NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Resident Appreciation Day Saturday, June 4 | 7:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | Downtown Farmers’ Market
In January, the City of Cedar Rapids announced a partnership with Kirkwood Community College to support a new workforce training and education program. CRCCC provides tuition grants to support local career opportunities and advancement. The program will provide students graduating from high school, or residents currently unemployed or underemployed, with the opportunity to pursue a career in an area they are passionate about, while developing the employee skills our current businesses tell us they need. CRCCC is designed thoughtfully to not compete with state funding opportunities or four-year degree programs, but to fill specific gaps identified as a community need. While several existing grant and scholarship programs help Kirkwood students attend college at no cost, CRCCC helps open that opportunity to even more people. The program covers additional students who wouldn’t typically qualify for scholarship/grant funding because of their parents’ income, those who want to attend classes part-time, and certain degrees not covered by other programs. College Career Connection addresses local workforce needs across the healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and business sectors. It creates opportunities for Cedar Rapids residents to develop their education and training in order to gain the skills to advance their career and earning potential.
Learn more at CityofCR.com/CRCCC.
We are back at the Downtown Farmers’ Market this year! Join us for Resident Appreciation Day at the market on Saturday, June 4 from 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Stop by our tents for games, prizes, giveaways, and much more. This event is the perfect opportunity to ask all the questions you have about City services and programs. Staff will be there to share information and answer all your questions. Bring the kids for fingerprinting by Police Department volunteers, photo opportunities with City mascots, and a chance to explore City vehicles including a firetruck, police car, forestry boom truck, leaf vacuum truck, and street sweeper. Learn about upcoming projects, check out technology that makes the city work, and leave with a City Manager’s 1-Bag Challenge kit. Do not miss this great event!
Restoring the City’s Tree Canopy It is the goal of ReLeaf Cedar Rapids to replant all public streets within a decade. Street trees provide community benefits including stormwater and exhaust absorption, improved public health and safety, increased property values, reduced urban heat islands, and improved walkability. For this reason, they are a city utility and public infrastructure asset. One of the biggest and most difficult tasks of the plan is to create a timeline for this work that reflects the plan’s principals and goals. The Street Tree Planting Prioritization must balance competing factors, giving appropriate weight to each. There is no single right answer to this challenge; the important thing is to establish a transparent, justifiable methodology, and to apply it consistently. Over 7,500 street locations were evaluated and scored based on eight factors: prior canopy, urban heat islands, population density, social vulnerability, derecho tree loss, pedestrian infrastructure demand, roadway classification, and available planting sites. CEDAR-RAPIDS.ORG
The ReLeaf Cedar Rapids plan has identified where trees will be planted over the next ten years. Replanting the tree canopy will make Cedar Rapids more beautiful and more resilient to weather extremes in the future. Homeowners cannot opt out of having a tree planted in the right-of-way. Those A Plan who interfere with to Bring Back our or remove trees The ReLeaf Trees Rules planted along the How to The Plant Mas right-of-way will be ter and Tree List Raise a Tree subject to fines. Fees may include the replacement cost of the tree, with additional fines levied on a per-tree basis. More fines will be levied for unpaid fees.
February 2022
Cedar Rapids,
Iowa
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Read the plan at CityofCR.com/ReLeaf.
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