City Council Says Green Square Meals Program Must Move

By Mark Geary, Reporter

CEDAR RAPIDS -- City leaders say Cedar Rapids is broke. Wednesday night, the council voted to cut millions of dollars worth of programs and jobs. That's exactly why so many people are confused why the council voted to force the Green Square Meals program to move.

It was an intense debate that lasted nearly two hours. Everyone admitted the Green Square Meals building needs major work. Dozens of people stepped up and volunteered to fix it up at little or no cost.

But, Wednesday night, the council rejected those offers.

"If we allow people to use resources in a way that wastes resources...if we do not feed as many people as we can, we have not supported the mission of Green Square Meals," council member Tom Podzimek said.

Podzimek, Pat Shey, Brian Fagan, Kris Gulick and Mayor Kay Halloran all believe the program would work better at a different location. The other four council members disagreed.

"I just can't understand how in the world we can convince ourselves that this is a bad deal. This is something we should do," council member Chuck Swore said.

More than twenty-five people begged the council to let the program stay, but their emotional pleas did not work.

"They turned down a financial and moral gift, and I do not understand it. I will never understand it, and did not respect the fact that the mayor did not even bother to give us a reason, after four months, as to why she emphatically said, 'No,'" Green Square Meals President John Locher said.

After the decision, the crowd booed the council and even became confrontational.

"Excuse me, we still have business to conduct. Can I ask you to take your conversations to the foyer?” Mayor Halloran asked the audience. A member of the public replied, “This is our city council and we'll talk right here. You can continue your business because you don't care what we have to say anyway."

Council members who voted down the organization's proposal said they were acting in the city's best interest.

Now, the program, much like the people it serves, has become homeless.

Locher says he doesn't know when the program needs to move out. He also isn't sure where they'll move to, either.

It will cost the city about $100,000 to demolish the building

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This tells me how the City Council cares about the people in this city. It also explain why the mayor didn't care about our group at the Church. She wouldn't help us when we asked. She didn't want to listen at all. It's just not right.

I say replace them.

What did we need help with that the mayor denied?

The misssion of our group is one that the community should take notice of. There are NOT enough activities in this town for young people to enjoy. Yes, we have the YMCA, the malls, movies, Planet X, the symhony. BUT how many of them are free events? How many of them offer the camaraderie and friends that we experience EVERY Wed. and EVERY Sunday night? How many times can you go to the mall? How many times can you honestly go to the movies? As a movie buff, it's hard for me to say that but even I get sick of the same old remakes and junk movies. This community has a lot of trouble supporting its youth. We have some of the greatest schools in the nation. We have some very safe neighborhoods. Give credit where credit is due.

But when kids are bored, what do we do that doesn't require a lot of cash? Think about that one. If you have trouble thinking of something positive, let's think about the negative things that exist in our community...pot, meth, huffing, beers, liquor. Now you're saying, "those cost money." Think about how many parents have this right in their own cupboards and closets. Unfortunately our community is NOT perfect. We have that entire list...and much of it in our own neighborhoods. It's a scary thought. One that we all need to face. So if you're passionate about the games you play, the friends you have, the positive life you lead, tell people about C.C.G. and what we have to offer the community - what we offer each other.

BE PROUD OF WHAT WE HAVE IN C.C.G. Not many communities can honestly say that they have an event like OURS. Maybe we need more people to tell Mayor O'Halloran how passionate we are about C.C.G. and what she should do to help get our message out to more people in the community.

Please contact Dan if you would like to get involved in making C.C.G. a more noted event in Cedar Rapids and surrounding communities.

Thanks for sticking around for my entire rant.

Dan

We need all the feed back we can on this subject. Zac will be sending this topic to the City Council as soon as it is done. So Please VOTE on this.

If we were denied help in doing something to help the community be a better place, that is terrible, and any mayor or City Council that doesn't try to help with something like our CCG group obviously doesn't care and should be replaced immediately. And I don't even live in Cedar Rapids.

we need your vote so we can turn this in to the City Council.

I already did vote......but if there are others who haven't voted, YOU SHOULD DO SO....NOW!!

We really need to do something about this. They are wasting money on things like SaPaDaPaSo (Saint Patrick's Day Parade Society) memorabilia and they are giving them away. It would cost more money to make those things then to give one meal to a needy person at Green Square Park.

I think that they should invest more money into the community then spend it on things like that. They are also giving away trophies for the parade and they could turn around and use that money to help the Non-profit people, like us, get a better hold of the city.

I think that we should talk to this so called 'City Council' and tell then that they are wasting our money on thing like this. The wasted all that money on trying to get the rain forest here in the Cedar Rapids area.

The so called City Council does nothing more then deny all of our efforts to try to help the city and then they turn around a complain that they can't keep the youth here in Cedar Rapids.

If they really wanted to help this city, they would actually listen to the community and try to help it.