Quad City Images

I-74 Corridor video

2011-08-29T17:09:00.002-05:00

I don't think I posted this 2 years ago when it was released. I just ran across it the other day and don't remember watching it before. It gives an excellent rundown of all parts of the new I-74 bridge project, along with the entire I-74 corridor changes. That includes what's now being done at the 53rd Street interchange. The video also confirms that the actual bridge will be 4 lanes in each direction. Talk about a change for the better!

I-74 Corridor from Iowa DOT on Vimeo.

Still Alive Open Thread

2011-07-19T07:26:00.002-05:00

Well, I'm still around. That's about all I can say for myself as a blogger anymore. I'm actually hoping to go out and take quite a few pictures one of these days, because there is a lot happening around the QC. The Kone building is going up, new restaurants are opening in downtown Davenport, and 605 Main has met the headache ball.

As Conservative Demo mentioned in the comments of the last thread, there's always room for some debate about the Bix at 6s, or in a related traffic-blocking note, all these water main breaks. I also might write something up on my feelings about the No-Notice City Lawn Mowing service. Or I might disappear for another 3 months, but lets hope not!

Cheaters win sometimes

2011-04-20T06:57:00.002-05:00

Historic East Davenport home coming down -QCTimes

Get denied for a demolition permit for a historic home you should never have bought? Simply damage the structure until you can argue there's no reason to save it anymore.

Get flak from the neighbors for trying to destroy the integrity of their neighborhood? Graffiti your own house to spite them and push the city into caving.

Its seems to me that we've sent a clear message with this whole thing that all you have to do to beat City Hall is act as though none of the rules apply to you.

I won't be eating at the Precinct until its under new ownership someday.

Tax Credit Workshop May 5th

2011-03-24T09:08:00.001-05:00

I know the blogging's been lacking greatly, but I thought I'd pass this along at least.

Bringing it Home: Historic Tax Credits for Your Property

May 5, 2011, 11:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
German American Heritage Center, 712 W. 2nd Street, Davenport

Workshop in Davenport on Iowa’s Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit program presented by the State Historic Preservation Office. Participants will learn how the program works to provide a 25% “rebate” on qualified rehabilitation costs, how to determine if a property is eligible to utilize the program, the differences in the program for residential and commercial structures, and how to complete tax credit application forms. The workshop will include a primer on the National Register of Historic Places and a discussion of the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Registration cost of $35 includes lunch and workshop materials, and registration is requested by April 26 to ensure adequate space. For a detailed schedule and registration information, visit www.iowahistory.org/historic-preservation or contact Marion Meginnis, marion_meginnis@msn.com.

A Missed Opportunity

2011-01-30T03:08:00.004-06:00

The Blackhawk Hotel had its grand opening tonight. This may come as a surprise to those of you who aren't on the Who's Who of Davenport list, because not only was this event not publicized, it was apparently not even public. The QCTimes has a photo gallery that refers to it as a private event. The spotlights shining up into the sky outside the hotel should have had dollar signs in them; kind of like the bat signal for rich people.

Why in the world did Restoration St. Louis and the City of Davenport not take the opportunity to show off the biggest project in years in downtown Davenport? Why didn't they invite in all the naysayers and downtown deniers to see what we're really capable of? Why continue the myth that there are 2 kinds of things downtown: Stuff for "6th ward people" like the Figge and symphony concerts, and stuff for the "homeless people" that some folks believe are standing on every corner downtown? That is far from the truth, of course. Downtown has something for everyone from John Deere enthusiasts, jazz lovers, Broadway show-enjoyers, bar patrons, park-lovers, artists, musicians, business travelers, families, and everyone else. Unfortunately, rather than invite everyone from all walks of life to come down and see the newest big thing in Davenport, the Blackhawk chose exclusivity over publicity.

How are we supposed to change peoples' views of downtown if we don't let them in?

How long?

2011-01-26T07:47:00.003-06:00

Hotel Blackhawk opens today, unveiling 4-year, $35 million restoration -QCTimes (December 16th)

Market-rate Apartments: 20
Market-rate Apartments vacant upon opening: 0

Luxury apartments open in former eyesore -QCTimes

Market-rate Apartments: 24
Market-rate Apartments vacant upon opening: 1

How long before that last one is rented? I'd be willing to bet it is taken by the end of today.

How long before the negative folks like Mark Nelson admit that they are wrong about downtown Davenport? Who knows...

City tries again on Prairie Heights commercial land

2010-11-19T07:55:00.002-06:00

On November 2nd Davenport issued a Request for Proposals from potential developers of the commercial parcel that the city still owns on the south side of the Prairie Heights area. Many of you will recall that the city did one of these a few years ago and wasn't satisfied with the offers. At that time they chose to hold out for a better proposal.

Here's the page on the city website with the info, including a link to the actual RFP at the bottom. It seems a little less restrictive than the previous one, although not by too much. There are some restrictions that are made by an agreement with the nearby Grace Evangelical Free Church, and also this quote:

The City welcomes proposals that integrate office or residential uses into the proposed commercial development. Industrial uses, however, such as warehouses, automobile repair facilities, manufacturing or storage facilities are neither desired nor allowed within the Prairie Heights Neighborhood development.

So I'm guessing the carwash that riled up some folks over in Bettendorf a while back need not apply either. I wonder about tatoo parlors... Seriously though, this should really be prime land someday, so I do like that the city doesn't just want it to become a junky strip mall or gas station. That said, the spec building across 53rd from the site doesn't seem to be filling up all that fast. It will be interesting to see what kind of proposals come in this time.

So I've been a little busy this year...

2010-11-14T17:28:00.001-06:00

In addition to the typical work, family, and social life type things that put a crimp in my blogging time, I had some extra stuff to work on this summer. There's now a Mrs. QCI!
As any of you who have been involved in a wedding will know, its a lot of work! We were married on October 9th, which happened to be the day that was a record-high 88º out. When planning an outdoor fall wedding in the Midwest, that was not really on our list of possible weather situations. Thanks to all of the great people who helped us on that day, everything went as smoothly as possible, and it was a great day.

After the wedding we were off to our honeymoon in Ireland. This was the first time in Europe for both of us, and while sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road could be "exciting", it was definitely a fun trip and I highly recommend it. I could show off dozens of pictures at this point, but this blog is supposed to be about the QC, so I'll limit myself to 4 of them.

So there it is. The blog is not dead, and I hope to start posting more than once a week. That said, I doubt I will ever return to the daily posting that I did when I was living downtown and putting much of my free time into blogging. Although who knows... after a few years of unexciting (ie, professional) city councils, it appears we're gearing up for a casino battle again! The QCTimes got a month's worth of articles out of it, so I'm sure there will be more posts from me as well. I'd like to thank those of you that still check the blog, and hope we can get back to enthusiastic discussions again.

News good enough to return from the blog afterlife

2010-11-05T07:39:00.001-05:00

Davenport to consider $75M casino plan -QCTimes

I've been busy this year, but I'll get to that in a later post. For today, we have great news on the front page of the QCTimes. Not only is someone coming in to rid us of the Isle of Capri's maltreatment, but the casino is staying downtown. I didn't expect this, considering how timid developers usually are about trying new things, but I think its great news. There are plenty of truck stop casinos in the Midwest, but not as many downtown casinos anymore. Dubuque's works, and I think ours can too. As far as the the sites mentioned, I like the WG Block location the best, although the others could work too. The Ground Transportation Center is a waste of real estate, but I'm not sure if I trust any casino to look good enough to have such a prime location.

Many of the people against this seem to be against gambling at all, but I'd say Tuesday's election has shown that Scott County residents still overwhelmingly support gambling. Its just another business folks! I know some people who are addicted to shopping at Kohls, but nobody worries about that. Fortunately, I think that much of the resistance to gambling as a legitimate form of entertainment is fading as younger generations grow up with casinos not having the same stigma they may have had for our grandparents.

I look forward to the day that Davenport's casino competes with Bettendorf and Rock Island's as an equal, rather than a forgotten stepchild.

Flood 2010 Saturday PM - Monday AM

2010-07-26T10:07:00.002-05:00

Alternate title: We got 99 problems but the Bix ain't one.

I went out both Saturday night and this morning to take some pictures of the flood preparations. They seem to be going pretty well, and the river seems to be rising a little slower than projected, so hopefully we can come out of this one relatively unscathed. Here are a whole bunch of images from both Saturday night and this morning.
Saturday night, while thousands partied downtown at the Bix Street Fest, Public Works was busy building the usual temporary berm. This year it appears it was made easier by the new concrete median planters.

Preparations near Bechtel Park and Iowa Street.

Berm work on Saturday night, and this morning.

LeClaire Park on Saturday night, and this morning.

Union Station, looking like a fort with its surrounding berm.

Kraft had their wall across Rockingham ready Saturday night, and Rock Island had already begun installing their new removable gates in Schwiebert Park.

This area of Schwiebert Park is north of the floodwall and designed to flood, which its starting to do.

Even more gates being installed at Schwiebert Park. They're also in the midst of fixing some drainage issues around the sprayground, unrelated to the flood.

Bix 2010 Images

2010-07-24T17:10:00.002-05:00

So, it wasn't exactly one of our greatest Bix days. Between the weather issues last night, such as the smashed truck seen on the right, the terrible death of the Galesburg coach, or the general soaking of 15,000 runners and however many tens of thousands of spectators, things could have gone better. Now we have imminent flooding to deal with, which we'll survive as we generally do. As always, things could have been worse. Despite the rain, thousands of people got together for a good time in Davenport. Next year lets hope for blue skies to show off the renovated Blackhawk and Forrest Block buildings.

It looks like most of the registered runners and walkers could not be deterred by a little rain.

The men's winner, Ryan Hall, and the women's winner, Lisa Koll, each heading down 3rd Street towards the finish line.

Some of the earlier finishers. While there were fewer spectators downtown than a dry Bix, I was impressed with how many people came out to support the runners.

This is an angle you don't see too much, which is the Quick Bix runners coming down Perry Street to an early finish. I've done the 2 mile version a couple times, and its always pretty deserted spectator-wise once you turn off of the main route. It does ensure that you get to the post-race party while the good snacks are still available though, and you don't get that "Why do I do this?" feeling that you do coming back on Kirkwood...

Saturday Morning in July

2010-07-17T10:30:00.001-05:00

I was out and about downtown this morning, and got a few photos. The Freight House Farmer's Market was packed even more than usual, but I've found there's not a great vantage point to take pictures of its success. The Florian Keen lot was full, the Freight House lot was full, people were parking under the Centennial Bridge, and the Community Health Care lot was almost full. Clearly someone needs to build some condos or market rate apartments in that area to cash in on that kind of amenity.

Anyway, here are the images:

This new Bix mural looks great.

The new mural at 4th and Pershing. This is on the southeast corner, across from last year's mural on the northwest corner.

Hotel Blackhawk progress. I believe the 3rd level of the new addition is going to be a pool.

Forrest Block Progress! Its so nice to be able to say that, and it will be great for Bix runners to finally see progress next weekend.

Davenport City Staff responds to Wisor's comments about 1125 Jersey Ridge

2010-07-13T15:30:00.004-05:00

CPED has reviewed the email generated by the owner of 1125 Jersey Ridge Road, John Wisor, and offers this response.

Wisor: A historical map of Davenport produced by the HPC does not show the house in a historical neighborhood. It shows it outside the border of a historical neighborhood.

Staff: Maps of this property show the property both in and out of the McClellan Heights Historic District as well as the East Davenport Historic District. The survey maps prepared by City Historian Marlys Svendsen show the property out of the District. Later maps show the property in. Most recently, the City’s Geographic Information System (GIS) shows the boundary matching the original survey boundaries drawn my Ms. Svendsen. In 2009, City Planner Ken Oestreich spoke with Ms. Svendsen and she indicated that is was likely a mistake why the property (as well as 1127 Jersey Ridge Road) were not included in either district. Map is attached.

The definitive measure of a property’s status is its listing on the National Register itself, not if it is shown on a locally produced map.

Wisor: The house was not on any historical register at the time of purchase.

Staff: According to the records of the State of Iowa Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), 1125 Jersey Ridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 1, 1984, as part of the McClellan Heights District designation. See attached.

Wisor: John Wisor did not request it be put on any such register.

Staff: True

Wisor: The HPC took it upon themselves, after a demo request was filed, to nominate the house for historical status.

Staff: The HPC followed the City Code outlined in Section 17.23.120 that requires consideration of landmarking property that is the subject of a demolition request. The HPC denied demolition (April 21, 2009), considered the landmarking and recommended approval (May 12, 2009), and the City Council, by not approving the demolition request, approved landmarking the property on June 24, 2009.

Wisor: The HPC basically took control of the property without any financial consideration.

Staff: The HPC did not take control of the property. The City Council approved landmarking the property, which requires HPC approval of exterior alterations (Certificate of Appropriateness) or demolition. The property owner has not provided any financial information regarding the demolition request. Only financial information has been obtained through public records.

Wisor: The HPC did not consider any financial restoration costs nor did they inspect the property.

Staff: No written estimates have been presented to the HPC and Commissioners have not inspected the property.

Wisor: The historical aspects of the house are disputable as is its architectural significance to the area.

Staff: The survey prepared by Marlys Svendsen, affirmed by SHPO, determined the property to be a “contributing” structure.

Wisor: The property was purchased with the intention of tearing it down and building new. The condition of the property at the time of purchase was uninhabitable with burst water pipes, rotted-out soffits, siding, and a leaking roof. The previous owners accepted an offer that was $40K less than they paid just three year prior.

Staff: Property records show the house bought by a previous owner for $145,000 on 5-22-07 and sold to Wisor Village, LLC for $105,000 on 8-9-07.

Wisor: The offer was to purchase "as is" because of the neglected, deteriorated condition of the house. John Wisor stated at the time of the first demo refusal that it was cost prohibitive to put any money into the house and he was not interested in restoring the house or converting it to rental property. John Wisor put the house up for sale after the first demo request was denied but never received any offers to purchase. An offer to purchase is a signed contract AND earnest money (very important) - not a verbal request to purchase.

