Get ready for balloons!

Ice skating Santa and Mr. Spaceman are ready.

The Davenport: 100 Years

I got a chance to walk through The Davenport apartment building downtown today, on its 100th anniversary. She's definitely looking great for her age.The Davenport, as seen in a 1922-postmarked postcard from my personal collection.
The Davenport: Today
Like urban views? Here's one. I wish the people reading about pigs running the streets could see this view of Iowa.


The view from the apartment featured in the QCTimes article, and the former fountain in the lobby. As you can see, and as the article mentioned, its been converted into a seasonal planter.

This building is often overlooked as part of the downtown housing rebirth, as it was rehabbed a decade and a half before any of the recent stuff. Much like the market-rate units in the newer projects, it has pretty much no vacancies. According to the staff, none of the 70+ units stay available for long at all. This makes sense to me, because if people are willing to spend a grand a month on the Alexander properties, I'm sure there are even more people willing to spend less to live in a beautiful historic building across from the library.

The apartments that were shown as part of the open house were extremely well-decorated, and seemed in great shape as well. I hope a lot of you folks got an opportunity to check them out if you're into this kind of thing like I am. Thanks to the staff of The Davenport for showing me around and helping keep residents in downtown Davenport.

New blog for QC bar enthusiasts

I got an email telling me about a new blog, QuadCityNightlife.com. It appears to be just starting out, but so far it has a good collection of drink specials from around the QC for any given night. I'll add it to the link bar, so check it out next time you're going out for a drink or two.

Weekend Events

I'll resurrect my practice of listing weekend events, at least for this weekend. There are a bunch.

Friday

Annual Downtown Davenport Stakeholder Meeting
7:30AM at the River Center North, Iowa Rooms

100 Year Anniversary Open House
11AM-2PM at The Davenport, 324 N. Main St

Festival of Trees
12PM-4PM in the River Center

Saturday

Festival of Trees
9AM-9PM in the River Center

Festival of Trees Holiday Parade
11AM in Downtown Davenport

Tours of the new Scott County Jail
10AM-2PM at the Jail, 400 W. 4th St

Great Train Expo
10AM-4PM at the QCCA Expo Center

Lighting of the Commons
3:30PM-6:30PM on the John Deere Commons

Quad City Symphony Holiday Pops Concert
7:30PM at the i wireless Center

Sunday

Great Train Expo
10AM-4PM at the QCCA Expo Center

Festival of Trees
10AM-7PM in the River Center

Downtown Davenport: 2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back

2 Steps Forward (more like 5)

The cement plant at 4th and Iowa is slowing being demolished, as seen at the right.

The old building at 2nd and Ripley that Bill Wundram calls "Willie's place," is being renovated into a "tavern restaurant." As far as I know this is without public funds. Hopefully it's a bit classier than some of the bars downtown. Its already looking better than I remember it during my lifetime.

The QCTimes articles from this weekend point out that work will be beginning soon on even more downtown residential, in the form of the former Salvation Army building. Having this occupied should really make the under-renovation Freight House seem less isolated. One of the articles also mentioned that the Alexander Company is looking at starting on Phase 3 of the Crescent Warehouse District. More residents downtown means more chance of retail taking a chance on the area. Which brings us to...

The Putnam/Parker buildings renovation and remarketing as One Putnam Centre. This is also being done with private money, and the QCTimes article states that they're looking for the type of retail that downtown residents need.

1 Step Back (More like 2)

And now the negative. My favorite restaurant in the QC area, Centro, is closing at the end of this year. I will have to go a couple last times by New Year's. While all the articles say how it wasn't failing, we all know that if the place and been a great success it wouldn't be closing. I do agree with some of the quotes in the articles that they weren't hurting that bad for customers. It seems like whenever I was in there, weekend or weeknight, it was decently busy. Unfortunately, I also never saw it overflowing to where anyone had to wait outside. Why this is, I have no idea. Olive Garden is packed constantly, and I know I'd rather pay a couple extra bucks per meal (and that's all the difference is) to eat at a unique, Iowa-based restaurant rather than the image of corporate dining.

Savitri's also bit the dust, and the planned "Red River Steakhouse" never made it past the "Coming Soon" stage. This one isn't that much of a surprise, as the one time I was in there I only saw one other table in use. The only way I ever heard people describe Savitri's was expensive, and if you're looking for fine dining downtown we already had Duck City. If only a Mexican place would go into that building! Downtown has a variety of food, but that's one of the missing pieces.


