Des Moines Trip Open Thread

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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...

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?

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

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

Where in the Quad Cities is this deer wandering?

Coming soon: My take on the Davenport NOW idea.

Summer Events Suggestion Thread

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.