people that I have the honor of representing.”

Linn County, Culver said, has received $93 million in funds from the Iowa Jobs Initiative, known as I-JOBS, for infrastructure projects that the state is optimistic will spur economic activity. In addition, $3.6 billion in federal funds for disaster relief have been obtained by the state, with Cedar Rapids and Linn County receiving roughly $750 million from the statewide pool.

“We are continuing to make flood recovery a top priority. I’m speaking again this morning to Secretary [Shaun] Donovan at Housing and Urban Development, continuing to keep these funds flowing and  trying to secure more funds. This is personal to me. This is our hometown … and I’m going to continue, for as long as I am governor, to fight for all of you,” Culver said, drawing his only applause line during the brief address.

Just one block west of the manufacturing plant, several homes sit mostly untouched since the massive and unprecedented flooding. More properties in similar states of limbo and rot are located in pockets of residential space surrounding the Cedar River. The buyout process, which has been difficult for many in Cedar Rapids due to government red tape, is something that newly elected Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett has championed. It is also something that Corbett was pleased to hear addressed by the governor during his visit.

“My No. 1 priority for this year, and until we get some resolution, is to support the flood victims,” Corbett said following Culver’s address. “People have been through absolute Hell since the flood, and we have to find some resolution and close this chapter in the flood saga — and this chapter is the buyout process.”

The city, according to Corbett, wants the property and is asking the public to come forward on a voluntary basis in lieu of forcing participation by using eminent domain. Corbett and three additional members of the Cedar Rapids City Council are advocating that the property owners be provided 110 percent of pre-flood assessed value, which is a 10 percent increase from what the pre-election City Council had approved. The city has roughly 1,300 properties that are eligible for buyouts.

“I was happy to have the governor’s support. Although he didn’t quite endorse exactly what we are trying to do here locally, he seemed to be supportive overall what we are trying to do,” said Corbett, a former Republican Iowa House Speaker. “He told me to keep fighting, just as he is going to keep fighting. We can make the excuses of bureaucratic red tape in Washington, but for a flood victim that has lost everything and has had to set his or her life on the curb, that doesn’t carry much water. They expect elected officials to fight for them — locally, their mayor; statewide, their governor. Sometimes you just have to put a stake in the ground and say that we are going to fight.”

Culver said that he “really wants to help” with the buyout process, and offered the services of his office to work with federal agencies “to make sure that these homeowners in Cedar Rapids are bought out at the very highest level possible.”