Still moving forward:
So a couple of restaurants didn't make it, and a new one's already replacing one of them. According to some, its one more indicator that downtown is a failure. According to most, its something that happens, and is more than balanced by all the progress happening down there. One thing that Centro's failure demonstrates to me is that downtown has an image problem. People are willing to fight Kimberly traffic and park over by Office Max to go to Olive Garden, but not willing to park diagonally across the street in the free parking lot for Centro? Are some people still holding onto the false feeling that downtown is dangerous? Come on folks, 2nd and Main has got to be one of the safest and cleanest intersections in town. I hope that the incoming Woodfire Grill is supported at least as well as any similar NoLo restaurant.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

I drove down to Wildcat Den earlier this week to see what was left of the fall colors. I knew I was late in the season, but had hoped for some good images anyway. I got a few, which I may post later, but it was clear that I was a couple weeks late.

I also swung through Muscatine, and was very impressed with some of the progress happening in their downtown. I'll have to return (possibly in the Spring) and take a walk around to see more.

Some election tidbits

The highest turnout in Davenport was in Precinct D63 (35.80%), which is the area from Kimberly to 53rd, and from a mixture of Eastern and Jersey Ridge over to the Bettendorf border.

Riverdale, the only place around here with more of a city hall circus than us, had 61.56% of their registered voters come to the polls yesterday.

The only precincts with lower turnout this year than in 2005 were D21 and D53. In a true demonstration of consistency and stability, if not voting for the right guy, D52 had the exact same number of voters (188) that they did in 2005.

Overall in Davenport, voters increased from 15,548 in the 2005 election to 17,031 this year.

The ward that increased turnout the most was the 1st ward, followed by the 6th and 2nd. Sadly, the 3rd Ward had the lowest rate of increase in voter turnout.

Within the 3rd Ward, the D33 Precinct (Downtown Davenport) increased by the highest percentage and highest number of additional votes. This doesn't really explain Keith's 126-vote deficit, however.


Possibly more to come, but for now I'm going to bed. Consider this an election rehash open thread.

Your 2008 Davenport City Council

The results, as of 9:45PM

Courtesy of the Scott County Auditor's Election Returns site
Winners are in bold, and the candidates are listed in order of my endorsements.

Mayor:
Bill Gluba 62.35%
Phil Yerington 37.07%

At-Large:
Ian Frink 30.59%
Gene Meeker 29.36%
Jennifer Olsen 28.36%
Tina Gillispie-Clawson 11.31%

1st Ward:
Nate Brown 61.95%
Pat Gibbs 37.91%

2nd Ward:
Thomas Carnahan 25.11%
Shawn Hamerlinck 74.61%

3rd Ward:
Bill Boom 56.09%
Keith Meyer 43.40%

4th Ward:
Lisa Lewis 48.18%
Ray Ambrose 51.7%

5th Ward:
Doug Cunningham 42.07%
Bill Lynn 57.93%

6th Ward:
Jeff Justin 60.15%
Dale Gilmour 39.72%

7th Ward:
Barney Barnhill 64.48%
Marcia Patch 35.40%

8th Ward:
Mike Matson 59.51%
Becky Schabilion 40.31%

Some Results Already!

It looks like all precincts are reporting for the 3rd Ward, 5th Ward, and 6th Ward.

From what I can tell, winners in these wards appear to be:

Bill Boom
Bill Lynn
Jeff Justin

It also appears that turnout is up over 2005.

Absentee Ballot Results

The QCTimes pointed out that the Absentee Ballot results are up for Scott County, although the County website doesn't identify them as such. They call it the November 06, 2007 Municipal Elections Summary, which makes it sound like the final results. Its kind of strange really.

If these results match the final in-person voting results, my predictions are spot on. We will see.

Davenport Election'07 Endorsements

Just for reference, here are Cruiser's preferences, the QCTimes endorsements, and my endorsements from 2005.

Mayor: Bill Gluba
I'm not 100% in favor of either of these candidates. Yerington just brings too much history, and I disagree with much of what he would like to do as Mayor. Let's not forget the witch-hunt group, Citizens Against Political Abuse, which is much more recent evidence that Yerington will not shy away from controversy. Unfortunately, Gluba seems to be using the same kind of feisty speech that you would expect from a partisan politician. Hopefully he can settle down and run a (relatively) calm council.

At-Large: Ian Frink
I'm only endorsing one candidate for At-Large, for two reasons. I think that Jen Olsen or Gene Meeker will do an alright job, but I have some issues with each of them. Frink is a clear choice, as he's done his very best to stay above the fray of our current council, as difficult as that has been. Aside from his (and others') recent screwup on the rent-to-own consent agenda item, he does his research, travels to learn more about things that could benefit Davenport, and asks the important questions of staff in private instead of grandstanding on TV.

1st Ward: Nate Brown
After endorsing Gibbs in '05, I learned that his personal life hasn't been so great since being Mayor either. Obviously he would have been better than Van Fossen, but fortunately for us a new choice has arrived. Nate Brown is very well-spoken and thoughtful, and he's doing his best not to be on either "side" of the council. He's someone that I believe even people who disagree with his vote will be able to respect.