Staff: Staff cannot verify these statements.

Wisor: The city Community Service Division ordered expensive repairs in order to maintain its "rental" status in April 2010.

Staff: A Notice and Order was mailed to the owner on April 23, 2010 and is attached. The cost of repair was not included in the report.

Wisor: There was a construction accident on June 3, 2010 which damaged the foundation.

Staff: The property sustained damage on June 3, 2010.

Wisor: There is no criminal investigation related to this incident and John Wisor nor his contractors have ever been contacted or interviewed by the police regarding this issue.

Staff: The afternoon of June 4, CPD patrol officers canvassed the area and took statements of potential witnesses to determine if any crimes had been committed and preserve recollections while they are still fresh. Wisor did speak to officers at the scene on June 4, 2010 and indicated the house was damaged due to a construction accident.

After the initial canvassing by patrol, it was referred for follow up within the DPD to the detective bureau. At this point potential, appropriate charges would have been considered and any necessary follow up interviews would have been conducted depending upon whether any potential, appropriate criminal charges existed. Hence, Wisor and the construction folk(s) have not been interviewed by detectives. Since any appropriate charges would be by civil municipal infraction at this point, the investigation has been turned over to CPED's zoning enforcement division for follow up. CPED Staff and the Legal Department are determining next steps at this time.

Wisor: A licensed structural engineer produced a report on June 4, 2010 stating that the house is structurally unsound, unsafe, and should be taken down.

Staff: Quoting from the last paragraph of the Engineering Report by Chris Townsend: “It is my professional opinion that the structural capacity of the foundation and the framing system has been compromised and the house is no longer satisfactory. It is also my professional opinion that reconstructing this structure is not economically feasible due to the extent of demolition and reconstruction that is necessary to realign the foundation and framing.” See attached.

Wisor: The new house was designed with the cooperation of city staff and meets all city design criteria created for the Village of East Davenport.

Staff: City staff did work with the owner to assist him in designing a house that meets the requirements in the RIDO, Residential Infill Design Overlay District. Staff recommended to the Design Review Committee (DRC) of the Plan and Zoning Commission the design (attached) be approved conditioned upon the demolition being allowed to proceed. The DRC tabled the request to approve the design until the demolition question was answered.

The HPC and DRC are independent of each other and it is staff’s opinion that the DRC can and should have taken action without waiting until the HPC had determined the demotion status.

Wisor: The spray painting of the house is meant to show how out-of-control the situation is and to trivialize a few neighbors attempts to sway public opinion. The costs of restoring the house are not feasible or practical.

Staff: Comments from the author, no City response.

Wisor: Realistic Solutions for the HPC:

Target worthwhile properties. Start by selecting a hand-full of significant properties which can be managed and hold fund raisers to raise money to maintain the properties. Saving properties requires real hard work. The old Fire House in the Village could be a good place to start and could be turned into a community meeting place for historic preservationists. Do not label properties "historic" without the consent on the owner. Keep an open mind when evaluating properties for the historic value of the property. Cooperation is required from the owner since the building materials required to repair the building will not suddenly drop from the sky and attach itself to a building. The Palmer historic house sat vacant for 13 years without any repair or materials dropping from the sky.

Staff: Comments from the author, no City response.

Prepared by:

Matthew G. Flynn, AICP

Senior Planning Manager/Staff Liaison to the Historic Preservation Commission

City of Davenport

Attachments:

1125 Jersey Ridge Attachments -Various attachments, including historic district maps, photos of damage

Staff report with attachments -The Residential Infill Design Staff comments on the potential new structure

Eastern Branch Library Grand Opening Images

2010-07-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning was the grand opening of the Eastern Avenue branch of the Davenport Public Library. It felt a lot like the West side's Fairmount Street branch grand opening from 4 and a half years ago, including huge crowds that greatly exceeded the local parking capacity. If there's one place I don't mind parking problems, its at a packed grand opening of a long-awaited public library.

Not only was the library's parking lot full, but all of the streets of Prairie Heights were full, and people were parking blocks away on the shoulder of Eastern. Its no wonder the library referendum passed back in 2003.

The entire library bears a lot of similarity to the Fairmount Street branch, with some updates, including the LEED certification, and relocated cafe/bookstore.

This is the fancy new automated book sorter. Its supposed to free up librarian time for more useful and human-requiring tasks.

I didn't take too many pictures of the exterior yesterday, but I'll get back out there soon and get an assortment of angles of the building.

Its great to have a branch back on the east side, and hopefully this new library will help the continuing build-out of Prairie Heights. Its a beautiful facility that the city should be proud of.

New Davenport Library Branch Opens Today!

2010-07-10T07:55:00.001-05:00

Don't forget about the Eastern Avenue branch library grand opening today.

Here's a link to the schedule of events.

July 3rd Images

2010-07-04T07:36:00.001-05:00

I'm trying to get back into blogging again, and it helps to have summer event pictures to post. I should have some images from last weekend's air show posted in the next few days, along with a rant-type post about the things that have made me mad enough to get back into blogging.

For today, here are some images from July 3rd in the QC.

Most of these are from yesterday's grand opening of Schwiebert Riverfront Park in Rock Island, which replaces the former site of Casino Rock Island, and the site of the now-demolished Rock Island Armory. While I feel that Davenport's riverfront as a whole is better and much bigger, I will say that Rock Island's first real downtown riverfront park is densely packed with great features. There's more neat stuff per square foot than probably any park in the QC.As soon as the ribbon was cut, the entire park was flooded with people.

The Midwest's first "electronic playground" which has stuff like buttons that light up different colors so kids can play a version of capture the flag by trying to light up all the other team's buttons while defending theirs, and a bunch more games that nobody could figure out. I wish they had this kind of stuff when I was a kid, and I'm especially glad to see cities putting real playgrounds in again instead of some of the junk they built in the 90's.

Rock Island has realized that it makes no sense to block off all view of the river 100% of the time when it only floods about 1% of the time. Removable gates can be dropped into place between the pillars to create a flood wall only when needed.

There were of course, a lot of speeches. The riverfront promenade offers views that haven't been seen by anyone in all the decades that the armory occupied the space. Now if only we could get the casino off OUR riverfront...

Speaking of Davenport's riverfront, we also attended Red, White and Boom, which was hugely popular due to the good marketing, beautiful evening, and Saturday night timing. I'm sure this blew through all records that the Blues Fest had ever set before, and I'd bet that they made up all the money they lost on admission fees in concession sales. The lines were 20-30 minutes long, so clearly they needed even more vendors (and bathrooms).

The fireworks were great too, but my camera doesn't do them justice whatsoever, so you'll have to use your imagination. Or Flickr. Also, thanks to all loyal QCI-readers that still check on this blog despite its long hiatus.

Coming soon...

2010-06-28T08:30:00.002-05:00

The return of this blog.

Tonight: New riverfront park planning session

2010-04-27T06:20:00.001-05:00

As you may have read in yesterday's QCTimes article, there will be a public planning session tonight in what the city calls the "East Industrial Park" area of the riverfront, near 4th and River Drive. The city is trying to decide what to do with the land formerly (and currently) occupied by Builders and River Gulf Grain. Even if you don't think anything should be done there, you should show up and share your opinion. If you just sit at home and complain on the QCTimes comments, don't be surprised when the people who do show up decide something you don't like.

The session is at 5:30PM.

Phil Yerington writes the worst letter to the editor of all time

2010-04-15T06:56:00.002-05:00

Its almost like reading The Onion... but here it is:

Davenport vs. Bettendorf: Who's the snob? -QCTimes

Apparently this guy that thought he should be the Mayor of Davenport also thinks its the worst place in the world, and is in love with Bettendorf. Its really pretty hard to find a sentence in his letter that doesn't have some piece of false information or silliness in it.

-Bettendorf's 2 year old convention center is nicer than davenport's 20+ year old one? No way!
-The Isle of Capri in Yerington's world is a 5 star hotel? Apparently he hasn't stayed in many hotels.
-He rags on each piece of River Renaissance, which he spearheaded! Has he had a lobotomy? -The skybridge was in the original proposal for River Renaissance, but to him its silly now.

Does this guy know that there's this thing called Google, where we can look up his past actions and statements if we've somehow forgotten them all as he has?

With this letter he's actually making the "water fluoridation conspiracy" guy look like a better candidate for Mayor.

April Fool's Day Open Thread

2010-04-01T07:50:00.003-05:00

Well, I didn't come up with an attempt at April 1st humor this year. Feel free to insert your own. The Good Friday vs Spring Holiday battle serves as a pretty good joke in itself, really... Just goes to show that we don't have the exciting stuff to argue about anymore.

I hope to put a few images from the WIU:QC groundbreaking up later today, unless I end up enjoying the beautiful weather. Winter might be my favorite season, but I'm still always happy when its over.

News News News

2010-03-31T08:09:00.000-05:00

Aside from the news that I'm actually posting something, there were a lot of interesting things in the news today.

First, has got to be the crime wave we're currently suffering through. By my count the QC has had 4 people killed in the last week, and that's terrible. Last night's shootings and the ensuing chaos at both hospitals, combined with the 2 fatal stabbings over the weekend, seem to bode badly for this summer being a quiet one.

In downtown Davenport news, we have an article in the QCTimes and a Downtown Davenport Facebook update both revealing that Restoration St. Louis has finally begun work on the interior of the Forrest Block building. The article mentions early next year as a completion time, so it will be interesting to see if they get to keep all their incentives and such. This article also says that the Blackhawk should be done yet this year.

Today is WIU:QC's groundbreaking. After reading about Deere donating the riverfront land to the school while I was still attending the Macomb campus, it seems like its been an eternity to get to this point. I'm hoping to attend, and the weather should definitely cooperate. If you're interested in witnessing the historic moment, the event starts at 1PM, with parking and shuttle available at the iWireless Center. Hopefully I'll have some pictures later.

I'm happy to see that some are pushing for RAGBRAI to return to the Iowa QC, or even Davenport itself. Considering the few hotels in LeClaire, you have to figure that most of the people stayed in Davenport and Bettendorf in 2008, so obviously we can handle both that and the Bix. It would be a heck of a celebration downtown, that's for sure.

Airport News:
Demolition starts renaissance for municipal airport -QCTimes

Quad City Air Show 2010's website is now up. It looks like no Blue Angels or Thunderbirds this year, but instead we'll have what's shaping up to be a huge collection of WWII warbirds. Hopefully along with the Tora Tora Tora display they can bring back the pyrotechnics that have been lacking the last few years.

St. Patrick's Day Parade Images

2010-03-13T13:51:00.006-06:00

Here are a few shots from today's parade. The weather was better than some years, worse than others. Overcast, misty, almost Irish weather...

Third Street, before the parade.

You never know what you're going to see in a QC St. Patrick's Day Parade. Irish Santa, and the weinermobile made appearances today.

And the parade joins into the 3rd Street bar area festivities. This block, at this exact hour of the year, has got to be one of the liveliest places in the QC.

Menards Update

2010-03-09T09:40:00.003-06:00

It turns out that the QCTimes articles about the Menards dark store agreement were a bit inaccurate. This article said, "Worried that the 53rd Street store would sit empty and be an eyesore for months or years, Davenport aldermen demanded the company have a buyer or renter for its existing store before starting construction on the $15 million project." When I read that, I thought that it wasn't how I remembered it. There are indeed requirements, but none of them explicitly disallow Menards from building their new store before finding a new use for the old one.

Here's a PDF that you can download of the actual agreement from both 2005 and 2007. The first one was regarding Menards potentially moving to Elmore, and the second one has to do with the site on North Brady.

Download the actual pdf here:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ioytzmigjyr/Menard's DarkStore Agreement.pdf

Menards and Museums

2010-03-08T08:47:00.002-06:00

Davenport may kill Menards 'dark store' deal to spark construction -QCTimes

As someone mentioned in the comments earlier, the council is considering changing their mind. Shawn "Property Rights, sometimes" Hamerlinck helped pass a set of requirements having to do with the current Menards in order to rezone their future site near the intersection of Brady and 65th. At the time, there were a number of potential businesses going in out in that area, and the economy was humming right along. Now, a couple years later, things are a bit different. It appears that much of the council is willing to have an empty Menards on 53rd in exchange for a larger Menards spurring development in a new corridor and providing construction jobs. I don't know that they're wrong, but I do worry about the old Menards sitting empty for a long, long time. I can think of one possible use, but I'll do a post on that later.

Deal with city, schools creates a short-term boost for Putnam -QCTimes

This one gets pretty complicated, but the end result is the Parks and Rec department moving out of the old Davenport Museum of Art building, the Putnam giving up their claim to the building, and the Davenport Community School District preschool program moving into it from the former Eagles near the Fairgrounds. Having a school as part of the "museum campus" makes perfect sense, and in an ideal world the Putnam board can bring in some new tenants to their buildings downtown before using up the 3 year influx of money. We'll see. My main concern is with the Putnam in the future. If they do manage to turn things around and somehow have plenty of money again, where are they ever able to expand to in the future? They had always hoped to be able to expand into the former DMA building, but never had the cash. With this deal, that option goes away. I always hate to see the QC sell the future short during present difficulties. It does explain the sudden interest in the Parks department moving into the River's Edge (QCSC) building on the riverfront though. I wonder where the Community Services Division will go?

Blogging will resume shortly

2010-03-01T08:26:00.005-06:00

I have fallen into my usual late winter slump. If I were Wundram, I would have flown off to somewhere interesting. I didn't. I should get back to normal QC-related stuff soon. First though, something completely different.

