Yesterday Linn County voters narrowly rejected a proposal to extend a one-cent sales tax in the county for 10 years in order to finance flood prevention projects in the Cedar Rapids area.

The Linn County Auditor’s office posted county-wide results here and preliminary results by precinct here. Turnout was about 22 percent. About 51 percent of nearly 31,000 voters cast “no” votes, while just under 49 percent voted “yes.” In the Cedar Rapids metro area, the initiative failed by roughly the same margin. Steve Gravelle noted at EasternIowaGovernment.com, “The tax extension carried only 10 Cedar Rapids precincts and 19 of 65 in the metro bloc.”

In May 2011, Linn County voters rejected a local-option sales tax referendum by a similar margin. You can download those results here.

Mayor Ron Corbett suggested that city leaders may need to abandon efforts to protect the west side of town from Cedar River flooding.

“This council and the previous council have been pretty firm about protecting both sides of the river and not just protecting the east side,” a disappointed Corbett said. “We’re going to have some discussions about this now.”

[…]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning a system of flood walls and levees on  the river’s east bank near downtown. Tax extension backers argued city and state funding is needed for similar protection on the west side, which doesn’t qualify for federal funding under the Corps’ cost-benefit formula.

“The Corps is moving ahead,” Corbett said. “It just seems odd to only protect one side of the river and not the other. Certainly everyone knows that the federal government  can’t support west-side protection because of their formula, that we needed local dollars along with state dollars to help build the west side.”

“I’m a little stunned at how a community wants to move forward without providing protecting everyone, but the voters have spoken,” said Gary Ficken, chairman of Cedar Rapids Extended Sales Tax (CREST), which worked to pass the tax extension. […]

The defeat will make it harder for local lawmakers to make the case for a flood-mitigation funding plan moving through the state Legislature. The measure, passed unanimously in the Senate and up for final House approval as early as this week, would appropriate up to $30 million a year for 10 years to match local and federal funding. Local projects like Cedar Rapids’ could receive up to $15 million a year.

Meanwhile, the leaders of the “no” campaign (We Can Do Better CR) hope to push a different proposal for flood protection in the metro area.

The group already has begun to circulate a counter-proposal to the failed sales tax vote that addresses some of their most common concerns relating to a lack of specific language in the ballot in what money would be spent on.

Their version of the petition, which was being passed around Tuesday evening, calls for a sales tax to be spent on specific projects, such as flood protection for the east side of the Cedar River, dredging the river, securing the cities water supply and implementing the Army Corps of Engineers plans for sewers and the west side of the river.

Eric Rosenthal, the group’s chair, said he hopes to gain enough signatures to call for a summer vote on their proposal.

“We’re not an anti-tax group,” he said. “We just want to make sure there is proper accountability for what’s a flood project.”

The Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Todd Dorman expressed skepticism about the alternative plan:

The uncertainty surrounding the question of flood protection will continue to hang over this city like a fog that won’t lift. The voters don’t want to pay for it with sales taxes, clearly. Federal funding remains hazy. State legislation is cruising to passage, but now we don’t have local dollars to match it. I’ve heard all about the alternative plan that can do better, which requires dredging. Don’t get me started.

The link on dredging leads to one of Dorman’s columns from April 2011, which contains more details about the huge costs and minimal benefits associated with dredging the Cedar River in the Cedar Rapids area.

UPDATE: Dorman took a closer look at the precinct-level results in Cedar Rapids.

But if you dig a little into the numbers, you’ll realize it’s one of those games that’s not really as close as the score indicates.

In 18 of Cedar Rapids’ 44 precincts, opposition to the tax topped 60 percent, compared to just three precincts where support hit 60 percent, according to unofficial results. The tax carried just 10 Cedar Rapids precincts total, failing 10,767 to 9,803 in the city, or roughly 53 percent to 48 percent. A 629-vote absentee voting advantage for backers was swamped by a 1,593-vote Election Day swing toward no.

The 60-percent-plus, no-voting precincts are scattered, from north of Boyson Road to south of U.S. 30. Fifteen of them were untouched by flooding in 2008, by my count, while three took on water.

But the tax extension also didn’t do so hot in the flood zone. Among seven precincts I sampled in the flooded heart of the city, the tax passed in two and failed in five, although it lost by just one vote in one and by two in another. Only one flood zone precinct, CR35, voting at the African American Museum of Iowa, posted 60 percent-plus support.

So basically, the extension took hits all over, from the core to high ground. Couple that with the fact that only about about two in 10 voters bothered to cast a ballot, and I think you’ve got a pretty clear signal.

And that signal is that a large, pricey, both-banks flood protection system is not a priority in this town.