2nd Ward: Thomas Carnahan
Unfortunately, this is pretty much a vote-against. Shawn Hamerlinck is also thoughtful and well-spoken, but he also tells people what they want to hear rather than what may be the right thing for Davenport. His desire to micromanage city staff concerns me, as I shudder to think of 10 elected amateurs trying to run the day to day operations of a city of 100,000. We have this system of government for a very good reason. Our current 1st Ward Alderman demonstrates it well.

3rd Ward: Bill Boom
Both a vote-for and a vote-against. Can't ask for an easier choice than that. Alderman Meyer has been scaring away not only potential residents and businesses, but potential council members. As I've said before, a council meeting should not be awkward and uncomfortable to endure. Bill Boom intends to create a mini-council, or a 3rd Ward Council, made up of people from different areas of the ward. He's well-spoken and able to understand the way cities work in the real world.

4th Ward: Lisa Lewis
This ward could really use a change, but I don't know if they know what they're missing out on. As the Times and others have said, any candidate who shuns computers doesn't have a place in sitting on a Davenport City Council in 2008. Lisa Lewis brings the new perspective of someone who has recently returned to her hometown, hopefully with equally new and helpful ideas.

5th Ward: Doug Cunningham
Bill Lynn is probably the only person on the existing council who I sometimes wonder if he really has Davenport's best interests in mind. Hamerlinck, Meyer, Ambrose, etc... even when I disagree with them, as I frequently do, I know that they just have a different idea of what's best for our city. The sneaky ways that Lynn has been doing things over the last 2 years, and the shady people he is so strongly defended by, should give anyone pause before reelecting him. As Cunningham has said, if you feel that the 5th Ward has improved lately, vote for Lynn. If not, vote for change.

6th Ward: Jeff Justin
I like Dale Gilmour, but I don't think he would vote in a way that I would like. It seems like he's shifted away from his place between the two sides where I felt he sat in 2005 when I endorsed him. I must say that he would make an excellent and I believe honest spokesperson for the Lynn/Hamerlinck side of the council. Jeff Justin has been in this community for decades, and will be a professional and intelligent member of the council. He seems to represent the feelings of the 6th Ward better than his opponent.

7th Ward: Barney Barnhill
While he may come across badly sometimes on TV, if you actually listen to what Barnhill says at council meetings, much of what he says is good stuff. My opinion of him has actually increased over the last 2 years, and I've heard that he provides good service to those living in his ward. I'd like to see Marcia Patch stay involved and maybe gain some name recognition and participate in local politics a little more before she runs again.

8th Ward: Mike Matson
He actually believes that Davenport is a good place to live already! I agree, and I think that more people in Davenport feel this way than we hear on the blogs. Either of the candidates for 8th Ward sound like they would do a good job, but I'm going with Matson because I know he will keep pushing for a higher quality of life in Davenport.

Who I think will win tomorrow

These are my predictions of who I think will actually be elected tomorrow for Davenport City Council and Mayor. They have nothing to do with who I think should win, which will be my next post. Hopefully I do better than the 6 out of 11 I got right 2 years ago.

Mayor: Bill Gluba
Our last Mayors have been Charlie Brooke, and Ed Winborn. I feel that the city as a whole recently has been voting for dignified older businessmen more than the younger, feistier cops we elected in the 90's. I think among people who don't follow city hall that closely, Gluba has less of a negative connotation. Its strange to go from two Republican candidates to one definite Democrat and one (current or former?) Democrat. I would say that goes to show that it doesn't matter what national political party you belong to in local politics.

At-Large: Frink and Olsen, in that order.
I know she came out and dominated in the primary, but I think Jennifer has a good following among the types of political junkies and involved people who vote in primary elections. I pretty much feel that both of these are definites; its just a matter of which order they go in. Obviously the only potential upset would be Meeker squeaking in.

1st Ward: Nate Brown
I think this will be one of the closer elections, but I wouldn't be shocked if either of them runs away with it. Nate has been getting out there and meeting people like crazy, but Gibbs has lots of name recognition and people probably feel bad for picking VanFossen over him last time.

2nd Ward: Shawn Hamerlinck
This one's easy. He tells the folks in the 2nd ward what they want to hear, holds ward meetings, and votes the way they seem to want. One of the few races I'd be willing to bet some money on.

3rd Ward: Bill Boom
Yes, I said the same thing last year and he lost, but Alderman Meyer has had some troubles recently, and the primary results didn't look good for him either. Some of this will depend on how much Boom has gotten out the vote among the young professionals moving into downtown.

