Buyout Finally Complete

On February 24, we met with the city’s representatives and signed the final closing papers for the voluntary buyout. Salem received three checks totaling $891,245.27 for the downtown properties. It has been more than two-and-a-half years since the flood that destroyed Salem's downtown physical location. Finally, that chapter is complete!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Church Under Water

Image
I spoke to Pastor Linda Bibb this evening. She’s the outgoing pastor at Salem Church where I have been appointed effective July 1. Salem is just a couple of blocks from the Cedar River in downtown Cedar Rapids. She told me they were evacuated from the church building at 4:00 pm yesterday. The wonderful people of this congregation worked together sandbagging and moving as much as they could to the second and third floors. But the river was too much. Linda said the water is at least 8-10 feet deep at the church building. There is a car port over one of the entrances and the water is above that car port. So the water could be to the second floor now. This picture from the Cedar Rapids Gazette shows how high the water was earlier today at the Dairy Queen which is right across the street from Salem United Methodist Church. Unfortunately, the river hasn’t even crested yet so the flooding will probably get worse. We will attempt to get to Cedar Rapids tomorrow. In the midst of all this we ar...
Read more

Membership at Salem

We have accomplished much on our official membership list. It takes time and precision to re-create a membership list lost in the flood! I am thankful for all the work our administrative assistant has given to this project as well as for the many volunteers who have spent countless hours contacting people to confirm their membership status. While we are not completely finished, we have discovered that we have many active members as well as our treasured older members who were formerly very active. Like other congregations we also have some members who confirmed their membership status but have not been upholding our membership vows. As a congregation we are responsible for reaching out to inactive members and helping them become active again. A name written on a page does not make a member. Salem members promise to be loyal to Jesus Christ through The United Methodist Church and do all in our power to strengthen its ministries. Specifically, we promise to faithfully participate in its ...
Read more