In the spirit of the just-finished Canadian Olympics, here's a video of a lady that has to be one of the neatest mayors in North America. She's 89 years old, and has been the mayor of Mississauga, Ontario for the last 31 years. I'd vote for her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY79KbCptTo

I know these widescreen YouTube videos kind of break the blog formatting, so I'll turn it into a link later today. (FIXED)

Dispatch Tax Stuff

2010-02-15T16:36:00.004-06:00

Some people in the comments on the previous post are starting a discussion on the city's decision not to lower taxes to make up for the county's new emergency dispatch center tax. I certainly haven't denied that the county taking over taxing for dispatch services and the city not lowering their taxes is a tax increase. Its just that we've known about it for years, despite what some people are claiming.

Here's a QCTimes article from 2007 talking about how they plan to use money saved by the (2009, ha!) opening of the consolidated dispatching center to hire front desk clerks for the police station. So you can see that at least 2 and a half years ago the city knew that they were going to be keeping at least some of the tax money currently spent on dispatching.

Sometimes unpopular things are the right thing to do. The article in today's Times about the AA bond rating is really a final verdict on the unpopular stormwater fee. If the council hadn't passed that "budget-fixing fee" a few years ago, the city budget would be in far worse shape. Instead, we've gone a number of years without the threat of police layoffs that used to be an annual event. So yes, taxes and fees in Davenport have been slowly rising over the last decade, but so has the quality of life. If we can keep making Davenport a better place to live, we should start gaining enough residents to spread the future costs out over more people, and keep taxes and fees steady.

Refresh the Hilltop and more riverfront meetings

2010-02-03T08:31:00.004-06:00

A couple things about the Hilltop Campus Village.

In the paper today, the Aldi and former Walgreens on Brady will be demolished, and replaced with a larger, nicer Aldi. The one out at 53rd and Elmore certainly has a different feeling than most Aldis or Save-A-Lots that I've been in. I'm sure city staff are trying valiently to convince them to build a non-suburban style store. It didn't work with Walgreens, so we'll see if it does with Aldi.

In the "thinking outside the box" category, the Hilltop district is competing in the Pepsi Refresh Project. This project consists of a Pepsi promotion to give away millions of dollars to good causes, based on people voting for their favorites. Hilltop is asking for $25,000 to buy metal trash bins to put around the neighborhood with the Hilltop logo on them. The top 10 projects seeking $25k get the money, and right now we're 96th. You can vote each day, and the contest ends at the end of the month. Vote for Hilltop here! I've probably spent that on Pepsi over my lifetime anyway...

And the other thing is an upcoming meeting. Here's what the city has to say about it:

The Levee Improvement Commission, Davenport Parks and Recreation and the Design Center want to know your ideas for developing the East Industrial Area (along the Mississippi River just up river from the Government Bridge).
Join us on Monday, February 8th from 5 - 7 PM in the Film Room at the Main Street Library in downtown Davenport for an Open House as we kick-off the planning process.
Be a part of history!

I kind of liked the suggestion that a casino take over the Clayton House/Clarion/HoJo/eyesore property and be connected via pedestrian bridge across River Drive to a restaurant and plaza along the river. There would still be a lot of room upstream for more uses if that happened, which seems about 1% likely anyway. I plan to go to the meeting and see what's happening. These are where these things are decided, after all, not the smoky back rooms that the negative folks picture.

Anti-Bettendorf Rant

2010-01-26T08:06:00.001-06:00

The thing that got me thinking about this again was this QCTimes editorial about the QC Sports Center, believe it or not. What really got my goat was this 15+ year old quote:

“Where do we draw the line?” former Bettendorf alderman Joe Douglas said in a 1994 council meeting. “I’m not sure we should be bankrolling the facility. There are many types of projects that benefit the Quad-Cities as a whole. Each city funds these projects on their own without funding from other cities.”

Yes... each city provides things that benefit the QC as a whole. Or at least, that's how it should work. In reality, what does Bettendorf bring to the table? I count a total of one QC-wide amenity, which is the Family Museum. I'm not talking things like libraries and parks, which all of the QCs provide, but metro-wide amenities like the Figge, Botanical Center, or iWireless Center.

Bettendorf is around 1/3rd the size of Davenport, and 3/4 the size of each of the cities of Rock Island and Moline. Does anyone believe that Bettendorf provides 1/3rd as many QC amenities as Davenport, or 3/4 as many of the amenities as Rock Island or Moline provide? This doesn't stop them from using all of the culture and amenities that the QC has to offer to market to and attract residents to Bettendorf, of course.

Then there's the additional factor of Bettendorf having a meager fire department and relying on Davenport's help for anything larger than a dumpster fire. I'd imagine it would also cost Bettendorf quite a bit to build their own Sewer Treatment Plant rather than using Davenport's. So they take advantage of these things provided to them by their larger neighbor, which allows them to keep their taxes low, which they then use as a selling point when luring away Davenport's residents.

I suppose the main thing that bothers me is that Bettendorf is essentially leeching off of Davenport. Their "Premiere" city could not keep its taxes low and provide the quality of life that many of its citizens want without Davenport. Yet on the other side of the coin, Davenport would actually be in much better shape without Bettendorf siphoning off Davenport's wealthier citizens and potential residents.

Bettendorf wouldn't be as good without Davenport.
Davenport would be better without Bettendorf.
Maybe they should change the name of their tiny riverfront recreation area to Leech Park.

2 Links Open Thread

2010-01-22T07:39:00.002-06:00

A couple quick things this morning:

As the blurb in the QCTimes mentioned, the Quad Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau has redone their website again. It looks really good and has a ton of great info, but my favorite part is the "Ask a question" section where you can type in a question about the QC and they do their best to answer it. There's also an archive of some of the questions asked, and their answers. Its always interesting to see what outsiders want to know about the Quad Cities.

The other thing is the new Facebook page for the Hilltop Campus Village. There's alsoa website, but its in its very early stages and still being worked on. So if you're on Facebook, and support the Hilltop area of Davenport, please become a fan.

Other than that, open thread.

A few more downtown images

2010-01-14T09:18:00.008-06:00

The Blackhawk Hotel renovation is coming along, including all new windows. Anyone know whether they're going to stay white or be painted?

The new 7th Judicial District building towering over the current one, and downtown's (relatively) new Crescent Cleaners location.

I've always loved both the law offices just east of Brady, and this huge residence on East 6th Street. Hopefully with Palmer's growth, the Crescent Warehouse District, and the CityView nearby, this neighborhood just north of downtown can really take off as well. There are certainly plenty of potential infill locations. I've already heard a rumor of a new eating establishment coming to Brady.

A different view of downtown, mostly featuring the Blackhawk and MidAmerican buildings.

Forrest Block Progress!

2010-01-13T10:15:00.003-06:00

Never have I been so happy to see a building get boarded up. Its not usually a step forward, but in this case it takes the Forrest Block building from bombed out post-WWII Germany to merely 2000's Detroit abandoned building. Now the building is at least shielded from the elements, and hopefully real progress will start being made. I took a few more pictures this morning, but I'll save those images for tomorrow.

2010 New Year's Wish Lists

2010-01-02T08:44:00.005-06:00

Over the years I've been writing this blog, I've occasionally come out with a list of New Year's wishes for the Quad Cities. Other years I intended to, but never got it done. For reference, here are 2006 and 2008's wish lists. Apparently this is an even year tradition. So, here we go with the 2010 Quad City Images New Year's Wish List. In the past I've done a small number of more ambitious wishes, so this year I'm going to change it up and do a list of things, both probable and improbable.

In no particular order:

-WIU QC's riverfront campus makes good progress
-Amtrak to the QC begins construction
-The Forrest Block stays on track the rest of the way out
-Downtown Moline's Kone Centre begins construction
-Davenport finds a new casino operator willing to invest in downtown
-The Blackhawk Hotel continues its redevelopment into one of the highlights of downtown Davenport
-A new mixed-use building is announced for downtown Davenport
-Another major downtown residential renovation somewhere in the QC
-Continued progress on Prairie Heights, including the new library
-A (relatively) problem free construction season for the sewer tunnel
-Davenport and the QC surprise many with a big 2010 census population increase
-More money comes in for the new I-74 bridge
-A new employer brings 500+ new jobs to the metro area
-The (slightly) new council continues being professional and productive
-All this snow doesn't cause major spring flooding
-A continuing decrease in crime
-Non-stop flights to Phoenix from QCI Airport
-Dave and Busters comes to the QC! (unlikely)
-Davenport and Rock Island host a riverfront New Year's part for 2011
-Calm and logical debate about Davenport's one way street decisions
-No more big layoffs or closings
-Better marketing and positive national exposure for the Quad Cities
-That I don't take a month off from blogging next year!

That's it for this year. If I missed anything major I'll add it later. Feel free to add your own wish lists in the comments.

Old News: River Gulf, Blackhawk, Farmers Market

2009-12-14T08:19:00.000-06:00

There were a few things I wanted to say about some news that happened over the last few weeks, so here goes:

River Gulf says latest extension will be the last -QCTimes

This debate definitely has two sides. On one hand, the River Gulf operation is certainly an eyesore, and like many of the late Bernie Goldstein's operations, it seems to enjoy screwing over the city of Davenport. The city owns the land, yet the property rights folks aren't coming out in droves to argue with people saying the city has no business not renewing their lease! Its almost like they only believe in that stuff when it suits them...

Anyway, on the other side you have the fact that Davenport only developed in the first place because of riverfront industry. I actually wrote a letter to the editor years ago defending the idea of industry on the riverfront unless Davenport had a better use in mind. The annoying harping by the biased QCTimes isn't helping either. The thing I find most humorous about the QCTimes complaining, is that I can imagine a situation where 10 years down the line their building is the ugliest thing within 10 blocks and all the new downtown residents start asking why they need this newspaper warehouse taking up prime land so near the riverfront.

So now it seems that Davenport officials actually are trying to redevelop the east fringe of downtown, so there's a little more reason for River Gulf to get the boot. The Levee Commission was picked by our elected officials to make these kinds of decisions, and if they do anything too crazy, those that appointed them will not be reelected. River Gulf has been anything but honorable or cooperative in this entire process, so I've lost a lot of sympathy for their plight. I just hope that come next spring they don't trot out another tired reason that their move is behind schedule (spring floods, anyone?) and try to extend their lease yet again.

Davenport Club returns — sort of -QCTimes

I was very happy to read this article. Everything I had been reading about the Blackhawk restoration made it sound like the top floor would be used for apartments. I was hoping it could still be some kind of restaurant, and now it sounds like that will be the case after all. Just like many older people have memories of the Davenport Club, I have memories of my Senior Prom dinner at High Notes, which was the later, public incarnation of the Davenport Club. Even though a lot of the view is blocked by the MidAmerican Building, I'm still glad that this neat space will be a public space rather than apartments. I would hope that they'll keep the glass elevator as well. This project is going to be a huge thing for downtown Davenport.

Farmer's market request space on riverfront -QCTimes

This one is pretty funny. The childish folks that run the Mall Parking Lot Farmer's Market want to come back to the riverfront. They refused to even be adjacent to the Freight House Farmer's Market because they don't follow the same rules about where vendors can get their food. So they moved to the mall, which is pretty much the exact opposite entity from a Farmer's Market in the first place. While the Freight House Farmer's Market was more successful than ever this summer, the Mall Parking Lot Market... wasn't.

I would compare this a bunch of kids playing basketball. Three of the kids decide they don't like the rules being used, so they storm off to play X-Box instead. They look out the window and see that the game they've left looks fun, and has lots of spectators now. They head out to play again, but instead of owning up to their mistake and asking to rejoin the game, they start a game of 2-on-1 on the next court over, which everyone ignores. The folks who were too snobby to even be near the Freight House folks need to swallow their pride, and merge with the Freight House Farmer's Market. Downtown and the riverfront doesn't need a 2nd farmer's market causing the same parking traffic-vs-pedestrian problems that started all of these changes in the first place.

Snow Day Open Thread

2009-12-09T09:20:00.005-06:00

Even though the weather and roads in town aren't too bad, kids mostly get the day off today. It sounds like things out in the country are getting pretty crazy.

Here are a few images from Vander Veer Park this morning:

Eleventy Billion Jobs to Bettendorf: Just sign here!

2009-12-02T07:31:00.009-06:00

We have a new winner in the category of "Most ridiculously overblown development hyping":

Advocates ask Bettendorf to invest $4.3 M in I-80 development -QCTimes

"Seeing an opportunity to create thousands of new jobs, millions of square feet of office and retail space and as many as 10,000 new housing units, the Bettendorf Development Corporation has agreed to ante up $500,000 to expand water and sewer lines to Interstate 80 and Middle Road if the city invests $4.3 million in the project.

Rob Fick, president of the private, non-profit community development organization, and developer Kevin Kellner, who also is a member of the group, told the Bettendorf City Council it is essential to invest a total of $6.8 million worth of improvements to attract high-tech companies in economic sectors such as insurance, health care, finance, multi-nationals and graphic production.

Van Dyke said the project is ripe for grant money because it will create up to 16,500 new office jobs. “The whole crisis with the state is about income tax. Creating new employment creates income tax and helps solve the problem.”

I wonder why they stopped at 16,500 jobs? Were 17,000 or 20,000 just too silly? And 10,000 new housing units also seems like a lowball estimate. Surely if all of these acres were covered by 60 story buildings they could fit way more jobs and residential units in than that. After all, the location has such a beautiful view of... nothing, and quick access to the same interstate that every other business/commerce park in the Iowa QC already offers... All it takes a little sprucing up and multinationals will be beating down Bettendorf's door.

This relegates the previous champion of great expectations , former Alderwoman Howard's claim that the Freight House Farmer's Market would create $50+ million in surrounding development, to a distant second place.

Niky Bowles's "best development ever" is sadly knocked down to third place.