4th Ward: Ray Ambrose
Maybe Jen Olsen just rubbed the 4th ward the wrong way last time, but I feel like if a longtime neighborhood activist can't dislodge Ambrose, a relative unknown like Lewis is going to have a tough time. On the other hand, it does seem like she has been out there trying to win people over, and we have no primary results to base any guesses on.

5th Ward: Bill Lynn
In the 5th ward we do have primary data to go off of, and more people voted for him than against him. The recent illegal attacks against him aren't going to help Cunningham's side, which brings out the tinfoil hat theory that they came from Lynn's own side... but I doubt it. There are definitely some rabid anti-Lynn folks out there (and who comment around here) who are probably capable of the foolish attacks. Looks like another 2 years of Lynnomics.

6th Ward: Jeff Justin
Come on... its the 6th ward. Despite Gilmour's activism, participation in dozens if not hundreds of meetings, and decent name recognition, I just don't see this D1 stronghold going for someone like Dale. The primary data pretty much confirms this.

7th Ward: Barney Barnhill
He never loses! Seriously though, this could be a close one. Barnhill only got about half the votes in the primary, so it seems to me that half the people who voted felt it was time for a change. Of course, I used that theory in the 3rd ward last time to little success.

8th Ward: Mike Matson
I don't know all that much about either of these candidates, or what efforts they've been putting in out in the 8th ward. Because of that, I'm just going to go with the Primary winner.

For those among us who worry about council voting strategy, this would leave Frink, Brown,
Boom, Justin and Barnhill as at least a bloc of 5 on one "side", with Matson/Shabilion potentially being the 6th. Either way, if Gluba is Mayor that would give us (at least) the familiar 5-5 with the Mayor breaking the tie. I think the side I generally disagree with is going to be angry after this election. First and Third wards will be the ones to watch.

Coming later today: Predictions and Endorsements

Where have I been? Having fun with Halloween, visiting friends in Indiana, upgrading my computer, taking it easy... Pretty much everywhere but here reading all the nasty comments, rumors, and other pre-election junk that's been flooding the local blogs. Its the kind of stuff that makes me want to quit doing this, so I've just been sitting this week out. Reading some of the attack comments on the other blogs bothers me enough without having them on my own.

However, I'm not completely giving on up election discussion. Later today I should have both who I think should win and who I think will win in Davenport Election '07 posted.

Happy Trick-or-Treat Day

Living in Davenport my whole life, I've gotten used to defending our unusual night-before Halloween custom, but one thing I'd never really thought about was our city-provided schedule. It just seemed like common sense to me that the city would specify hours for trick-or-treating, but talking to folks from other parts of the country, especially big cities, I found out that many cities don't designate specific times for the kids to be out begging for candy. Just something I found interesting. Considering how much Davenport residents already get hit by out-of-towners on our separate Halloween, I can't even imagine if it were allowed to go on past 3 hours...

Just the facts:
Davenport Trick-or-Treating: Tonight, 5PM-8PM
(Sunset is scheduled for 6:00PM)
Davenport Halloween Parade: Tomorrow night, 7PM

If you have to go out, drive safe tonight folks. Watch our for little ghouls and goblins, or more likely Hanna Montanas and Harry Potters.

Sewer Open Thread

Sewer tunnel project called vital to the city -QCTimes

To those of us that read blogs, go to meetings, and really get into boring stuff like infrastructure and city planning, this is old news. That leaves about 98% of the city of Davenport that probably couldn't tell you what this "west side diversion tunnel" that all the candidates mentioned even is, at least prior to this article. Its interesting to see some of the less sexy topics covered in the Times as well, and a sewer tunnel is high on the unsexy list. Its good to hear that everyone is agreeing on the need, but I also hope we can plan potential west side sprawl better than was done in the Elmore area. Mostly I'm intrigued by the ideal of big distribution center-type industry along the I-280 corridor. We're in the perfect spot for that kind of project, at least judging by our centrally located position in the US.

I know I've been slow on posts lately, but hopefully that will improve soon. Consider the rest of this an open thread and feel free to discuss non-sewer topics.

The American Queen at Oneida Landing

From this QCTimes blurb:

The American Queen, the world’s largest steamboat, will stop at Oneida Landing in Davenport from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday. Public tours of the boat will not be available.

The 418-foot-long boat holds 436 passengers and is furnished with antique furniture, vintage artwork, photographs and books. Launched in 1995, the boat has a dining room with chandeliers, a two-story saloon with private box seats on the mezzanine, a ladies’ parlor, gentleman’s card room and more.

For more information about the boat, go to majesticamericaline.com.

Obviously it arrives before 8am, as all was quiet around 6:30, with the boat already tied up along side the river wall.

Charlie

A guest post from the Fly:

You may recall the "Rule #3 Party" in 2005. In the unlikely event that everyone showed up, there was a protocal in place for me to out myself and it relied on Charlie. I wrote to him that I would edge up to him and whisper in his ear "How 'bout a beer, big boy?". Odds were, no one would beat me to that. When I suggested it, Charlie responded "You'd better not be a guy."

