Our city council has problems. Pretty much no one can argue that.
However... not all the problems people think. Many people hate Alderman Brooke, but that doesn't mean anything unless they are from his ward. Wards elect people to serve their interest, and obviously the interests of the 6th ward are going to be different than those of the 1st. Its the same sort of representative democracy that we have on the national level, where people from Connecticut and people from Texas probably hate each other's representatives, but each represents his or her own constituents, not the nation as a whole.
So when I go to meetings and people sit around talking about Brooke, or Dumas, or even Frink and Howard, as though they're evil incarnate, they're missing the point. They're not evil, they're doing their job. If anyone was "tricked" into voting for Howard or Frink for Alderman-at-large, they really didn't do their research. I believe the voters knew what they were getting, and now we're getting it. For some of us, that's a good thing. For others, not so much. I think Davenport's moving in the right direction, things are better now than they were 10 years ago, and we should continue the things we're doing as a city. Others feel we're going down a wasteful path of spending without much gain.
If 5 alderman vote for something, and 5 against, with the Mayor breaking the tie, that's democracy in action. Its not shady, its not something to boycott, its how the system works. When they original walkout 5 boycotted the Freight House meeting, they were avoiding the democratic process because they knew it would be 5-5 with the Mayor breaking the tie. The new 4 that walked out this time were also dodging the democratic process because they knew that without their 5th member present, the other 5 could pass almost anything they wished.
For once we may have to look to the state for guidance on this. When the state senate became tied 25-25, they made agreements not to "ram things through" while people were absent from either side. This would have avoided the walkout in the first place, and save Davenport some embarrassment. Despite the fact that I personally agree with some of the alderman on most of the issues and direction Davenport should go, I believe none of the 10 should ever walk out of a meeting. Neither group that did it was right. So do we try and get rid of the entire council next election, or do we try to make it clear to this existing council that these kind of antics aren't what Davenport wants?
We've already got one clown show in Washington DC, we don't need a miniature one here.
12 comments:
Finally some common sense!!! I think it is time that one of the non-profits sit down with these aldermen and try to find a way to stop this public embarrassment
Too bad both caused us to end up looking foolish.
I got news for everyone Davenport has looked BAD for quite a while.
Blogfuel can share the blame, feeding the fire at times.
Yeah, I'm well aware that when people google search for various QC and Davenport related things they can come to this blog and read all sorts of petty and discouraging things about the area.
But... what can you do? I'm not going to ask people to only say happy things. The best I can hope for is an occasionally good thing about the area to pop up on here, or for visitors to take the negative with a grain of salt.
You see at least four blogs currently that get at least fifty percent of their energy from Davenport City Hall.
My city has a stormwater fee, new garbage plan, and personnel issues in city departments, etc. All is pretty quiet here across the river, with the exception of bodies in the streets every other week.
Seems in Davenport you have alderman, city workers and others who like to stir the pot.
Conservative Demo here:
While I'll leave it to young QCI and others to comment positively about the cultural and social aspects of Davenport life, I can offer positive commentary about one of Davenport's quiet pleasantries, the magnificent collection of parks and trails. From The Riverfront to the Duck Creek Parkway and adding all the big and small parks between, we have a wonderful abundance of green places for the public's delight.
Whether it be for the sporting expenditure of excess energy or the delight of quiet reflection or whatever a person's reason for using a park, we have it and it's close to home as well.
Davenport does have many nice parks and bike trails. It's just too bad that you have to pick the times to use them, scheduling yourself around the homeless that frequent the riverfront trails, and sleep on the picnic benches downtown. Marquette park used to be a wonderful place to walk, until the pitbull crowd decided it was a good place for them to let their dogs roam without leashes. Davenport needs to patrol the parks more often, and get rid of the riff-raff that frequent those areas.
Has anyone thought about Clayton Lloyds department? It seems to me that when the NEO was taken out of city hall he lost at almost half of his responsiblities, should he not take take a little bit of a pay cut? Or does he get COLA raises just like Malin????
Spread some of the asst. city admin duties his way.
I guess I would argue that Frink and Howard were elected by the public at large but yet seem only interest in what a small group of local business interests has to say. They don't return phone calls and show little interest even if approached with an issue in council chambers. Howard doesn't even pretend to listen anymore when people speak at meetings. I agree with other posts I have seen saying it is time to eliminate the aldermen at large posts because they seem accountable to no one once elected.
Frink seems pretty responsive in my experience.
I've never really tried to contact Alderwoman Howard, mostly because of her lack of online presence.
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