Several people have mentioned that the recent lawsuit to stop the city from accomplishing things is partly based on the city spending money on something they're not sure of yet, namely the IOC realignment. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see anything about that on the list of items.
Here's a file that list where all the money goes.
Someone show me where any of that relies on anything to do with the IOC hotel project?
I really could just be overlooking it.
44 comments:
QCI,
The lawsuit contends that there is credible evidence that the sight where the police station is to be built (which is 19.3 million of the bond issue) has to be cleaned up, since oil is coming up through the floor now. That needs to be ruled on prior to allocating money to move ahead with the project, and thus this spending needs to be haulted until such time as that is accomplished. Soooo...It looks like the next Council should approve the bond issue. Why is everybody so afraid of that, anyway?
That's easy. The bond issue is good for Davenport, and the new council won't approve it.
Now the question is why are you so FOR the new council voting on this that you post similar things on every thread that even remotely mentions the lawsuit?
Why is it better to have the existing police station on toxic ground than a new one?
Didn't that Quad City Times coal tar cost the taxpayers over four million dollars.
I think it was closer to $2 million and I don't recall if the city or Lee Enterprises paid for it, probably the city and it may have been made part of the TIF deal that Lee received.
It seems like the city was making a lot of concessions at that time as Lee was threatening to move the plant to 53rd street.
At the time it was the best looking thing in this end of downtown. If the loft district keeps going like it has been, in 10 years people will be asking why there's a factory in the middle of a residential/commercial corridor.
I am for the new council voting for the bond issue because I suspect they will be better stewards of the taxpayer's money. It is my guess that they would not approve as much spending as the current council. But, my own viewpoint does not really matter, it is all about whether or not things are being rushed before propper due dilligence is done on the police station site. The answer is to clean it up before building it and certainly before borrowing and accruing interest on large sums of money. That is the reason a judge may in fact honor the little old ladies' lawsuit. If that turns out to be the case, those three little old ladies should have a monument built for them outside of City Hall!
So before borrowing money, the current station would have to be entirely torn down. Where does our police department live when their station is gone?
I believe the current plan is to build half the station on the current parking lot, move into it, and then tear down the old PD and build the second half where that was.
Due diligence? They've been working on this for decades.
I don't believe any of the little hold ladies have a law degree so I wonder which one of them thought up the idea of filing a lawsuit of this type and which one of them wrote the suit, since they couldn't come up with the $100 filing fee I doubt if they could afford to hire an attorney.
I would be willing to bet that $100 that when all is said and done the Police Union has a hand in this. Another petty delaying tactic to keep their precious parking spaces.
A monument to the little old ladies- get real.
You guys are really getting to be a whacked out bunch of conspiracy theorists. The police union? give me a break! Many people support the little old ladies that have been taxed to death already and don't want their taxes to go up another .50 cents epr thousand. And, I don't care how long they have been looking at this, the propper thing to do is get EPA clearance BEFORE tearing anything down. What is the big rush to sell bonds off for anyway? The bond market will still exist in January 06.
And yes, a monumnet to those three little old ladies sounds fitting if they can save us enough tax dollars. In fact, I have a great idea. QCI, you should agree to sell little old lady T-shirts and coffee mugs on your site, and the proceeds can go to their lawsuit. I think you would kind of enjoy that anyway. It is your chance to wake up and share the morning with three lovely ladies.
I don't understand how the little old ladies are going to save the citizens of Davenport a dollar by trying to delay the bond sale and construction.
If, and I repeat if, there is contamination it has to be fixed and it is going to cost money. So it becomes one of those "you can pay be now or you can pay me later" situations, where is the savings in tax dollars?
The only thing this will do is cost the taxpayers more money in having to spent resources to respond to another frivolous lawsuit.
Those old ladies don't waste enough of the council's time by telling long boring personal stories at the council meetings? Now they have to waste our city's resources by forcing the city to acknowledge a frivolous lawsuit. Good job!
Amen to the last two posts. These old ladies are just tring to make themself "important". These are the old people that the mayor was talking about a couple years ago, the ones that don't what any progress in this town. Also, I'm tired of hearing about old people being on a "fixed income". Hell, I'm on a fixed income. I can't just go to the boss and ask for a raise anytime the price of something goes up.
