The Taft Speedway Flood Levee Failed! Ethics Prevailed over Socialized Risk and Privatized Benefits (Blog)

The Taft Speedway flood levee failed at the Iowa City Council meeting 11/27/12. The vote was 5-2. Michelle Payne, Connie Champion, Rick Dobyns, Susan Mims, and Jim Throgmorton voted in the negative. Matt Hayek and Terry Dickens voted for the levee.

Mayor Hayek's reasoning seem to be driving a lot of other decisions the city council is making right now. He's worried about the city's tax base and thinks that the well-to-do Idyllwild development, which apparently generates lots of property taxes, is worth sacrificing other neighborhoods for. 

City Councilor Connie Champion had a sensible and brief response: "People have thanked me for supporting the levee, and I've never supported the levee. I won't protect some people at the expense of others."

The arguments against the levee were eloquent and detailed. Greg Geerdes and Mary Murphy did an excellent job presenting some of those reasons, but I thought the best testimony was provided by a gentleman who lives on Normandy Drive and had temporary floodwalls installed by the city on his property in the Floods of 1993 and 2008. After a time, the floodwalls failed. The pump couldn't keep up with the amount of riverwater penetrating the floodwall and then failed. Levees, even permanent levees, often fail. Sometimes officials deliberately break a levee and flood farmland to protect populated areas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers protected Cairo, Illinois by blowing up a levee on the Mississippi River.

Arguing for the levee, former mayor Regenia Bailey talked about the city council's obligation to protect "the community" from floodwaters, but the levee wouldn't protect "the community." It would protect one neighborhood, period, including the Parkview Church.

Wally Taylor, spoke on behalf of residents on the "wet" side of the river's would-be levee on Taft Speedway. A Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the Housing and Urban Development Administration was proposed for funding the levee. As Wally pointed out, the need must be "urgent" and "imminent." The flood levee, especially during a period of prolonged drought, is neither.

"For the life of me," one resident commented, "I can't figure out why anyone thought this was a good idea in the first place."

I suppose the urge to protect city revenue would explain why Iowa City is going to allow a multi-family apartment complex to go in at the bottom of an already over-developed steep hill down to Hickory Hill Park on First Avenue. Let's build up the tax base and ignore the need for green space and buffers for run-off water. 

Edward Wasserman's basement at 555 at N. 1st Avenue, just to the left of the proposed apartment complex, already floods. On the right side of Mr. Wasserman's property, something like eight trees protecting the hillside and buffering Hickory Hill Park would have to be taken out to put up the apartment complex.

Are we providing more of a tax base for the City of Iowa City at the expense of green space to protect a steep hillside and buffer run-off water from other cement-and-mortar developments near Hickory Hill Park?

Mayor Hayek says, you betcha. Build, baby, build! And keep those tax revenues coming.