I wish I'd seen this coming and had had a way to whisper that in his ear. He earned it. I frequently didn't see eye-to-eye with him, but I think it was clear I respected him. He was certainly a guy you coulda had a beer with. Probably that's part of where the idea came from. Funny thing is though - never much cared for beer. To share a round with him though, it would have been worth it.

Charlie had his faults, but who doesn't? Truth is, he helped make Davenport a better place, just like everyone else who gets active and is motivated by public service.

Thanks, Charlie. Next round's on me.

F

A couple 7th Ward happenings

First, here are a couple images I took at the scene of the police chase car crash at 29th and Bridge that happened on Saturday. I never saw an article in the paper, but here's what KWQC said about it. I'd like to see a statement from the police on what happened, but maybe I just missed the QCTimes article about it? This is the unfortunate side of chasing criminals. Sometimes they crash, and sometimes those crashes involve innocent folks. However, as we saw a few years ago, even when police break off the chase, the suspect may continue to drive at high speeds, and could still kill someone. To my knowledge, we've had more deaths in the last 5 or 6 years from broken-off chases (1) than we have from actual pursuits (0). That doesn't even take into account the number of crimes that were later committed by people who police were forced to let get away. As we saw Saturday, chasing criminals is dangerous, but I believe its less dangerous than letting them escape.



Secondly, and in less sad news, I saw Gene Meeker out campaigning the old fashioned way Saturday, also in the area of Garfield School. He was wearing down the shoes, knocking on doors, and handing out fliers himself. Hopefully some of the people who imagine him as some stuffed shirt former D1 bigwig met him and saw that he's a fairly regular guy. Jennifer Olsen's donation to Phil Yerington's campaign (in addition to issues I've mentioned before) has got me thinking twice about her. She's got a lot of good stuff going for her, but you also have to look who people's friends are. I can honestly say I haven't decided who my second At-Large vote will be for.

A few news article links

Renowned da Vinci exhibit opens Nov. 9 at Putnam -QCTimes
I just never get tired of reading about how the Quad Cities get events, concerts, art shows, golf tournaments, airshows, etc, that tend to go to metro areas considerably larger than ours. As I said in the Great Places post, we need to remember how good we have it in the Quad Cities more often. This exhibit sounds like something most definitely worth checking out.

SAU seeing record enrollment -QCOnline
I'm not sure how they afford it, but more and more students seem to be choosing St. Ambrose. As the college continues to grow, I (and others) would really love to see the Harrison Street area turn into more of a campustown atmosphere. It could possibly happen in conjunction with the corridor enhancement.

Divided, forum fails -Sioux City Journal
The GOP counterpart to our Davenport debate didn't end up working out. I guess we should be glad we got the one where most candidates showed up.

Aldermen call on teens for help in drafting cell phone ban -QCTimes
An interesting thing for the council to be spending time on. Here's one quote:

David Whalen, a Central senior and member of the student government, said he appreciated the aldermen reaching out to students. “It’s pretty cool that they respect and value our opinion,” he said. “We’d like to see (the ban) extended to everyone. Just because we’re younger doesn’t mean we’re any worse on cell phones than any other driver would be.”

I'm pretty sure that various studies have shown that younger drivers are indeed worse at driving while on the phone. I am curious whether this will go anywhere.


The second anniversary of the QuadCityImages blog has come and gone without me even noticing. It would have at least made a good title for my last open thread, if I'd noticed...

Bloggers Block Open Thread

Sometimes I get in a rut where I can't get excited about putting together a post or two. This is one of those times, so I'm just going to call this an open thread.

What's going on this weekend?

Anyone else ready to just have the 2008 election this November and be done with it?

In this article about Bettendorf's sprawl (I mean "growth") I found one of the quotes somewhat humorous:

Blunk said he doesn’t believe those who opposed the rezoning of land at Devils Glen Road and 53rd Avenue are opposed to all commercial development. “What it basically boiled down to is they did not want the bright lights and hubbub and late hours.”

Don't worry Bettendorfers, I don't think you'll ever have to worry about bright lights, hubbub, or late hours.

Anyone else notice how happy QCOnline is to report on the troubles of former Internet Revealed customers? Its almost like QCOnline owns a competing internet provider... hmm....

Gotta agree with Alderman Meyer on this one

Buried within the article about the rent-to-owns, is this blurb:

In other business Monday, 3rd Ward Alderman Keith Meyer made a motion to ask i wireless Center officials to not reschedule a concert by T.I., a rapper whose Sunday night show was canceled at the last minute because the artist was arrested on weapons charges in Atlanta.

