Corbett is Next Mayor of Cedar Rapids

By Rick Smith

Tools

By Daren Sukhram

Story Created: Nov 3, 2009 at 9:01 PM CST

Story Updated: Nov 4, 2009 at 4:06 PM CST

CEDAR RAPIDS - Ron Corbett has defeated City Council incumbent Brian Fagan to become the city’s next mayor, according to tallies coming in to the Linn County election office.

With 43 of the city’s 48 precincts reporting, Corbett’s margin of victory remains at 62 percent to Fagan’s 36 percent.

A third candidate, P.T. Larson pulling in 1 percent of the vote.

Click on the video to the left to watch Mark Geary's LIVE interview with Ron Corbett and to hear reaction from challenger Brian Fagan.

Campaigning since March, Corbett, 49, vice president at trucking firm CRST Inc., talked repeatedly about what he has called the current City Council’s “culture of delay,” and he said he would replace delay with a “culture of action.”

Fagan — at 37, the only one of nine current council members under age 50 — e the case that he and his council colleagues had worked hard and effectively and had built a solid foundation to make sure the city recovers and rebuilds from the June 2008 flood. Fagan, an attorney at Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman, entered the race in late July.

Corbett raised some $101,000 for his campaign, almost three times as much as Fagan.

Corbett said he needed to raise more money to get his message out against a City Hall incumbent.

During the campaign, Corbett also secured endorsements from both business and labor.

The mayoral victory keeps Corbett’s record intact. He has never lost an election for public office. He won seven elections between 1986 and 1998 to the Iowa House of Representatives, a run that included victories over Paul Pate and Kay Halloran, the immediate past Cedar Rapids mayor and the current mayor.

Corbett left the legislature – he was House speaker the last five years — in 1999 to take the job of president/CEO of the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. In his six years at the Chamber, he was a high-profile community figure, pushing a school-bond vote, the merging of city and county governments — without luck — and the pursuit of state Vision Iowa funds. He led the citizen petition drive in 2004 that resulted in voters changing the city’s form of government in 2005 from a full-time council to a part-time one with a professional city manager.

After the June 2005 referendum to change the government, Corbett left the Chamber and the headlines for a management job at trucking firm CRST Inc. He resurfaced on the public stage in March to run for mayor.

Corbett has said he will be visible mayor. He has said the current council has given the city manager too much power, and he said he will work to shift the balance back to the council.

 Click here for full election results.

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