Black and Blue Saturday? Not in the QC

2009-11-28T08:07:00.002-06:00

While the surplus commercial materialism of "Black Friday" can be over the top at times, I've always looked at the sales as an adventure. Since I'm normally awake all night anyway its no big deal to go out at 5:30 in the morning. Sam's has their free breakfast, although they ran out way too early this year, and there are usually some good deals on DVDs and such. Target had a great deal on LED Christmas lights, but they really need to figure out a better way to get people through the checkout lanes there. The good thing is that I didn't see any fighting, yelling, or any of the other stuff you always hear about in relation to yesterday's events. People in line at Target were talking about where they found various items, which lines were fastest, and random chit chat. I wasn't out for any store openings, so maybe that's where all the trouble is. By the time we stopped by Wal Mart they were out of about everything from their ad, and the store was practically empty.

So whether I wasn't out at the right time to see it, or if there just wasn't any, I certainly didn't see any trouble between our fellow Quad Citians during the shopping madness. I haven't read much in the national news about any incidents, so hopefully people have learned to take a more relaxed attitude towards Christmas shopping. Its the only way to have a good time.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T08:20:00.005-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving
From the Quad City Images Blog

2009 Festival of Trees Parade Images

2009-11-22T09:01:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was another beautiful day for the annual Festival of Trees Parade. We went in to the actual Festival of Trees as well, which I hadn't done in quite a while. It was kind of surreal looking at Christmas trees and decorations while a dance troupe was performing to Britney and Janet Jackson pop songs, but it was still a fun time. The only negative thing was that the MidAmerican garage parking system was not working correctly at all. When I went in to park the gates were up, so I figured it was either "$2 event parking" as you leave, or free parking. When we left the parking attendant asked what time we came in, and charged accordingly. Pretty strange, and pretty unfair to those who figured gates up meant free parking as it usually does. Oh well, one problem certainly doesn't ruin a great day and a great event. It seemed like an even larger turnout than usual.

Here's the pictures:

Saturday Morning Assortment

2009-11-20T07:27:00.000-06:00

Lots of stuff going on today, including the Holiday Parade, Holiday Pops Concert, and the Wine-to-Water fundraiser. The Midwest Trains HO Model Railroading Club is also having an open house at their location in Bettendorf. There's plenty more going on, so check out your favorite community calendar. I should have some pictures from some of these later.

Other than all the stuff going on this weekend, there's been some stuff going on this week as well.

I got an email saying that the typo in the casino cover letter available below was only in an early draft, and was corrected before the final printing of the brochures that were handed out in Vegas. I figured this was probably the case, because the boldface type made it pretty obvious.

The former strip club on Welcome Way is suing the city for not allowing them to break the law and locate two adult businesses so close to each other. Mike Meloy, of course, is the lawyer for the plaintiff. Does he do anything else but represent people suing the city?

River Gulf Grain wants yet another extension on their riverfront lease. I'm not sure where they think they'll get any credibility, considering that they've yet to live up to a single promise or agreement they've made with the city. I'd be fine if the city just turned down their extension request, but if they're going to "work with them" (get taken advantage of by them) then I hope they at least make it cost them this time. If they're late next time, $10,000 a day doesn't seem unreasonable. After all, if the river floods next spring they'll insist they need to stay open until Fall 2010...

More Images! Hilltop District Conceptual Drawings

2009-11-19T08:19:00.013-06:00

I'm involved with the Hilltop Campus Village project, which is part of Main Street Iowa's Urban Neighborhood District program. Basically the idea is to inject new life and create more of a campustown feel in the general area between Ripley and Perry, and between 5th and Locust. As part of this process, the Iowa Department of Economic Development paid a Design Consultant to draw up some conceptual drawings of some potential facade improvements along the corridor. Here are five of them (one has two angles), and I think they all look good. Hopefully we see some real progress on this. One of the things that I like about these suggestions is that few of them would require very large expenditures, yet all of them together would make quite an impact on the Hilltop District.

As always, click on the images for a closer look.

Casino operator-attracting brochure images

2009-11-17T20:05:00.012-06:00

Here is some of the stuff that is apparently being handed out at the gaming convention in Las Vegas in order to attract a new operator for Davenport's gaming license.

Also, the brochure and cover letter can be downloaded here and here.

All in for a new casino operator

2009-11-17T08:43:00.006-06:00

City leaders in Las Vegas to pitch Davenport's gaming license -QCTimes

Finally some progress on the effort to boot IOC out of Davenport and get a casino operator that actually maximizes the revenue from Davenport's gaming license. That is, I believe, the official requirement for the Riverboat Development Authority, and it isn't at all happening right now. When a casino operator admits publicly that your city is their secondary operation in the metro area, that is not maximizing revenue. When a casino operator closes more features of your city's casino every year, that is not maximizing revenue. When a casino operator signs an agreement to build a new hotel, give up parking lots, and tear down an eyesore abandoned restaurant, but doesn't do any of that, that's not maximizing anything for Davenport except riverfront ugliness.

Here's hoping the city will find someone interested in investing $150M or so in exchange for the right to have people willing show up to lose their money. Its not exactly a tough business to make a profit in. Out of the 3 locations suggested in the brochure, I like either the current site of the Ground Transportation Center, or the underused green space next to the River Center on 2nd Street. The current site of the abandoned Howard Johnson motel is good too, but its too disconnected from the downtown core. Maybe a certain City Administrator will provide us with a pdf file of the brochure to peruse. Anyway, good luck to the guys down in Vegas. The Mayor's been hinting at big plans for the casino for years now, so it'd be nice to see some real action.

Tomorrow: Hilltop District Conceptual Renderings

Friday Morning Assortment

2009-11-13T07:25:00.003-06:00

Just a few random tidbits today.

If you didn't notice the blurb in the QCTimes, the new Crescent Cleaners in the tiny former gas station, former burger joint building at 4th and Iowa is now open. This should provide downtown residents and employees both with a convenient downtown option for one of their day-to-day services.

The railroad embankment brush-clearing continues even outside of downtown. I'm not sure if this is a project by the railroad at this point, or still a city thing. On one hand, the volunteer trees are basically just giant weeds, but sometimes what's behind them isn't much better to look at. It does make for fewer hiding spots for homeless camps, however.

The building at Rusholme and Arlington that used to house Cottage Corner is currently being demolished to make way for, from what I've heard, more parking for St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church. This building was really in disrepair, but it seems like something different could have been done other than a parking lot. From watching some of these churches over the last year you'd think the biggest problem facing religion in America today is insufficient parking.

Work on the Harrison Hilltop Neighborhood continues. There are some conceptual renderings for a few potential facade improvements floating around. The one for the Harrison Hilltop Theatre can be found on their Facebook page, and I'm hoping to get a few more to post on the blog.

As someone pointed out in the comments on my last post, the downtown bar and grill Sippis has apparently closed for the Winter. They seemed to always have a good crowd out on the patio whenever I was downtown this summer, so I was surprised to see this. Maybe there was more market for the outdoor dining than the indoor. Either way, I hope they return in the Spring.

And here's a picture of the progress on the 7th Judicial District building between Main and Brady Streets. Looks like they got the exterior work done in time to beat the snow.

Someone extra happy about free yardwaste collection

2009-11-09T08:04:00.001-06:00

Sorry about the lack of posts, but I've been enjoying this July weather we're having in November. Here's a house that got some serious raking done this week. I count at least 50 bags in this picture, which would cost quite a fortune to dispose of at $1.60 a bag during non-free yard waste collection weeks. Folks in Rock Island that are still complaining about free collection with free paper bags don't know how good they have it.

2009 City of Davenport Election Numbers

2009-11-04T08:03:00.001-06:00

Here are all the results, even for uncontested races. The percentages are of those people correctly casting votes, and the undervotes are those people who did not select a candidate for the position. The number of voters who filled out ballots for each race is listed as well. My amateur analysis of these numbers will come later.

Mayor (5724 voters)
Bill Gluba 4749 votes, 94.96%
Write-Ins 252 votes, 5.04%
Undervotes: 723

At-Large (5724 voters, 2 votes each)
Jason Gordon 3437 votes, 35.01%
Gene Meeker 3298 votes, 33.60%
Robert Ortiz 1823 votes, 18.57%
Keith Meyer 1207 votes, 12.30%
Write-Ins 51 votes, 0.52%
Undervotes: 1632

1st Ward (467 voters)
Nathan Brown 382 votes,
Write-Ins 28 votes, 6.83%
Undervotes: 57

2nd Ward (682 voters)
Bill Edmond 426 votes, 63.11%
Rick Gaghagen 248 votes, 36.74%
Write-Ins 1 vote, 0.15%
Undervotes: 7

3rd Ward (555 voters)
Bill Boom 364 votes, 66.30%
Paul Vasquez 182 votes, 33.15%
Write-Ins 3 votes, 0.55%
Undervotes: 6

4th Ward (642 voters)
Ray Ambrose 557 votes, 95.54%
Write-Ins 26 votes, 4.46%
Undervotes: 59

5th Ward (812 voters)
Bill Lynn 503 votes, 62.64%
Audra Cornwell 299 votes, 37.24%
Write-Ins 1 vote, 0.12%
Undervotes: 9

6th Ward (1245 voters)
Jeff Justin 1074 votes, 98.08%
Write-Ins 21 votes, 1.92%
Undervotes: 150

7th Ward (736 voters)
Barney Barnhill 578 votes, 93.38%
Write-Ins 41 votes, 6.62%
Undervotes: 117

8th Ward (585 voters)
Mike Matson 497 votes, 97.45%
Write-Ins 13 votes, 2.55%
Undervotes: 75

The Results are In

2009-11-03T21:19:00.002-06:00

The winners of the contested races in the 2009 City of Davenport Election are:

Gene Meeker and Jason Gordon, At-Large

Bill Edmond, 2nd Ward

Bill Boom, 3rd Ward

Bill Lynn, 5th Ward

Vote Today!

2009-11-03T07:14:00.001-06:00

If you live in Davenport, or one of the many other places with elections today, don't forget to stop by your polling place and vote. I'll be doing it in a few minutes here, so those of you who disagree with me had better show up to cancel me out!

Call this an open thread, but also if you've got predictions of who wins and who loses, bring 'em on.

One sure prediction: Gluba, Brown, Ambrose, Justin, Barnhill and Matson will still be in the council chambers next year.

QCI Endorsements: 2009 Edition

2009-10-29T07:37:00.002-05:00

I'm going to try to keep this short, as all of my picks are surely unsurprising to anyone who reads this regularly. I also think that its worth mentioning that the lack of challengers really does send a message that Davenport residents are satisfied with the direction the city is headed. When controversial items like the stormwater fee pop up, everyone wants to run for city council. When things are smooth sailing, people are content to stick with the status quo. Here are my picks, including quick blurbs about the uncontested races as well.

Mayor - Bill Gluba is a bit too much of a politician for my tastes, but he certainly is an enthusiastic cheerleader for Davenport. He deserves reelection.

At-Large - Gene Meeker and Jason Gordon. Meeker has done a good job of being the voice of experience and dignity on the council, so he certainly deserved reelection. Ian Frink has been my favorite Alderman during his time on the council, and I am sorry to see him go. He appointed Jason Gordon to the Parks Commission, and recommended him for city council as well. I'm going to trust Ian and believe that Mr. Gordon will be the most similar successor. Despite the crazy conspiracy theories about his political connections, if he can gain the respect of liberal Shelley, he can't be much of a right wing activist.

1st Ward - Nathan Brown has been a great alderman, both in representing the wishes of his ward, and being open to both sides of the amenity/infrastructure debate.

2nd Ward - I don't really know much about either of these guys. I wish Cooper was running again. For an endorsement, I will go with Bill Edmond, just because he's done a reasonable job during his partial term. I may not agree with some of his votes, but his ward probably does. At least he talks less than Hamerlinck...

3rd Ward - Bill Boom, of course. I've been a Boom supporter for years, and he's done an excellent job in his 2 years on the council. His supposed lack of responding to service request-type issues is more than made up for his big picture and teamwork skills on the council.

4th Ward - Nobody? Ambrose is a product of his time, but that time is the past. Its disapointing that he didn't have a challenger.

5th Ward - Audra Cornwell. I was able to meet her a few weeks ago, and she seems to have a good grasp of the issues facing Davenport. Bill Lynn has been considerably less terrible these past 2 years, but that doesn't eliminate the things he did in the past. Getting rid of the rental inspection department, bringing in slumlord-friendly ordinances, and consistently siding with the anti-downtown crowd aren't signs of a good Alderman. I don't know that his Libertarian agenda truly represents the wishes of the 5th ward.

6th Ward - Even though I sometimes forget his name, Jeff Justin has done a fine job on the council.

7th Ward - Barney Barnhill just keeps hanging in there. His years of experience on the council and good voting record have earned him another term.

8th Ward - Mike Matson, who recently received an award for his work with the ROTC, has been an asset to the council. With the importance of the Arsenal, hopefully his military connections can benefit all of us.

Complete Un-Endorsement: Keith Meyer. While he may well have been one of the best Alderman ever at responding to requests from his constituents about graffiti, potholes, etc, there is a lot more to being on the city council than service requests. Actively working to derail development, constantly speaking negatively about his city, arguing with city staff, and turning the council chambers into a circus are things we do not need from an Alderman. Give him a job tracking down potholes and graffiti throughout the city and maybe we can all be happy.

As far as Predictions, I will take all of my picks except for Cornwell. I hope she wins, but Lynn has been reelected when he deserved to lose too many times already. That will be the race to watch Tuesday, in my opinion.

QCTimes Davenport endorsements are up

2009-10-28T07:56:00.001-05:00

Times endorsements: Davenport Council -QCTimes

Some pretty surprising ones here, including Lynn for 5th Ward and Ortiz for At-Large. I'm planning to put together my endorsements today or tomorrow morning, but I can reveal that I certainly won't be in lockstep with the QCTimes.

Maybe I'll surprise everyone and vote for Keith?