Bettendorf and Davenport police ended up breaking up a fight between unhappy concert-goers who ended up outside Penguins Comedy Club near the Isle of Capri Bettendorf early Monday.

I pretty much have to agree with him on this particular item. If a non-celebrity was charged with this stuff, the QC area wouldn't be welcoming them back with open arms. What good does a person like this bring to the community?

I don't know if its Davenport's place to ask the i wireless Center not to reschedule the concert, but I hope that Moline or the iwC itself makes that smart decision. Considering how much security they had for the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert last January, I can't even begin to imagine how much they would need for the T.I. concert. In addition to patting down attendees, they'd have to check the performer as well.

Another unfortunate piece of info out of this is that Penguins, where the after-non-concert party/fight ended up, is the comedy club that's moving into the Freight House this winter. Hopefully they can keep stuff like this from happening.

Also, how did the people that showed up at the iwC for the concert not hear or read any news in the preceding days? I guess as a news junkie, I can't understand people who are that out of touch with current news.

Great place? One of the greatest

Iowa designates Davenport a 'great place' -QCTimes

The early version of this article garnered the usual QCTimes commenter reaction: negativity. They felt it was a joke that Davenport is considered a great place. I think they couldn't be more wrong.

I rarely go a day without telling someone what a great place Davenport is, and how much greater we're striving to become. Let's congratulate ourselves for once.

Some interesting reading

Well, Phil Yerington may not have his election disclosure form on the website yet, (whether it was filed or not, I don't know) but Taxpayers United has their form online. For those that don't know, the names involved with the Taxpayers United PAC read like a who's who of QCRPA members.

The filing can be found here.
If that link doesn't work, you can go here, and then select City PAC, Taxpayers United, and then the bottom, most recent filing. It is an interesting read, to say the least.

Their filing confirms that they gave $500 to Friends of Phil Yerington for Mayor. Not really a surprise, as Phil didn't deny that charge when Gluba pointed it out.

What I don't really understand are all the other expenditures that seem to relate to fixing up a house. From what I can figure out through some internet searching, it almost looks like the QCRPA/Taxpayers United bought a house in Bettendorf at a tax sale, fixed it up using PAC money, and sold it, with the profits going back into the PAC. That seems strange, at the least. I'm sure one of the autodialin' cronies will be on here within minutes to explain this. I'm curious to hear it.

Of course, I've never run a smear campaign. Maybe carpet, windows and siding are normal requirements.

Some more Primary '07 Stuff

Apparently when you change your voter registration along with the address on your driver's license at the DOT/County Store on West Kimberly, they aren't at all timely in getting that info to the Auditor. A friend of mine moved and got his new license over a month ago, and was told his Voter Registration card would be sent within 10 days. It wasn't received, and he wasn't on the list. I know of at least 2 more people this has happened to, and the poll workers I talked to said something along the lines of "Oh, it takes forever when they do it at the license place." Fortunately the people were able to get ballots for their new precincts, but it was quite an ordeal. Does anyone think that the DOT should either A. Submit voter registration in a timely manner, especially before upcoming elections? or B. At least tell people that it may be months before their registration is changed. I will probably email Karen Fitzsimmons about this. When people show up at the polls and have all these problems, it only contributes to the already-low desire of people to vote.

Lots of surprises in the 7th Ward. I don't know that anyone was surprised that Barnhill made it through the primary, but who would have predicted that Doc Davis would get the least votes? Marcia Patch really came out of nowhere, but her anti-Skybridge rhetoric kind of turns me away. I'm going to have to read more about her now that she's made it to the general election.

Total voters increased in all of the wards that had primaries both this year and in 2005, EXCEPT for the 3rd Ward. What happened? Last time we made impressive gains, at least during the general election. It will be interesting to see how many people vote in November.

Speaking of the 3rd Ward, I believe that Keith is done for. It seems like Alderman Meyer's fans are dedicated enough to him to vote in the primary, but we'll see if a fresh crop of them comes out to vote next month. Consider last election's slim margin with Meyer beating Boom in the primary, I have to think that Boom winning the primary looks good for him.

I suspect that Gluba is safe for Mayor. Unless Jamie really did bring out Republicans to vote for her, who are then going to be faced with a choice of two Democrats, I think most of her voters will go for Gluba.

Looks like Hamerlinck will be back in 2008, doing his best to micromanage the city. Apparently that's what the 2nd ward wants.

We all need to do whatever we can for Cunningham in the 5th ward, but its definitely not looking good at this point. How can anyone support the landlords when they continue their negative autodialers, instead of just admitting that they support candidates? Our circus is bad enough without mudslinging.

I still want to know if anyone else got autodialer calls that were listed as being from public schools on Caller ID. Something seems very fishy about that.

