Old News: River Gulf, Blackhawk, Farmers Market

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

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!

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

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

Happy Thanksgiving
From the Quad City Images Blog

2009 Festival of Trees Parade Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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)