I have previously brought this to your attention.  It is regarding this city’s illegal use of funds and the allowance of the illegal use of funds.  I am now putting it in writing.

As elected officials, whose laws and funding are dictated much by the state, you are responsible for following these laws.  I understand that no one can personally read all these bills, but when it’s brought to your attention, there is no excuse.  Not to point fingers, but a couple councilpersons have previously been elected state legislators; I would expect more from them.

State House File 64 was signed by Governor Culver on February 2, 2009. Within that legislation, Division III appropriated $22 million from Homeland Security and the Emergency Management Division to disaster-affected communities.   Cedar Rapids was initially grant ed $10.5 million for these community grants.  The City kept it on the hush, never speaking of it in council meetings and not publicizing the opportunity for the community to apply for grants.  Instead, they quietly passed it over to the exclusive (then-closed) group, the RRCT [Recovery and Reinvestment Coordination Team].  The City Manager’s assistant was given direction to form a committee to approve grants.  Again I emphasize, the public didn’t know about this, so only those associated with members of RRCT knew to apply, until the last minute after it was all exposed.

I have read parts of HF 64 in previous council meetings. I’ve also included it in a prior email to the Council, dated March 12, 2009. However, it wasn’t until the one council meeting in June when you approved the distribution of the grant funds, when one of the councilpersons finally pulled it up and read it during a meeting.  It took that long before the Council read that piece of legislation which directed the use of the moneys that had been in question for months.

Specifically from House File 64, it states:
b. Moneys awarded pursuant to this section shall be used
  5 34 by the recipient for disaster-related costs not otherwise
  5 35 funded by federal or nonfederal sources and for any of the
  6  1 following purposes:
  6  2    (1)  Nonprofit organization assistance.
  6  3    (2)  Assistance for the public purchase of land and
  6  4 accompanying structures if financial assistance for such
  6  5 purchases is not available from the federal emergency
  6  6 management agency or when a nonfederal match is required for a
  6  7 grant involved in the public purchase of land and accompanying
  6  8 structures.
0A
  6  9    (3)  Assistance for the repair, replacement, or upgrade of
  6 10 public infrastructure damaged by the disaster including
  6 11 measures to assist in the mitigation of future damage due to
  6 12 natural disasters.
  6 13    (4)  Assistance for increased costs associated with the
  6 14 revaluation and assessment of property due to a natural
  6 15 disaster occurring in 2008.
  6 16    (5)  Small business assistance.
  6 17    (6)  Assistance for the replacement or rehabilitation of
  6 18 housing.
 
After reading this, anyone else would have concluded that he just sustained my argument about the use of funds being used for non-disaster.  However, the Council continued to spin the discussion to justify their actions.  Another councilperson concluded that since the State of Iowa approved the grants, it can’t be illegal.  However, these grants were all approved with the assumption that the local government will assure that it will be used for the purpose of disaster relief, as required by law (HF 64).  It is the Local Government’s responsibility to spend the money under the legal method it was designed.  You are not doing so.

More specifically, the State of Iowa approved the grant regarding Habitat for Humanity because it was implied that the money was going to go to disaster recovery, as the law states.  The grant did not mention that only SIX of the 20 Habitat homes will go to flood victims.  Nor did it mention that the 20 homes will NOT be built in a disaster neighborhood.  With so many flood victims homeless, I found it appalling that the City would approve a grant of ONE MILLION DOLLARS written for NOT the building of the 20 homes but, as the grant states, merely “for the purchase of the lots, upgraded home design, added garages and upgraded landscaping.”  But then, for the Council to allow this non-profit to use the funding for non-disaster is just illegal.  This is not necessarily Habitat’s fault, as it was requesting a grant they were told about, but the City’s fault for not directing them for its appropriate use of the money received through the grant. 

Furthermore, there are other grants through HF 64 that the City is allowing to be spent on non-disaster areas.   I won’t go into all the grants, but one in particular is the $1.5 million grant the Council approved for the establishment of a Neighborhood Development Corporation.  The grant states that the “$1.5 million to be used for the construction, acquisition and rehabilitation for light commercial and housing in low to moderate income areas in the Cedar Rapids area with an emphasis on the flood affected areas.”   This Corporation is working and doing business in non-flooded neighborhoods.  The Wellington Heights neighborhood needs help, but it is not flood-affected.  This neighborhood should be eligible for grants related to crime, but not disaster.  Again, according to HF 64, these grants must be “used by the recipient for disaster-related costs.”

Our friends and neighbors are suffering.  We have seniors and families of low to middle class who are flood victims.  They lost their home, sometimes their car, and their possessions, as well as their retirement and savings.  They have been forced into poverty because of not just the disaster, but the incompetence of the response.

I ask, with so many flood victims suffering, and so much of our town affected by the disaster, how can you justify allowing the use of OUR disaster money to go to non-disaster areas and people?  Is there ANY elected official willing to step up and fight for US?  Even when our federal and state governments do try to help us with disaster recovery, you spend it elsewhere.

There is too much cronyism and greed in our local government, and for the sake of the folks without money or power who pay the taxes in this town, we ask BEG that you clean it up and start helping US – IMMEDIATELY.  I ask that you go back and reread your campaign literature to help you recall why you ran for this office to begin with.  In the meantime, I hope that these illegal actions will be addressed by the right parties and made right to the flood victims.