The last two posts are just off the radar screen. Reality check. Between the storm water fee and the rest of this mess, nobody is going to want to buy anything in Davenport. You are right, we are all on fixed incomes and we have had enough of these taxes.
Now, to get to the legal point of it all. If the property is contaminated enough, they won't get to build on that site. And, who knows, maybe instead of paying 19.2 million for the new station, we can get by somewhere else for 10 million?
Sooo...It just doesn't matter if they got the information right on the IOC. The judge can throw that out and still stay with the police station.
Now, legal lesson #1: In law, there is a concept called fiduciary responsibility. Since the City is currently under suit specifically regarding this bond issue, if a sitting alderman should ignore the lawsuit and move to go ahead with selling the bonds, they can be held individually responsible. Imagine you were getting divorced and your ex put a claim in on your $100.000.00 in the bank. Would you go spend that on your girlfriend? Same deal here.
Finally, I agree with one of the other posters that suggested a monument to the three little old ladies outside of City Hall. Great idea.
5:00PM, I didn't know they were still putting law degrees in boxes of Wheaties. The filing of a frivolous lawsuit means exactly nothing, if they did a couple of nuts could prevent this city from doing anything, just because a lawsuit is filed doesn't mean that the world stops doing business.
Courts aren't in charge of stopping cities from doing things that some citizens don't think are a good idea.
"5:00PM, I didn't know they were still putting law degrees in boxes of Wheaties."
I'm not 5pm but since when did only those with Law degrees have a say?
Bring back the fly...sheesh
QCI - "Maybe I'm missing something".
Maybe you're missing a lot?
I see we have some armchair lawyers criticising the 5:00 pm. Like it or not, the ladies criticism of the land the police department is building on DOES have the ability to stop City hall cold, if it proves valid. And, this comes from an honest to God lawyer; not one who got his degree from a box of cereal. Sorry folks!
If you were really an attorney you wouldn't be able to keep a straight face after reading the LOL's filing. There are no facts. Most of their claims are obviously opinions and the remaining item which may or may not be true has no supporting documentation to show that it is true.
The Chicken Littles are alive and well in the City of Davenport.
I can think of a few things that could be removed from the 30 mil.
list of "to do's", the Police Station is not on it. We surely don't need 3 sidewalk Superintendents micro managing the construction process. Maybe they could help out when we start building the"NEW" parks.
So what would you remove from the 36 mil?
I would remove all of the Prairie Heights crap, and would remove the police station until the police site gets straightened out. Some investigation is in order. The main thing I would like to see happen is that the new Council gets to decide the budget. It may prove to be a lot less money needs to be borrowed, so the taxpayers may get a large break on the new .50 cents per thousand tax. Lets let a fiscally responsible Council have a crack at it; not the bunch of drunken sailors we have now. And, the best thing is, the Judge may require it to occur, based on the way this might go down.
"All the Prairie Heights crap" is a street and a park. The park is definitely needed because Davenport has no parks on the northeast side of the city. The street is arguably needed to settle legal issues.
I hope everyone reads through the list of things being bought, because they're all good things for Davenport.
Let the developers put in their own streets, and the park is way too big.
Can we talk about contamination? Is the envidence for contamination a hearsay account of a man who believes there was coolant and other auto chemicals buried at the site? If that's the case, wouldn't this "contamination" been discovered when the current facilty was constructed? Seems pretty sketchy to me.
If there is contamination. We have a federal brownfield's statute and there is money (through super fund) to clean up contaminated sites. This would assume contamination beyond anyone's wildest imagination. Remediation often is as simple as building on top of the contaminated soil or just scooping it up, moving it, and building on it again. In some cases, its enough to just put grass on top of it.
You may both be right, but the law is the law. Can't commit taxpayer funds until we know, if the Judge is wise enough to support the little old ladies. And, even if there is no contamination, the little old ladies may be able to get the new council to approve the budget. That would make them heros in my book!
To answer QCI's question;
Prairie Heights Park $1,750,000
Southwest Park $ 950,000
Skateboard Park $ 700,000
And maybe? Centennial Park $500,000
= $3,900,000
Maybe I just have to spend more
time at the parks,but I'm just too busy working so I can pay my ever increasing property taxes.