Last, but not least, Jamie Howard. She has taken far more crap on the blogs than she deserved. At her best, she can be a very classy lady. At her worst, she has definitely contributed to the City Council Circus. I hope she does stay involved in the community. One thing is for sure though, I would have much rather seen her run a clean campaign and lose honorably than sell out to the Victory garbage-factory and run the Republican playbook for dirty elections. Not how I'd want to end my time on the council, that's or sure.

The results are in

Some upsets for sure. Here's the link to the early summary.

Update: Later today I'll have some additional thoughts on the primary.

Making it into the primary: (Candidates in order of votes received)

Mayor:
Bill Gluba
Phil Yerington

At-Large:
Jennifer Olsen
Ian Frink
Gene Meeker
Tina Gillespie-Clawson

1st Ward:
Nathan Brown
Pat Gibbs

2nd Ward:
Shawn Hamerlinck
Thomas Carnahan

3rd Ward:
Bill Boom
Keith Meyer

4th Ward: (No Primary)
Ray Ambrose
Lisa Lewis

5th Ward:
Bill Lynn
Doug Cunningham

6th Ward:
Jeff Justin
Dale Gilmour

7th Ward:
Barney Barnhill
Marcia Patch

8th Ward:
Mike Matson
Becky Shabilion

Primary Vote-Fors and Vote-Againsts ..and the Queen of Election07

I have no problem endorsing candidates. After all, all an election really consists of is people telling you who they think you should vote for. I did it last election, and I'll do it for the November election. However, since today is only a primary, I'm going with 3 candidates I feel definitely deserve to survive the primary, and 3 who I feel shouldn't. I'm not bothering with non-candidates like Swanson who have little to no chance of making it to the general election. There are other candidates who I support (or don't support), but didn't make the top 3.

Vote-Fors: (Not in order of deservedness)

Bill Gluba -This is a combination of a vote-for and two vote-againsts. I like a lot of what Gluba has to say, and I dislike a lot of what Yerington has to say. Obviously Yerington's ties with Lynn, landlords, and the "If there's anything bad going on in Davenport government, call us" group makes me think that he would be just as controversial as he ever was. Howard wouldn't be the end of the world, but she's definitely part of the current circus problem.

Ian Frink -He's been our At-Large Alderman for 2 years, yet he's gotten very little press. Why is this? Its because he's been doing his job in a professional manner and staying out of the scandals. He asks a lot of the same questions of city staff that people demand, but he doesn't do it during council meetings for the benefit of the cameras. I've heard people who generally agree with each "side" of the council say that Ian deserves reelection. I very much agree.

Nate Brown -I wouldn't characterize him as being on either "side" of the existing council, but my one in-person conversation with him left me impressed. He knows what's going on, and he knows how to make positive changes without scandals and fighting. The first ward will be a huge turnaround if it goes from VanFossen to Brown.

Vote-Againsts
(Not in any particular order, except maybe the first one)

Bill Lynn -So many reasons, but I want to keep it to only a paragraph. Lynn supporters are pointing to the Guardian Angels in droves as his big accomplishment, but Jeremy Boots seems like the guy with the original idea. Don't let this one issue distract you from everything else that's happened in the last 2 years. He is in the pocket of landlords, which is a very small group to work for, and some of them aren't even Davenport residents. He makes silly statements like comparing construction costs of a handicapped-accessible public restroom in floodplain to a residential home. He was against downtown design guidelines that were supported by downtown businesses. Etc, etc.

Keith Meyer -Watching a city council meeting shouldn't be an uncomfortable ordeal. There should not be confrontational demands about city staff's personal yardwaste sticker locations, or minutes taken to explain the meaning of the phrase "rhetorical question". Why can't all these questions be asked prior to meetings, in a way that doesn't make the city council look like a circus. Keith puts a lot of time and effort into this job, but I think its starting to be to his personal detriment, as well as the city's. His statements that downtown is a failure and that people who make $60k a year wouldn't want to live in Davenport are just icing on the Vote-against cake.

Phil Yerington -Landlord autodialers, and an admitted truck of baggage. There are 2 main reasons not to vote for Yerington. He seems to be in with the Lynn-Landlord crowd, and the landlords are running their usual negative attack garbage that I so despise. One thing I wonder is whether Victory Enterprises runs the attack ads both for and against Jamie Howard. The other reason to pass on Phil is his excessive history of scandal and controversy. It would practically take Mother Teresa to ignore all of his past conflicts with various people. While it does seem like Phil has matured and calmed some, I don't think he's gotten to the Mother Teresa level yet. I'll be curious to see if he stays involved even if he's defeated.


The undebatable Queen of this election for her tireless work in informing the voters when the rest of us bloggers didn't get the job done?

Snarky
Thanks for everything she has done.

