Public records · Time Check
They called itrecovery.We called it home.
Time Check. History. Public records. Politics. Photography. And the stories behind the headlines.
“Time Check has already spent enough years being discussed as property, parcels, acquisitions, and green space. We were a neighborhood. We are people. And some of us are still here.”
— Ajai Dittmar, I Brought Receipts
Top story
The Preferred Plan
Modest single-family homes disappeared along Ellis Boulevard and in Time Check. Later projects returned denser housing — market-rate apartments and riverfront condos. Frank King warned us in 2008.
Read the investigationI Brought Receipts
Five chapters
I Brought Receipts
An ongoing public-records series examining the decisions made after the 2008 flood: who made them, who advised them, where the money came from, who got paid, and what those decisions meant for Time Check.
- 00I Brought ReceiptsAn introduction to the series and the records that started it all.→
- 01Who Made the Decisions?Officials, committees, and bodies that held authority over Time Check.→
- 02Who Advised Them?Consultants, planners, and outside firms brought in to shape the recovery.→
- 03Let's Follow the MoneyTracing the federal and local funds that flowed into Time Check after the flood.→
- 04Who Got the Money?Contracts, payments, and the organizations who received public funds.→
- 05The Preferred PlanThe city had a preferred plan. Frank King warned us in 2008. It wasn't about flood control.→
Ajai Dittmar · Time Check resident
About the archive
About Cedar Rapids Activist
Cedar Rapids Activist began after the 2008 flood as a place to document what was happening in my neighborhood and my city. Years later, it has become an archive of local history, public records, photographs, videos, community stories, and the questions that never quite went away.
This archive is built on public records, meeting minutes, contracts, and firsthand experience. It is maintained by Ajai Dittmar, a Time Check resident who was displaced from 1426 1st Street NW in June 2008.