Fall Drive 2009

2009-10-26T05:48:00.006-05:00

I've been busy lately with a lot of stuff, but we managed to get away yesterday for the annual fall drive. Last year was Mississippi Palisades State Park, so this year we headed south to Wildcat Den State Park, and the Pine Creek Grist Mill. Back in 2007 we got there after most of the leaves had fallen, and sadly this year the results were similar, despite going almost 2 weeks earlier. After leaving Wildcat Den we went south through Muscatine, and crossed over to the Illinois side for the return trip, including a swing through Loud Thunder Forest Preserve. In addition to missing the fall colors peak, the cloudy afternoon started to get too dark for photos. Here are the few I took that I felt were worth posting.

Wildcat Den State Park, a perennial fall drive favorite.

The Pine Creek Grist Mill, in Wildcat Den State Park. There's a bit more color than my photo from 2007, but I'm sure things really looked good before all the rain helped bring the leaves down.

Looking downstream from the Grist Mill area.

I'd never been up to the Mark Twain Lookout above Muscatine, and that was definitely worth seeing, but by then it was getting too dim out for good photos. Here's the view, anyway. Maybe I'll dust off PhotoShop and try to brighten some of these up.

I have several posts I'd like to get done this week, including some stuff about the election, the first Mallards game, and the trip to Omaha and South Dakota I took last weekend. We'll see if I get them written and posted!

Google Maps meets the Wayback Machine

2009-10-21T06:51:00.003-05:00

Here is the website that I used to find the 1930 aerial picture of the intersection of Kimberly and Brady seen in the previous post.

Iowa DNR Interactive Map

It works mostly the same way as Google Maps or Mapquest, or even more similarly, the Davenport GIS system that I linked to a while back.

In order to find an old aerial picture of an area, just zoom in on the area, and then over on the left hand side, scroll down to the bottom, check the box for the year you want to see, and uncheck the box for "Air Photography (CIR) 2002." Then click the "Redraw the Map" button and the map will then update with whatever version was chosen. Some of the areas have better photos than others, but overall its a fun tool to play with.

Here's an image of the website, with the area surrounding Vander Veer selected, in 1930. You can see that there was still plenty of farmland south of Duck Creek in those days.

Where in the QC is this? #25

2009-10-15T07:04:00.001-05:00

It feels like I just did one of these, but it turns out #24 was all the way back in July. This one's a little bit different.

(Click on image to enlarge it)

27 Homes not quite on death row

2009-10-12T08:03:00.002-05:00

A few years ago I did a post titled "8 houses on death row," with a list of the 8 homes that the city was forced to hire a contractor to demolish.

This year I'm posting the list, which can also be found here on the city website, of 27 homes that aren't quite slated to be demolished yet. The city published this list, with the following statement:

The following properties are being proposed to be demolished as part of a code enforcement effort by the City of Davenport. The goal of this procedure is to make the public aware of buildings that are being considered for demolition by the City of Davenport in an effort to locate interested investors that are willing to rehab the buildings and return them to code compliant condition and as active, tax producing properties.

As anyone who has seen some of the homes sitting vacant around Davenport knows, it takes quite a bit to get on the demo list. Only 3 of the homes are North of Locust, although that's a similar ratio to the 1 in 8 that were NoLo in my 2006 list. The city link also includes additional info, such as who owns each of the properties, where they live, and how long ago they were last inspected.

And here's the list:

1320 W 3rd St
1412 W 3rd St
421 W 6th St
502 E 7th St
912 W 8th St
314 E 9th St
1012 W 9th St
714 W 13th St (Owned by Scott County??)
1530 W 13th St
533 W 14th St
1408 Christie St
1411 College Av
2416 Davie St
1017 Gaines St
1019 Gaines St
1015 Grand Av
2126 Iowa St
2326 Jackson Av
1609 Judson Av
1222 Leclaire St
1223 E Locust St
1202 S Nevada Av
517 Ripley St
705 Spruce Ct
1223 Ripley St
222 Washington St
1005 Western Av

3rd Ward Primary + Megafault trailer

2009-10-06T09:09:00.002-05:00

In honor of the 3rd Ward Primary today, I've posted a video from the upcoming TV movie Megafault, which was filmed around here. It will be airing on SyFy this Saturday night at 8pm, and definitely includes some local landmarks. In a scene that Keith Meyer or Mark Nelson could only dream about, the trailer shows downtown Davenport crumbling and collapsing during an earthquake.

A few videos about roundabouts

2009-09-30T08:45:00.004-05:00

Since there's a possibility of some roundabouts coming to Davenport in the future, and some people talking about what they are and aren't, I thought I'd post a few videos from the Washington State DOT that do a pretty good job of explaining how they work, why they work, and how to use them. The only example of a roundabout in the QC area that I know of is in Bettendorf at the intersection of Middle Road and 53rd Avenue, seen in the image above. Two of the possible places suggested at the meeting last week in Davenport were the intersections of 46th and Eastern, and 46th and Jersey Ridge. To me, the two biggest pluses of roundabouts are that most people never have to come to a complete stop when going through them, and the hugely decreased chance of a head on or T-bone crash.

Here are a few videos that I think do an excellent job of explaining these intersections (that most Midwesterners are unfamiliar with) in a total of only 5 minutes.

Part one is called "Roundabouts - What they are, and what they aren't"

Part 2 is called "Roundabouts - How do I drive a roundabout?"

And here are links to the last 3 parts:

Part 3: Pedestrians and cyclists

Part 4: Safety benefits

Part 5: What does this mean for me?

Another Des Moines image

2009-09-29T08:27:00.003-05:00

I'm still working on a few posts, but lately I haven't had a lot of time. For now, here's a picture of the State Capitol of Iowa in Des Moines. It was taken from one of the new residential buildings that we toured a couple weeks ago. The foreground view leaves something to be desired, but you can't beat the Capitol view.

A few little things

2009-09-26T11:23:00.005-05:00

Today is the Davenport Public Library's annual book sale at the Main library. It goes until 3pm, and the last hour is $1 per bag of books. Even hardcover. This sale is a yearly event for me, so I managed to spend a few bucks down there this morning. Free parking in the library lot or on the street, and super cheap used books. Can't beat it. I also look forward to having a second Friends Bookstore in the Eastern branch when it opens next year.

After the book sale I stopped down at the Farmer's Market this morning to pick up a tomato, and expected the crowds to be sparse because of the overcast, drizzly weather. Nope, it was packed as always. Every time I visit the market, (especially the indoor portion of it) I think about how those consultants and all the folks who love to hate downtown said that Davenport could never support an indoor, year-round farmer's market. We certainly proved them wrong.

Tonight at 8PM on SyFy, (formerly SciFi channel) the newest version of Children of the Corn will premiere. This was filmed in and around the Iowa Quad Cities, so even though its not really my kind of movie, I'll be watching for local landmarks. Now if they just return the luxury car they bought with our tax credits, we'll really be set. In other movie news, Sugar came out earlier this month on DVD and Blu-Ray. I got a copy because its a great movie regardless of location, but was disappointed that the bonus features don't include a little more info about our beautiful stadium. Its possible the filmmakers had no interest in a little plug for the QC, but I hope someone at least asked.

Enjoy the weekend folks.

Davenport In Motion

2009-09-25T07:03:00.002-05:00

I attended the presentation last night at the Figge about Davenport's transportation master plan. There wasn't a ton of specifics because of how early in the plan they are, but basically Davenport In Motion, as its being called, is a plan for the entire city's transportation (car, bus, bike, on foot, or any other method) and downtown's parking needs. The plan is being done by Nelson\Nygaard along with Jeff Speck, a prominent urban planner.

Check out the QCTimes article here, as it covers a lot of what was said at the presentation. Also, the website for Davenport in Motion can be found here, on the City of Davenport website.

Some of the main topics were the lack of connected streets north of Kimberly, whether all of our one-ways need to stay one-ways, whether some of our streets are too wide for the amount of traffic that actually uses them, and what should be done about downtown parking. While the consultants don't believe that all downtown street parking should be free, they feel that only the most central and popular spaces should be metered, with some on the outskirts being free. As has been mentioned in a number of media outlets, the city will be doing a trial run over the next year. I'm not sure exactly when this will start, but all the meters will be bagged, and most of the downtown core will still be limited to 2 hour parking. I'm not sure if the lot off of Locust is included in this, since its kind of an exception up there.

A lot of the talk about one ways focused on Brady and Harrison, and 3rd and 4th. Basically the consultants recommend turning them all back into 2 way streets, as the current philosophy says that they're better for pedestrian transportation, businesses, and ease of use. It was pointed out that some of the dissatisfaction with parking downtown is caused by the fact that "circling a block" to get a parking space can sometimes mean circling 3 or 4 blocks because of the one-ways. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it does take a lot of extra time for example, to go up to 4th and over to Main instead of just circling one block. Supposedly changing 3rd and 4th back to two-way traffic wouldn't be overly expensive, and the early talk seemed to be that Brady and Harrison could be 2-way at least as far north as Locust. All of this is in the pretty early stages, and I don't think any of the one-way changes would be happening in 2009, although I could be wrong. There was a lot of info packed into the hour presentation, but I'll stop there and suggest looking through the materials available on the website for more information. Also, if there are questions I can do my best to answer them, in between dodging insane personal attacks.

Des Moines Trip Open Thread

2009-09-20T09:55:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I headed over to our capital city for a get together with some folks from AbsoluteDSM. We were able to tour 4 mixed use projects in their East Village area. One of them in particular, e300, I'm particularly jealous of, but that's a topic for another post.

Consider this one an open thread. Its amazing how little discussion of the upcoming elections there has been around here. Primary predictions for the 3rd ward? Incumbent? Libertarian tea enthusiast? West end tree enthusiast?

Hilltop Campus Village meeting thoughts

2009-09-17T20:18:00.002-05:00

Tuesday night was a training session for people interested in helping with the Hilltop area and its inclusion as an Iowa Main Street Urban Neighborhood District. I figured I'd post some of my thoughts on the meeting, but with the caveat that these are my opinions only, and I don't speak for any groups or other people. The idea is to help the Hilltop area (roughly the area from Ripley to Perry, and 5th to Lombard) succeed by creating a campustown type of feel to connect the Palmer and St. Ambrose campuses. This would be done both by using and enhancing what is already there, and hopefully drawing in new development. This area has many strong institutions, from the 2 colleges to the 3 public schools and several churches. There are also a number of existing businesses, United Neighbors, Cumulus radio stations, and KWQC TV station within this area. While the city's proposal to reconfigure Brady and Harrison streets for better pedestrian access has a role in this Campus Village plan, I wouldn't say they are dependent on each other.

There have been several meetings already, but this was the first one I was able to attend. The meeting was led by Terry Poe Buschkamp, and she ran through a general review of what the Main Street Iowa folks expect from each of the Main Street communities. There will be 4 committees, which are Business Improvement, Design, Organization, and Promotion. At this point the main group, which was around 50 people, split into groups by these 4 interests. While I enjoy design and the physical side of redevelopment, I chose to go with the Promotion group. I've seen over the years that letting people know about things (sports teams, events, amenities, businesses) is just as important as the things themselves.

For whatever reason, the Promotion group was the smallest of the 4, with only half a dozen or so of us in there, including representatives from Palmer, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre, QC First, and St. Paul Lutheran Church. Scott Tunnicliff, the executive director of the Campus Village project and Matt Flynn, who was somewhat representing the City of Davenport also stopped in occasionally. Our little group's training was led by Jim Miller, who is involved in the Main Street Iowa program, and works for Valley Junction's downtown area in West Des Moines. There was a lot of brainstorming and discussing of what the area already has, how its already thought of, what it could be someday, and how best to get it there. One of the main ideas is to have some sort of festival or event in the Hilltop area to get people there to see what it has to offer. There is a feeling that currently Hilltop is somewhere many people drive THROUGH coming to or from downtown, rather than drive TO. There was definitely a lot of enthusiasm from all sides about improving this area, and really it is in all of Davenport's interests to have Hilltop return to a vibrant area. There's certainly room for more people to get involved, and if interested I would suggest contacting Scott Tunnicliff. The whole concept is still in its early stages, so I look forward to being able to talk about further progress as it happens.

Hilltop Campus Village meeting tonight

2009-09-15T08:05:00.005-05:00

Update - Thursday Morning: I plan to write up some of my thoughts about the meeting later today or tonight. Attendance was good, so that's a good sign for the enthusiasm level.

Hilltop advocates to learn Main Street approach -QCTimes

This meeting is tonight, from 6-9PM at the former Masonic Temple, former Lyceum Hall, now called Vickie Anne Palmer Hall. According to the article:

[Scott] Tunnicliff said participants will learn about the four principles of Main Street programs: organization, promotion, design and business improvement. Committees will be organized around each idea.

The effort already has drawn 30 to 50 people to earlier planning sessions. But he hopes that even more residents, business owners, students and other stakeholders will join the project.

I'm hoping to attend, and hopefully anyone interested in this important neighborhood and gateway to downtown can attend also. Hopefully we can see some real action in the near future on this corridor.

QC Symphony Riverfront Pops Concert

2009-09-14T07:04:00.005-05:00

Working my way through the busy weekend, here are a few images and a movie from this year's Riverfront Pops Concert in LeClaire Park. As much as I like Modern Woodmen Park, and baseball, it was great to be back where the Pops concert belongs. Steve Lippia performing Sinatra songs worked well, and the weather and crowd were great.

My Way (Listen closely, and you can hear a random guy sitting near me trying to sing along.)

Boating at Vander Veer Lagoon

2009-09-13T08:12:00.003-05:00

Here are a couple of images from yesterday's Fall Festival at Vander Veer Park in Davenport. The Mississippi Bend Model Boaters had a bunch of model and remote control boats displayed both in and out of the water. I've never made it over to Middle Park Lagoon to see these guys, but I might have to check it out now. It looks like it could be an expensive hobby though.

Shooting at Genesis East

2009-09-12T07:52:00.005-05:00

I'm not sure why none of this has hit the news yet, but there was definitely some excitement in the QC early this morning.

