Axne: ‘Leveling the playing field’

It was standing room only at Hot Air Brewing Thursday as Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne visited to provide information on projects she’s been working on in Washington.

She started with a project close to home - $600,000 secured for the Creston Water Works’ 12 Mile Intake and 12 Mile Water treatment plant upgrade project.

“You’ve got a great mayor and a great director of your water works and a lot of folks who are working really hard to make sure you’ve got what you need,” Axne said. “With the work of your teams here in town and then pushing this up to my office, we were able to deliver $600,000 to the Creston Water Works. I’m so glad that we’re able to do this.”

The money came from federal community development funding Axne supports. She commended midwest and small-town officials for their work with limited resources. “It’s not like the big cities that have grant writers for everything and multiple administrative folks that can work on things,” she said. “That’s not how it works in a lot of our small towns.”

Axne cited the three things she said she would do when she started - put more money in your pockets, give your families greater opportunity and level the playing field so that Iowa will get ahead. “This kind of thing, the community development funding, is what’s leveling the playing field,” she said. “Very thrilled to be able to work with all of you to bring these funds to Creston and looking forward to seeing all the implementation of the work that you’re doing.”

Creston Water Works General Manager Steve Guthrie and Creston Mayor Gabe Carroll accepted the check from Axne at the event for the ongoing project.

“The total cost of the project is $3.1 million. Because of the funds from Rep. Axne, the $600,000, and other grant funding, we were able to do a $3.1 million project for $1.8,” Guthrie said. “Thank you so much.”

Axne also discussed her efforts to level the playing field for rural law enforcement agencies. “I am working on a bill called the Invest to Protect Act, and that’s to support our police units all across this country,” she said.

The act moves a portion of funding out of the federal grant pool and sets it aside for smaller departments to apply for. “Creston, Corning, Sidney, Shenandoah, all these places have to compete with Des Moines, and Des Moines has to compete with Chicago and they compete with New York and L.A. within the same pot of money,” Axne said. “Wonder why we can’t get officers here? Because those other states with grant writers and big cities are able to provide more funding for their police officers, give them more of the tools and equipment to support them being able to do their jobs well, provide things like retention bonuses and education bonuses, but we struggle to just get grants written because we don’t have grant writers in our small units.”

The separate pool of money would only be accessible to units 200 and under. Every department in Iowa with the exception of the Polk County Sheriff’s Department would qualify for this pool.

“We’ve done a lot this year. We’ve got a little bit more to go and then we’ve got a lot more to go,” Axne said. “Hopefully I can serve in this capacity with all of you next year because there’s so much more to do.” Axne’s seat is up for reelection on the November ballot.