Police Station- Yes
More parks- later
While I obviously disagree, at least that's a well-written and logical post. Southwest Park seems like a really neat, if possibly over ambitious project. I obviously believe in downtown progress, so I support Centennial Park and even the skatepark, and I've stated before that northeast Davenport desperately needs a park. I would say the parks are more for our kids than adults and aldermanic candidates, and hopefully if more kids got out into local parks and off of their X-Boxes, we'd have a more healthy population.
The Quad Cities already has too damn many parks. When you are talking about raising taxes by fifty cents per thousand, you don't go build more.
I've never heard of too many parks.
Good. You pay for the parks then.
Since parks are a drain on on our tax coffers, libraries are too and do we really need books when we have videos and the Internet?, art is unimportant, having a convention center is unessential, public safety is (but really isn't on our minds), having housing options doesn't matter, Trash collection is okay as long as we don't have to pay for it, and storm water, while a nuisance when it floods our basements because our storm sewers are in pre-history shape lets just stop services, pave over parks, let even more criminals run rampant, sell our art, burn the books, buy houses on enormous lots that contribute to the sprawl that is Davenport, stock up on buckets, and just give up. Of course if we give up we are left with an aging, dying population who are all on fixed incomes, nothing green to relax in, walk your dog at, or stroll through, trash on the street, a local economy driven by low paying but numerous retail employment opportunities including Wal-Mart, Dress Barn, K-Mart, Kohls, well you know the list and restaurants that while numerous, are all the same is there really a difference between the Village Inn, I-Hop, Country Kitchen, Bob Evans or any of the countless pizza places that now mimic Chef's Hat.
If the people who want to stop Davenport's slide into insignicance give up and walk away, then perhaps the people who like living in an underachieving city with a a zest for self destruction and self loathing will be happy. Somehow I doubt it.
I think you're becoming bitter LL.
When the againsters get me down, I just think of River Renaissance, the library and jail referendums, and Niky getting last place.
Those things remind me that the barebones lifeless city crowd are the vocal minority.
Just call me Pollyanna.
I'm actually pretty cynical, but I guess I'm fairly optimistic about Davenport at least.
Yes I post under my real name when "I" post.
QCI,
Don't get me wrong, I'm on record for being PRO-economic improvement.
And don,t enclued me in your definition of an "Againster"
I've lived in the City of Davenport all my life.
I'm not independently wealthy,I live on a budget. And only barrow or take out loans when I have to Home/Car ect. I ask only the City do the same thing. Police Station/New Fire Truck ect.
These Park "improvements" are green spaces already are they not?
I'd like to build a garage, but it's going to have to wait.
I also am not an "againster". But, there are plenty of parks, libraries etc. and we have our art museum, our bridge to nowhere etc. What we are saying is we don't need to go spend money on even more of the same. It is time to cut City fat and get back to basics. Your arguement about restraunts makes no sense at all. That is a function of the private sector. Take care of the basics and builders will want to build, residents will want to occupy and restraunteers will open new places.
Do what we need to do, cut the fat, and move on. The rest will take care of itself.
I hope the 3 little old ladies win their lawsuit!
Isn't providing for public safety resources a "basic"? What exactly is "fatty" about a new police station?
The police are good folks, and deserve a new home. Whether or not we need to spend 19 million on it or not is another thing. My wife wants to move, and so do I. She would like me to spend about a million dollars on our new home. I am thinking more like 150k. We will see what we can afford. We won't go beyond that. The taxpayers have been taxed to death, and now we are being asked to spend another .50 cents per thousand for a completely new home when there is plenty of vacant property all around. What about re-habbing some existing structure?
I think 19 million is way too much. I hope there are EPA problems. Thank God for the little old ladies.
Eventhough I won't be around to see it I would rather spend $19 million to build something that will be around for 100 years than to put up some junk that won't last 20 years.
How about spending 10 million to renovate something that will be around for the same amount of time and returning the other 10 million to the taxpayers.
Go ladies go!!
That's the cheap solution that got them their current terrible station.
`QCI
Are you and I the only ones that agree? The present Police Station
was a car dealership. Why do you think OIL is coming though the floor? Talk about wasting the tax payers money dump $10 mill. down that hole.
P.S. I think the DPD should have an open house "talk about awake up call"
How about we just re-hab the Blackhawk for 10 million and save the taxpayers 9 million?
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