A person was shot somewhere on or near the campus of Genesis East, and the suspects left in a car. They were spotted almost immediately by police on East Rusholme and the chase was on. At this point I don't believe the officers weren't sure if this was a shooting, because they seemed to be wavering on breaking off the chase. A supervisor advised them to continue until at they could find out for sure what was going on, and its a good thing for all of our safety that they kept on the chase. At some point during the chase they got more information about what had taken place at the hospital, and chose to continue the pursuit.

The car ended up coming south on Farnam to Locust, and east on Locust. Up until this point the speeds had been relatively low, but once on Locust Street the speeds hit 80 or 90 miles per hour. They headed into the mythical land of no crime, and then got on I-74 towards Illinois. At one point on 74 the speeds hit triple digits. However, this was around 4am, so it was far from rush hour. The suspect vehicle got off at Avenue of the Cities, I believe heading west, but I'm not sure on that part. At this point Moline officers had joined in as well. The car eventually stopped near the border of Rock Island and Moline, and it sounds like everyone inside was apprehended. So good job to the boys in blue for getting some attempted murders off the street. Unfortunately the only police chases that seem to make the news are the ones that go badly. I'd like to think that more successful pursuits would show the high-ups that there are benefits to not allowing suspects to escape for fear of chase-related accidents.

Anyway, good police work by DPD and Moline PD. Its appreciated.

Update at 11:45AM QCOnline has the story now.

Last Busy Weekend of the Summer

2009-09-11T08:25:00.002-05:00

Even though Labor Day is the traditional end of summer, this weekend sure has a ton of festivals and events going on. I'm going to try and make it to as many of these events as possible, and I know there are more smaller things going on like church parish festivals and of course the Farmer's Market. Click on the links for more info.

QC Symphony Riverfront Pops Concert - Saturday, Gates open at 3PM

Vander Veer Fall Festival Saturday - Saturday, 10AM-7PM

Beaux Arts Fair - Saturday, 10AM-5PM; Sunday, 12PM-5PM

Backwater Gamblers (Last show of the season) - Sunday, 6PM

Eastern Avenue Branch Library beam signing - Saturday, 12PM-2PM

Viva Quad Cities - Tonight (Friday) 5-11PM; Saturday, 3-11PM

Credit Island Recreational Bridge

2009-09-09T09:07:00.003-05:00

Check out this link on the City of Davenport website. It has some renderings, maps, and a video of what the new bike/pedestrian bridge from Credit Island to South Concord will look like.

This bridge will be part of the Mississippi River Trail, which stretches from Minneapolis to New Orleans, and also allow for the Duck Creek and Mississippi River trails in Davenport to eventually be linked at both ends. When that loop is finally completed I think it would be great to see a second Ride the River-style family bike ride put on annually.

Maps, Eagles, Spraygrounds, etcWednesday Assortment

2009-09-02T06:49:00.007-05:00

A new feature has recently been added to the city website. Check out this page for an Interactive GIS map of Davenport. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, which seems like a new high tech way of saying of "cartography with computers." This oversimplifies it of course, as GIS has allowed Davenport to do many useful things, such as create detailed water level maps for use during river floods. On Davenport's public version of GIS, you can look up addresses or Parcel IDs of any parcel in the city, which can then link you to the county assessor page. Its a really quick way of finding out who owns what where. There are dozens more features, such as overlaying ward maps, zip code maps, garbage pickup days, parks, creek, flood plain info, etc. If you zoom in far enough, a checkbox becomes available on the left to view the map as an aerial photo taken in 2005. Basically the whole thing is a more detailed, more informational version of Google Maps.

Bettendorf to raze former Eagle Country Market building -QCTimes

I've always wondered why everything in Davenport is a controversy, yet things happen in other communities around here that would make Davenporters' heads explode, and create no drama. Bettendorf seems to have a history of buying up property and then losing money on it that Davenport can't match. In this case, according to the article, Bettendorf paid $1.7 million for what ended up being an eyesore for almost a decade. Now they're about to pay to have it torn down. When Davenport sold its land at 53rd and Eastern for a profit, people still complained.

Davenport's riverfront spray park could be on shaky political ground -QCTimes

As the article says, it must be election time again. In the past, some of the scapegoats used to drum up support have been scary dogs, sex offenders, and more recently, halfway houses. The newest trendy thing to oppose is the long-planned, long-budgeted sprayground at Centennial Park. Who cares if hundreds of people helped plan this riverfront park. Right now, especially in some wards, its easier to be against this than for it. I'd suspect it has at least 5 votes plus the Mayor, so hopefully its safe. Next week on Alderman Ambrose's agenda: an ordinance banning "gangbangers," and another affirming apple pie as the official dessert of Davenport.

Also, as today's editorial mentions, the Veteran's Memorial Parkway is open. I drove down this last Monday before I had even heard it was open, and its definitely nice. This is a new 4 lane street from Brady Street near Thunder Bay Grille over to Eastern Avenue near Prairie Heights. Right now its pretty empty and looks like the city's best teenage drag racing strip, but I'm sure over the next decade this will become quite a growth area. I'll try to get some pictures this week.

McKesson Lofts Images

2009-08-27T08:21:00.009-05:00

The grand opening and open house of the McKesson Lofts in downtown Rock Island was last night. Here's the QCTimes article about it, and here are some images I managed to get while I was there.

Here's the exterior of the renovated building. The balconies were added, and some of the environmentally friendly features include geothermal heating/cooling, and a green roof. The 2nd and 3rd floors are condos, half of which are already spoken for.

Good views all around. The river-facing units have a great view of Davenport (it'd be better without the casino there) and the future location of Armory Park, while some of the other units face over towards the District and all that urban activity.

This is one of the more unique features, in my opinion. The common areas on each floor have cutouts in the floor to allow light from the skylights above to make it all the way down to the main floor.

A lot of open floor plans, studio style bedrooms, and laminate flooring. Like a lot of these converted buildings, very few condos' floor plans are alike.

The lobby on the 1st floor. Some of this floor is unfinished space planned for commercial use. The stairwells and elevator are keyed to limit access to the residential floors, which is always nice. As fast as this building is filling up, maybe developers will consider some condos in downtown Davenport? Anybody?

A bit of election stuff

2009-08-22T07:54:00.003-05:00

This Thursday is the filing deadline for the 2009 City Election. If anyone wants to have a chance at enduring constant scorn from a vocal minority of the public for every decision they make, there's still time.

Here are the numbers of signatures required on petitions to run for each ward and Mayor.

Mayor 338
At-Large 287
1st Ward 41
2nd Ward 36
3rd Ward 20
4th Ward 49
5th Ward 30
6th Ward 65
7th Ward 49
8th Ward 45

A few years ago the 3rd ward only required 13, so obviously voter turnout is increasing downtown.

There's a new blog following this election, which can be found at
electiondavenport.blogspot.com. I've added it to the links over on the right. So far it seems very fair-handed, possibly because it also seems very concise in its posts, unlike this blog and its occasional novel-length posts.

In the At-Large race, it looks like this Jason Gordon will be the mainstream candidate to beat, although Ortiz and his illegal signs will be giving him a run for it. If Keith Meyer is really running for At-Large, I think he'll have quite an uphill battle. Niky showed the popularity (or lack-thereof) of wrench-in-the-gears-style candidates over the city as a whole.

Backwater Gamblers Images

2009-08-17T07:54:00.008-05:00

While the British Car Show is one of the QC's hidden treasures, I would say the biggest thing we have that not enough people know about is the Backwater Gamblers waterski team. I grew up going over to their shows every year, but I had missed the last 2 or 3 years' shows. Fortunately I was able to make it over to see last night's show. They were great as always. This team took 5th in the Show Ski nationals, yet there were locals in the crowd that had only recently heard about them. There is still time to make it over there this season, as they have 7 shows left. They are every Wednesday and Sunday night at 6:30 PM. Their website has directions to their area on the Rock River in Rock Island. Best of all, admission is free, although they do pass the bucket for donations during intermission. I could easily see paying $10 per person to see this show and feeling it was well worth it. Here are some images from last night's show:

Towboats 1 and 2 bringing a bunch of skiers directly towards the beach.

It was tough to get good shots of the high speed jumps off of the ramp in the fading light, but here's one of a skier going underneath 2 jumpers.

Four 3-tier pyramids get pulled off the dock already on each others shoulders.

A large line of skiers gets pulled off the dock, leaving only one behind. This takes a lot of boat power, which is why they have two 225 horsepower outboards on each of the main boats.

The show always finishes with their most impressive pyramid. In this case, a triple-wide 4-tier pyramid that required 2 boats to pull everyone off the dock.

British Car Show Images

2009-08-12T07:52:00.007-05:00

Here are just a few pictures I took at the Heartland British Auto Fest this past Sunday. I'm not necessarily a car guy, but I always like this event. I suppose its partly genetic, as my dad used to be a British car guy.

A few words about Terry Lunardi

2009-08-10T05:30:00.001-05:00

I have been busy enjoying the many events in the area the last week, so I have a good amount of stuff to blog about, but I first feel like I have to say something about the sad loss of Terry Lunardi.

I mostly know him by reputation and the news coverage, because I didn't actually know him personally. I saw him a lot though, because whenever I showed up at the events, forums, and meetings that I've attended over the years, he was there. He put in an amazing amount of time into making the QC a better place.

The area that I do have some personal connection with is his contribution over the years to Garfield School. I was a 6th grade student at Garfield in the final year that Davenport elementary schools had 6th graders, which I believe would have been the '93-'94 school year. At that time, a lot of exciting things were happening at Garfield. A new addition had just opened (which has since been joined by several more additions), we were starting an AM radio station (later upgraded to FM), and we had 3 business partners. They were Lunardi's, KRVR (a long-gone radio station) and I believe Junior Achievement. The Garfield radio station's call letters were KLJG, which stood for KRVR, Lunardi's, Junior Achievement, and Garfield. Even though we were only in 6th grade, we felt like we were actually involved in helping make our school better. From what I remember, a bit part of this was made possible by the contributions of Terry Lunardi. Most schools back then didn't even have "business partners," much less their own radio station. Right around that time Garfield was named a Blue Ribbon school. I don't know how Mr. Lunardi got involved with this particular elementary school, but I know that my years there were better off because of it.

We could use a lot more like him, and I'd like to add my name to the long list of people who will miss his contribution to Davenport and the Quad Cities.

Downtown Davenport Tidbits

2009-07-31T08:28:00.006-05:00

Construction continues on the new version of 605 Main. I'm working on a post about the city council's fear of halfway houses, but that's for another day. I wish that someone had taken a survey 5 years ago to see how many Davenport folks even know what was in this building...

If you're interested in buying your very own downtown building, the former bank, former Social Security building at 131 W. 3rd seems to be going up for auction on August 12th. Here's the auction ad from the QCTimes. Bidding starts at $350,000 for one of the uglier buildings in one of the better locations of downtown Davenport.

I have it from a pretty good source that the former gas station/former burger joint at 4th and Iowa will be a Crescent Cleaners. This fits right in to the Crescent Warehouse District, and also provides the kind of services that downtown residents should have walking-distance access to. I hope it does well.

The Forrest Block building at 4th and Brady got a new "renovations coming soon" sign on it in time for the Bix. The sign lists the website as FrontDoorIowa.com. FrontDoorSTL.com seems to be the website for all of Restoration St. Louis's properties in the STL area, so I guess FrontDoorIowa.com will be the website for their Davenport area properties. It does makes sense that "Iowa's front door" would be part of "Iowa's Front Porch." They're still talking a Spring 2010 opening for the Forrest Block building, so they must be working hard on it. I'm looking forward to being able to walk through luxury apartments where there's been nothing but blight for the majority of my lifetime.

Something you don't see every day

2009-07-26T22:20:00.003-05:00

After tonight's River Bandits game a helicopter dropped candy and possibly marshmallows onto the field at Modern Woodmen Park. Hundreds of kids were out there picking it up, and getting additional sweets dumped on them from additional helicopter passes. The new ownership of the River Bandits certainly has a good imagination for new events. I get the feeling that almost nothing is off the table at their brainstorming sessions. Here are some videos of the event taken from the Centennial Bridge.

The first pass

The second pass

The third pass

Yet another drop

A closeup of the folks dumping the candy

An assortment of Bix 2009 images

2009-07-26T06:42:00.009-05:00

It ended up being a great morning for the race, despite some crazy weather the night before. I watched the start and finish of the race downtown. Here are some of the pictures.

The crowd, and the leaders making their way up the Brady Street hill.

Here's a movie I took showing the crowd of runners and walkers waiting to start the race.

The first person across the finish line, Ben Lloyd, as part of the Rhythm City "Race for the Jackpot." He was only given a .9 mile head start, so that's pretty impressive. The image on the right shows the preparations underway at the finish line before anyone got there.

The winner, Meb Keflezighi, running down 3rd street.

The DavenportOne Street Fest, back on Friday night before the storm hit. I'm glad I wasn't down there at 9:30.

Bix Weekend Open Thread

2009-07-24T08:10:00.004-05:00

Its the biggest weekend in the QC calendar, and it looks like the weather will cooperate. (Update: OK, not so much on the cooperative weather)I plan on getting some good food, watching a good race, and listening to some good music. I hope all of you have a great time as well. These are the kind of events that set Davenport apart, so enjoy them!

Davenport Political Sign Ordinance

2009-07-22T20:43:00.004-05:00

This was requested in a previous thread:

From the Davenport City Code, which can be found here.

17.45.050 Temporary signs.
B. 3. Signs may be erected pertaining to the candidacy of federal, state and local elected officials; measures appearing on the ballot of any national, state or local election or caucus; or issues of individual or community concern not exceeding a total of thirty-two square feet and a maximum height of six feet in all zoning districts. Election or caucus signs may be erected not more than forty-five days preceding the election and must be removed within seven days after the election or caucus. Political signs shall be set back a minimum of five feet from any property line. (Emphasis added)

Edit: Also, in case anyone was wondering, the Davenport Primary Election takes place on October 6th.

