The Central Iowa Regional Planning Commission was first proposed in 1964, and municipalities and counties began to join, paying into the new body at a rate of two cents per resident.
[2] While the agency was initially concerned with metropolitan planning, it expanded its scope in 1967 to include the review of federal grant applications by cities in the metro area after being designated as the regional body for such activity by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
[3][4] CIRPC studies focused on topics such as power line corridors,[5] transportation, solid waste, and recreation;[6] the agency also helped to establish bodies tackling crime, drug abuse, and the airport.
[9] Though the commission was able to continue to function, a January 1972 ruling over the contentious Des Moines north-south freeway battle found that the CIRPC did not have the authority to review members' federal funding applications.
[22] Questioning high administrative costs and complications over the move of its offices,[23] as well as CIRALG's expansion beyond planning, the county board of supervisors voted 3–2 in July 1981 to withdraw from the association.
[24] Additional problems had cropped up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well, related to its racial makeup: the Iowa chapter of the United States Commission on Civil Rights noted that the mayor of Des Moines had contributed to CIRALG's "all-white complexion" and lack of women and minorities.
On April 1, 1982, the United States Department of Labor ordered CIRALG and the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium to return up to $1.1 million in CETA funds that were used to start other programs, an act prohibited by federal law.
[28] It also placed the association in immediate financial peril as it struggled to find monies to repay the Labor Department, troubles that were compounded when the state pulled funding for aging programs from the agency, leaving it with its planning functions.