Where in the QC is this #24 (Guest Contributor Edition)

2009-07-21T06:39:00.003-05:00

For something a little different this week, I have a Where in the QC is this? image that was supplied by a reader. So, where was this taken?

First Event of the 2009 City Election Season Robby Ortiz Meet and Greet

2009-07-16T08:17:00.006-05:00

I got this in my email:

We anted to make you aware of a "Meet & Greet" event that Alderman At-Large candidate Robby Ortiz is having on Saturday August, 8th. Everyone is welcome to stop by Phil & Larry's Saloon at 4811 N. Brady Street between the hours of 4 and 10 P.M. to get Robby's take on the issues facing Davenport residents.
Free entry and the event will be upstairs.

Friends to Elect Robby Ortiz

Bettendorf Train Derailment

2009-07-14T09:33:00.005-05:00

Bettendorf train derailment closes downtown crossings -QCTimes

NTSB taking over investigation of Bettendorf train derailment; little information available -QCOnline

I took a drive this morning past the scene of the derailment, and it doesn't look good. There might be more to this than the media seems to know, because every command center vehicle in Scott County seems to be set up down there. I didn't see Davenport's HazMat semi, but I'd be surprised if its not down there somewhere. The articles are vague about the condition of the crew, but a big blue tarp blocking an area from view is never a good sign at an accident scene. Hopefully I'm wrong and everyone is ok.

Update: Unfortunately, both crew members were indeed killed in the crash. Hopefully this wasn't something caused by vandals messing with the rail switches.

Friday Morning Assortment

2009-07-10T07:22:00.002-05:00

The Forrest Block building renovation is underway! Dumpsters have been dropped off along 4th street and are being filled. The project has already gotten as far as the last "redevelopers" took it. I suspect we'll start to see a visible difference soon.

Anti-downtown activist Mark Nelson wrote a letter to the editor pushing the usual Libertarian line. Any restrictions on private property violate the 5th Amendment! Oh no! Toss out the zoning laws, building codes, and neighborhood associations. Bring on the shoddily constructed strip clubs in residential neighborhoods! Or... apparently SOME government rules on what people can do with their property are ok...?
If as many people in Scott County bought into their platform as they think do, maybe their candidate would have gotten more than 00.23% of the votes in the 2008 Presidential election.

Love Your Farmer's Market Update:
Davenport's Freight House Farmer's market now has 214 votes and is in 29th place nationwide. Considering that Davenport is about the 267th biggest city in the US, 29th place ain't half bad. Lets see if we can climb higher yet. If you haven't voted yet, do it here.

I was in Cedar Rapids Wednesday for a few hours, and saw just a fraction of the damage that is still evident throughout the city from last year's floods. I didn't have time to take pictures, but DMRyan, over at AbsoluteDSM, got a whole bunch earlier this month. Their downtown seems to be on the road to recovery, but their version of SoLo makes our SoLo look like Beverly Hills.

And finally, a rare bit of negativity from QCI, or more of a Wundram-esque call for action. By all accounts, the Freight House complex seems to be thriving. Even some nights during the week it appears to be hopping, and I've heard its hard to get a seat for dueling pianos. With all this success, would it be too much to ask for them to keep their neon lights and all the letters in their exterior signs lit at the same time?? Perceptions and first impressions matter, and burned out lights don't make good ones.

...and I'll leave the whole "Bettendorf is too good for tattoo parlors" thing for another day.

100k

2009-07-06T07:08:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Davenport on reaching 100,000 residents again for the first time since the 1980's. Despite the vocal minority of naysayers, this city is growing again. I've edited the graph I made back in 2007 to reflect 2007 and 2008's estimated population numbers. I'm not sure what happened last in 2007, but aside from that one outlier year we've had excellent growth since 2003.

People from around the Midwest and hopefully around the country are discovering that we have a great mix of amenities, quality of life, history, a relatively healthy economy and low housing prices. We have things that cities larger than us envy. How many metro areas our size have a PGA tour stop, or a nationally recognized water ski troupe, or an art museum designed by a world-famous architect? How many metro areas our size have all of those things and more? While also being in the most affordable 10% (or 1%?) on housing costs? I'd suspect not very many.

Our sustainable growth should make us more attractive to additional residents, businesses, and event planners. If the State of Illinois can every function like like grown ups, we will have rail service to Chicago and a beautiful riverfront university. These 2 pieces can help turn the tide of the Iowa side population growth being offset by stagnant or declining Illinois QC populations. Davenport NOW may entice folks who would otherwise consider TIF-happy LeClaire, and Prairie Heights will become increasingly attractive the more it fills in, and as gas prices climb again. The west side sewer tunnel will open up the west side to large scale businesses and industries that have passed Davenport up in the past. The Blackhawk and Forrest Block projects downtown will hopefully show the amount of pent-up demand for market-rate downtown residential to timid banks and developers. Centennial, Credit Island, Sunderbruch, and Prairie Heights parks will continue to add recreational options to all corners of the city.

All of this sounds pretty good, but a lot of people only want to focus on Pachino Hill, potholes, or speed cameras. I would say the graph above shows that those people's negative outlook is being overshadowed by Davenport's positive growth. Let's keep it that way.

A mountain of interesting things?

2009-06-29T05:02:00.000-05:00

I'd like to say I wasn't posting for some good reason, like I was out of power (which I wasn't) or distraught over all the celebrity deaths (sad to lose MJ, but not distraught) but the reality is just that life happens, and I didn't get time to sit down and blog.

The last commenter on the previous post pointed out: "QCI - there is a mountain of interesting things going on in City politics right now - get off your duff and give us your 2 cents!"

Well, I don't know about a mountain, but I'll give my 2 cents on a few recent things.

Centennial Park- The new system that closes the south side of the park to everything except fishing and boat launching makes some sense. I am surprised that bike riding wasn't also listed, but I suspect someone riding through on the bike path and minding their own business probably wouldn't get hassled about it. The idea of having a 24 hour park is great, and its working at the skatepark and the basketball courts. They're packed, and because they're packed, it tends to drive away most crime (except littering). However, the boat launch area is not packed with upstanding citizens, so less-than-upstanding citizens are congregating there and causing problems. As the rest of the park is finished up, hopefully the skatepark's success will spread throughout the area.

Wisor vs East Village- This is one case where I am quite happy with the council's decision. I'm not at all sure why they don't value historic buildings on Main Street as much as historic buildings in the Village, but hopefully they've learned from their earlier mistakes. There are plenty of luxury homes available in McClellan Heights. A couple new expensive infill homes were even built. If Mr. Wisor really wanted the ambiance of the Village and modern conveniences, he should have bought one of them. If he wants to build his own home, there are plenty of subdivisions available. If he really wanted to build condos and not a home for himself, than shame on him for lying. If he wants to buy and tear down the strip mall at River and Mound, and build architecturally appropriate condos, I'll be first in line to cheer him on. The city's Design Center even has a rendering of what it could look like, seen here.

Davenport NOW- Technically I was against this, but I'm not worried that it passed. Like the Promise, its not perfect, but it could bring new people to Davenport. It should even the competition a little bit with cities who TIF new subdivisions like LeClaire does. It sounds like the details still need to be ironed out, so hopefully they use some good lawyers to keep this from causing trouble down the line. All the people who have been asking why only big developers get tax breaks should now be running out to get building permits for new homes and renovations.

Malin contract renewal- This one's pretty interesting, in that it sounds like even those who wanted him fired are ok with him now. Even if Ambrose and Lynn still hated him, the majority is clear on the council, and they are not it. I still feel like the whole story about the pay raise controversy never came out in a way that explained why everyone backed off. From what I understand, Malin was in the right all along, and those that wanted him nailed for it (including Thee) were shown their mistake and decided not to continue with a losing lawsuit. Many on the previous council who wrote the contract certainly felt he was within his rights to take his previously-deferred raise. But who really wants to get into that whole mess again...

Vote for the Freight House Farmer's Market

2009-06-23T08:27:00.007-05:00

Everyone should go to this website and vote for downtown Davenport's Freight House Farmer's Market for the Care2/LocalHarvest "Love Your Farmer's Market" contest. If we get the most votes, the market would get $5000. There are also random weekly drawings that would win the market $250.

Update: Just a few more votes and we'll be in the Top 100 markets in the country.

Update#2: Thanks to Darcy's mention of the poll in her market email, the Davenport Freight House Farmer's Market is now ranked #52 in the United States.

Quad City Air Show 2009

2009-06-22T06:19:00.012-05:00

Here are a few (actually quite a few) quick images and movies from this year's air show. I went on Sunday, which involved both getting rain poured on us and then later getting sunburned.

This was easily the most impressive part of the show for me. A stuntman who had earlier performed as a wingwalker on top of the Stearman biplane actually climbed from the plane onto the skid of the "Otto" helicopter while in midair. He tried it a few times and finally made it on his third attempt. Here's a movie of the stunt:

Instead of Shockwave the jet truck, this year we got to see a jet school bus. There was also a jet outhouse, believe it or not. The helicopter on the right was the one used in the midair transfer stunt, and was otherwise directed towards the kids. If you click on the image you can see that the canopy has a face painted on it.

Attendance wasn't too bad, considering the weather. I also heard that Saturday's show was packed. On the right is an AV8B Harrier, which hadn't flown here since one crashed in 1992.

The A-10 Warthog, and a Stearman WW2 training biplane, which was used in the midair transfer.

And of course, the Blue Angels.

Here are a couple videos of the harrier. The first one shows it flying backwards, and the second video shows the aircraft making a vertical takeoff.

A few storm images

2009-06-20T08:07:00.008-05:00

I was over checking out Bettendorf's version of downtown development (the new Hardees) when the storm hit yesterday. It didn't seem all that bad, until we left and started seeing all the damage. Fortunately nobody was too badly hurt at the air show or Sturgis. It could have been really bad. Here are a few quick images.

Who says I'm not against things...

2009-06-17T07:02:00.004-05:00

A couple things in the news that I'm on the naysayer side of:

Property owner, historic group clash over Village's future -QCTimes

I've defended Mr. Wisor on some of his projects, like the building on Mound, but he's kind of worn out his welcome in the East Village as far as I'm concerned. Between more parking and more suburban-type structures, these are the last things the Village needs. The Design Center created renderings of various historic-looking infill buildings that could be built in the village, and there are plenty of vacant or underused spots for them. No need to tear down a historic building in Iowa's largest historic district to build a new house. If he really wants a half million dollar house, maybe he should walk a block up Fulton and see half a dozen of them. I hope the council has a spine on this one instead of ignoring the Historic Preservation Committee like they did with the Deutsh House. Why even have an HPC if the council ignores its wishes?
Also: Cruiser covered this yesterday.

Davenport Beach & Harbor -- that has a nice ring -QCTimes

Barb Ickes thinks that Mayor Gluba's son has a good idea here, and I can't completely disagree. A beach (while gross) and harbor would be good things for the Davenport riverfront. The problem is that while this is one person's suggestion, there were several hundred Davenport and Rock Island folks that got together a few years ago and decided what to do with this space. Its called RiverVision, and its already in the works. I'm curious if the Glubas don't know about RiverVision's plans for Crescent Park, or just feel that this harbor idea trumps what large numbers of Davenporters came up with.

Now, I can think of a place that already has a lagoon that could be reconnected to the Mississippi and used for boating and a beach, and that place is Credit Island. Replace the causeway with a bridge, raise some of the land around the lagoon, and you could have the same exact proposal another mile or two down the river. Seems like a good compromise to me, which I guess ruins my cred as a naysayer.

Why do we need NOW now?

2009-06-12T06:35:00.002-05:00

Davenport crafts housing stimulus -QCTimes

Short answer: We don't need NOW now.

Long answer: We're turning the tide without it. Our population has stopped the slide that was happening through the late 80's and 90's, young people are becoming more interested in the QC area, and downtown is being revitalized. Just because Bettendorf is out subdivision-ing us isn't reason to do something this drastic.

On one hand, the Davenport NOW program is what a lot of people have been asking for for a long time. Instead of only giving incentives to companies or residential developers that come in and build big projects, the NOW program would actually provide them to the little guy. Is 50 new business created 10 jobs any worse than 1 AT&T type place creating 500 jobs? If Alexander Company can get property tax incentives to renovate a huge blighted building, shouldn't an average homeowner get some for fixing up a run down single family home? So I guess I don't think the idea is crazy. I just don't think its necessary.

I think Davenport is turning itself around WITHOUT this, just like it is without the Promise. Maybe rather than try to come up with a new gimmick every few years, we should sit back and give what we're doing a chance. Improving city departments and making them more professional, increasing the capital improvemt budget for streets, sewers, and parks, and revitalizing downtown... these things are working. I don't know where all these abandoned buildings and businesses are that Cruiser talks about. Sure, there are some around, but any city of 100,000 has vacant commercial property. I definitely don't feel like there's more now than there was in the 80's. I also know quite a few young people who left after college who are now returning to the Quad Cities. Lets show those people how much has changed since the 1980's before start giving away the tax farm.

In the rumors department, I'm hearing that this project is the Mayor's baby. Apparently most Alderman were somewhat willing to go along with it, but many are now having their doubts. This kind of seems confirmed by the tabling by the council, but possibly not. There are questions about the legality of the program, and how the "up front" tax break could work. How can the city rebate property taxes up front for 10 years when they don't know what the property value or taxes will be 5 or 10 years down the line? Will folks who take the "up front" money sue later if it doesn't cover their actual tax bill? So there are a lot of questions, and little public input.

I'd like to see the city skip the NOW program and at least wait to see the results of the 2010 Census. I feel like Davenport is going to end up with a surprising amount of growth. If the sad state of Illinois can ever make the new WIU riverfront campus and Chicago rail line happen, those projects could easily be the final piece that puts the QC area on the road to success. Davenport needs to sell itself and its amenities rather than just try to underbid the suburbs on tax prices.

Where in the QC is this #23 Answer

2009-06-10T19:16:00.004-05:00

Anonymous at 8:22 was correct. The image is of Lincoln School, or "Lincoln Academy" along Pershing in Davenport. I was going to get a shot of the deer with downtown in the background, as I wasn't originally intending to do a Where in the QC with it. The deer wasn't much for posing the way I wanted it to though.

Where in the QC is this #23

2009-06-10T06:32:00.002-05:00

Where in the Quad Cities is this deer wandering?

Coming soon: My take on the Davenport NOW idea.

Summer Events Suggestion Thread

2009-06-02T07:02:00.002-05:00

I'm putting together a list of summer events worth traveling 2 and a half hours for, which I plan to post on the AbsoluteDSM website. Obviously this is a subjective thing, because while I may feel that its absolutely worth driving 2.5 hours to see the Quad City Air Show, others may not. Especially those without interests in planes or sunburn.

Here's a quick list of possiblities, which is certainly missing things, in order by date. This mostly comes from the QC CVB website.

Gumbo Ya Ya
Ride the River
QC Air Show
Sturgis on the River (off the river until Centennial Park is done)
QC Pridefest
Blues Fest
John Deere Classic
Bix7
Bix Jazz Fest
Mississippi Valley Fair (although Des Moines folks have their own fair, I hear)
Tugfest
Ya Maka My Weekend
River Roots Live
Rock Island Grand Prix
QC Symphony Pops Concert
QC Marathon

Some of these may not be worth driving 2+ hours for. Others, like the fair or the marathon, are probably worth driving over for, but Des Moines has their own (bigger) version. I don't have any car shows on the list, but many could argue that some of those are regional events. What do you folks think belongs on the list vs what doesn't? If I were directing this towards Chicago folks rather than Des Moines residents, I'd expect it to be a different list.

Weekly Post?

2009-05-29T07:03:00.003-05:00

Well, I took a week off from blogging for no particular reason. Here are a couple of websites I ran across during that time.

After reading this QCTimes article about Fejervary Park's progress, or lack thereof, I was doing some surfing around the internet. I found this page, possibly run by someone from long before my time called Captain Ernie. There also seem to be some things from former Alderman and Fejervary Park defender George Nikolas. If you look around that website there are a lot of neat old postcards and pictures. In the section about Fejervary, there are many images of Mother Goose Land. My parents always told me about going there as kids, and I always thought it would have been great to pan for "gold" right here in Davenport. Somehow I don't think whatever the city comes up with will be as fun.

The other website I found over the last week is called ScanAmerica.us, and it has the audio from police radio frequencies from around the US, including some in the QC area. Check out the Iowa and Illinois pages, or almost any other state. They stream in Windows Media Player, which almost everyone should have. They can be kind of tough to follow, but its definitely cheaper than buying a police scanner. It also may include random frequencies like Bettendorf garbage collectors. I actually haven't listened to it enough to know just how good it is or isn't, but its definitely not perfect. Edit: I just discovered this site archives radio traffic, so you can listen to what went over the police radio on a certain day and time. I'll have to mess with this feature later.

I'm hoping to do a post one of these days on Bettendorf's "downtown" plans, but whenever I start writing about that particular town I seem to end up in a giant rant that I don't post. Maybe I can do better this time.

Friday Morning Assortment

2009-05-22T07:25:00.005-05:00

Old News Department

-Last Sunday night, or really Monday morning, at about 1:30AM I went out to pick up a healthy meal at Hardees. As I was going out Brady I got passed by 2 squad cars at a high rate of speed, and then a police SUV. They all headed east on Kimberly, and then I saw another squad car go through Brady and Kimberly at a high rate of speed. I decided to take a small detour to see where they were off to. Over half a dozen police vehicles were at Las Bananas, so obviously that bar isn't totally cleaned up yet. Four or 5 years ago, half a dozen squad cars were there every week, so I suppose you could call that progress. Its too bad that the place hasn't been shut down.

-Back on May 17th, in Ask the Times, there was this blurb about some development on East 29th Street in Davenport: "Rita Pribyl, senior manager for the city’s community planning and economic development department, said plans are for the building to be demolished and replaced with 26 condominium-style, high-end apartments with rents ranging from $1,100 to $1,200 per month." This refers to the old nursing home just east of Brady. I'm pretty sure that I'm one of the few guys my age that never broke into that place at some point during my childhood. I don't think I missed anything, and its great to see this longtime eyesore going away. Its too bad they couldn't have rehabbed the building though.

Wind Turbine Update, or not
According to a more recent addition of Ask The Times, no one seems willing to say whose windmills are sitting in Mt. Joy. However, a commenter posted this in my photo thread:

The wind turbines are being stored and electronic components added by DH Blattner Energy Systems. http://www.blattnerenergy.com/ They have a temporary location in Mt. Joy. I don't know if they plan on looking for a permanent site or not.

Hope they can join the QC Business community permanently!

So maybe that answers it? Or maybe its as inaccurate as many blog comments? Who knows.

Sad News
A longtime institution of the Hilltop neighborhood passed away last Sunday. Don Saforek, of Don's Barbershop, took some time off to have heart surgery a few weeks ago. He posted a sign that said "Back in 2 weeks (I hope!)." I had noticed he hadn't come back, and then I saw a sign that said he was still in the hospital and it would be a while longer. Then I was sad to see in the paper that he passed away. I think Don probably new every past and present politician in Davenport, and had thousands of stories ranging from the Cardinals to the Air Force to the history of the Hilltop area. There just aren't many barbers like Don anymore. He'll be missed by many.

Somebody order a wind farm?

2009-05-18T16:49:00.012-05:00

The answer to this morning's "Where in the QC is this?" was answered by Anonymous at 7:11AM. The image was wind turbine blades stored at the former Caterpillar plant in Mt. Joy. I haven't seen a news story about this, so does anyone know any more about why these are being stored there? According to my source, they've been seen coming in from the north on Highway 61. I can't figure why they would bother unloading them in a parking lot just to have to reload them later. Apparently the manufacturers of the various parts must not have enough on-site storage. The only other possibility I can think of is that they're part of the shipment that Alter barge lines helped move last year. That only involved the blades though, whereas the blades, nacelles, and tower segments are all stored at Mt. Joy. I guess I should "Ask the Times." Here are some more images.

As a commenter said in the previous post, these the turbine nacelles look a lot bigger on the ground than they do at the top of a 200 foot tower.

For those who don't know where this is located, it is across from the Davenport Municipal Airport north of town. They are best seen from North Harrison, which is also 1st Street in Eldridge. To get there, take Brady/Highway 61 to the Mount Joy exit, and go west. When that road comes to a T at the airport, go right and start looking to your right. Unless they move these all out within days, you'll see the windmill parts.

Where in the QC is this #22

2009-05-18T03:41:00.002-05:00

This should be an easy one, but I can give hints if people don't get it.

Lindsay Park Meeting

2009-05-13T06:52:00.002-05:00

Lindsay Park patrons wary of changes -QCTimes

We were wary alright. Most even more wary than I was. Despite lots of people taking a turn at the microphone, no one said they were in favor of more surface parking being added to Lindsay Park. Only one business owner spoke, and he said his business does fine with the current parking situation. Several Aldermen were there, including Alderman Frink, Boom, Justin, Lynn, and Meeker. Alderman Justin went up to the mic to tell everyone that the elected officials were hearing us loud and clear.

Most of the meeting was actually about other issues than the rumored parking changes. With the large turnout relative to how little the city seemed to be pushing for the parking change, I almost wondered if it was a trick to get dozens of people to the meeting. Leak the idea that the city wants to get rid of the basketball courts, get 50 or 60 people to show up, and then try to get them to help design a new master plan for Lindsay Park. I don't think that's what happened, but it wouldn't have been the worst idea. There were several new processes for neighborhoods around the city that were discussed, but I'd suggest watching the meeting online or on the city channel rather than me trying to paraphrase it all.

After the meeting, I was talking to someone who hadn't been involved in this kind of thing in Davenport for very long. He seemed surprised that people would think the city would spring something like this on them. I told him the story of the River Vision meetings, which drew hundreds of people with hundreds of great ideas for Davenport's riverfront. Then at the final meeting, a little red box labeled "casino hotel" appeared on the map, which hadn't been talked about at any of the previous meetings. Davenport has actually been doing much better than that since, but the problem is that the city has a long way to go to regain people's trust.

I believe Lindsay Park is safe from parking lot expansion, but try getting some folks to believe that.

City does one thing right, figures they should screw up something else instead

2009-05-12T07:25:00.008-05:00

So, the City of Davenport resolved their problem with handicapped signs. They took the good ideas, like checking occasionally to see if the signs were still in use and needed, and dropped the bad idea of charging $40 to have them installed. It was almost like a logical compromise.

Now that one issue was solved, apparently they felt the need to fix something that's certainly not broken, which is Lindsay Park.

Changes slated for Lindsay Park -QCTimes

Basically, some of the business owners down there want to move the basketball courts, thereby paving over an area of grass near River Drive, and replace them with a larger amount of concrete, in the form of a parking lot along 11th Street. Here's an overhead image, courtesy of Live Search, of the area. Incidentally, at whatever point during the winter this was taken, there was plenty of parking available. The basketball courts are located just to the west (left) of the baseball diamond. Their new location, from what I can tell, would be just to the east (right) of the city parking lot along Mound. So they'd like to trade in some park for some parking, to save people from having to walk a block or two from a city lot, or an on street parking spot. I personally have rarely had to park more than a block from anywhere in the Village. However, unlike visitors, I know that there's parking behind some of the businesses, such as Rudys. So maybe, as Barb Ickes mentions in her take on it, all the Village needs is more signage directing people to where parking already exists.

[Edit: Colonel Davenport, making a brief appearance in the comments of the previous post, suggests somewhat of a compromise. Remove the basketball courts (entirely?) and replace them with a path leading directly from 11th street to the city parking lot along Mound.]

If you want to tell those in charge where they can stick their parking lot idea, please attend the input meeting tonight (Tuesday) at 6:30 in the Park and Rec building. This was formerly the Art Museum, and is located next to the Putnam. I'm hoping to be able to make it.

4 Years

2009-05-09T07:51:00.000-05:00

On May 9th, 2005, I introduced myself as a guest blogger on Daily Davenport Politics, hosted by Fly on the Wall. Here I've linked to a reprint of that first post, since DDP is no more. Four years of QCI. In some ways I can't believe that I've been doing this for that long, but in other ways it feels like its been longer.

When I started, the big issue of the day was whether the casino would build a new 10 story hotel in the riverfront. If you'd asked me back then what the status of that project would be in 2009, I would have guessed it would already be open by now. Instead we have a casino that treats us like 2nd class citizens to its "main" property in Bettendorf. Coincidentally, I've evolved from an IOC-defender to someone who believes the first step to getting the most out of our gambling license is getting it away from the Isle. People really do change their opinions.

On the other hand, 4 years ago people were complaining about the skybridge and the Figge and D1, etc. Four years later they still are. My feelings on downtown Davenport haven't changed a bit in the passing years. It is the heart of Davenport, and the rest of the city won't succeed without a healthy heart. Its time for some other people to change their opinions on that.

I got in around the peak of Davenport political blogging. Fly loved getting into the nitty gritty of campaign fundraising and politics, and people loved to send him juicy tidbits. Colonel Davenport had all the inside gossip, and I was there to stir up people and invite dozens of insults. It was rowdy but productive. Aldermen, activists, and other movers and shakers of Davenport were frequent commenters. Much of that seems to have died down. I do miss seeing debates play out between rivals like Bob McGivern and Niky Bowles.

Do I ever want to hang it up and retire from the world of blogging? Sometimes. While I'm always glad that the people who have nothing to bring to a debate except insults seem to disagree with me the most, sometimes the insults and lies get old. See Cruiser's recent post for the kind of garbage rumors that people start. However, I'm a fighter, and I don't like to give in to those kind of tactics. So I stay at it because I'm stubborn, but the bigger reason I stay at this is the comments, emails, and personal contacts that have come from writing this blog. A lot of people read but don't comment, and that's ok. The words of encouragement, the occasional great debate or discussion, and the frequent emails from people outside the QC interested in visiting this great community... those are the reasons I keep writing. So thanks to all my readers. And to those who just like to start rumors or espouse negativity, I'll still be here fighting the good fight.

Drunken antics

2009-05-06T06:54:00.003-05:00

Its always interesting what comes across the police radio in the middle of the night.

Last night, or this morning really, a car crashed into a tree near Central Park and Farnam, and then somehow managed to drive off, leaving a trail of fluids and debris. It ended up parked on Central Park near Grand. From what I could tell from the radio, the driver then got out, started walking away, and then came back and retrieved something and locked the doors before running off again.

According to the dispatcher, around this time the owner of the car called in to report his car stolen. This is pretty much standard procedure when the police have captured a car but not the criminal that drove it. Then it becomes the police who have to prove that it wasn't stolen. The officers figured they'd like to talk to the owner, who then changed his story to say that he was out of town. It sounded like they ended up getting the guy anyway though. If he was as drunk as it would seem, hopefully they lock him up for a while. He's just lucky it was just a tree that he ran over and not a kid or someone's grandmother.

3 Saturday Morning Images

2009-05-02T07:30:00.004-05:00

A few images to start the weekend:

First of all, today's the first outdoor Freight House Farmer's Market of the year. Just think, last year when they had their first Saturday market they had to have it on River Drive because the Freight House parking lot was flooded.

The sun rises over downtown Davenport. You can read into this as good things ahead for the heart of Davenport... or just think its a sunrise.

Much like last Saturday, here's the new building going up to replace 605 Main. Since its pretty much the biggest thing being built around here right now, I'm considering having a weekly Saturday image of the construction progress.