The Quad City Flames

What a great night for hockey in the Quad Cities. The crowd was big, and very excited and involved in the game. If baseball fans would get that into minor league baseball, it would really be something. The attendance was 7,548. Just for comparison, the Iowa Stars vs San Antonio Rampage only drew 5,895 to the 13,000 seat AT&T Center in San Antonio. The Flames game was in the upper half of attendance rankings last night in a league that includes cities like Providence, Milwaukee, and Portland. Lets hope the crowd excitement and winning team snowball into another year like we had when the Mallards first arrived.
I'd say between half and two-thirds of the people wore red to participate in the River of Red. The parent team in Calgary has the "Sea of Red."
Look, people are actually paying attention to the game, and jumping up when something happens. Take note, local minor league teams, somehow make this happen!

Even though these are 2 brand new teams of players, they seem to have inherited the QC-Rockford rivalry. Here is one of the many fights or near fights, and believe it or not, the penalty box. I don't know that I've ever seen 7-8 players at a time in there before. And to think people were worried about the AHL not being as physical as the UH!

Unrelated Note: The only downside of the night was outside of the hockey world. Despite my usual opposition to the Cubs winning, I was really rooting for them tonight. I had tickets to Sunday's playoff game at Wrigley, and it would have been nice if the Cubs had managed to stay in it long enough for me to watch them lose. As they say, maybe next year...

Mayoral Forum Open Thread

I finally got around to listening to the audio recordings of both of the Mayoral Forums. Both the D1 event and the QCTimes event at Mojo's are available on the QCTimes website.

I was pretty much impressed with all 3, and I'm less worried about the possibility of someone other than Gluba winning than I was. I mean, depending on how the council ends up, the Mayor could theoretically never vote on anything anyway. They all talk about grand plans, but we have to keep in mind that its the Aldermen that really do the deciding. One of the questions that I wish had been asked at one of the events was about the use of vetoes. That's the one way besides breaking ties that the Mayor can really affect the council business. I'd be curious about each of the candidates willingness to veto decisions made by the majority of the council. Aside from that, none of them seemed like they would be an embarrassment to the city.

A few other thoughts:
-I actually thought all 3 did better at the Mojos debate than the D1 one
-My preference towards Gluba hasn't changed, but I was disappointed that he came after Howard and Yerington about the Republican and Landlord things, respectively. I don't disagree with his attacks on these issues, but I think he would have been better off staying above that stuff.
-But since he brought it up, what IS with Howard advertising her party? Is it, as someone said, just the Victory Enterprises playbook for GOP candidates?
-Landlords support Yerington? Enough said.
-I did like Yerington's diplomatic answer on Craig Malin
-Since the Mayor is sometimes more of a ceremonial position, I also like Gluba's enthusiasm for Davenport. I definitely consider it part of the job description to be a cheerleader for our city, and he seems up to this task. Too many people in Davenport seem to think we're living in this craphole of a city, and I for one see a lot more good than bad when I look at Davenport.

Who I think will make it through the primary

I'll throw my hat into the guessing ring, and post my best guesses (and some of them truly are guesses) as to who will make it through the Davenport primary election.

These are who I think WILL make it, not who I think SHOULD make it. I may do a post on that later. No explanations on these yet, and feel free to make your guesses in the comments section. If you want the fame and glory of guessing the closest, you might want to log in or at least use a nickname. Here are my predictions.


Mayor:
Gluba and Yerington

At-Large:
Frink, Olsen, Meeker, and Combs

1st Ward:
Gibbs and Brown

2nd Ward:
Hamerlinck and Gaghagen

3rd Ward:
Boom and Meyer

4th Ward:
Ambrose and Lewis
(If we were playing Bingo, this would be the center square)

5th Ward:
Lynn and Cunningham

6th Ward:
Gilmour and Justin

7th Ward:
Barnhill and Davis

8th Ward:
McDonnell and Matson

Picks that I'm the least sure of:
Gaghagen, Justin, Matson

Where in the QC is this? #18

I haven't been much up for blogging the last week or two, but I'm going to try and remedy that over the next few days.

Until then, my usual cop-out. Where in the Quad Cities is this? And for once its not Davenport.If no one's gotten it by this afternoon, I'll probably give another clue.

Don't Forget! Promise Meeting

Davenport Promise Meeting
7:00PM Thursday, October 4th
in the Genesis East Heart Institute auditorium

Whether you're for it, against it, or for or against various ways of funding this potential program, you should try to attend one of these meetings. People around here have a history of not going to the meetings where things are decided (RiverVision comes to mind) and then getting all upset later when the results start coming out. If you don't go to any meetings, you lose your right to complain later.

Two quick pieces of good news from the city website

1. After much complaining by Bill Wundram and many others, the city is going out for bids on the Dillon Fountain renovation. At this point we'll be lucky to see it working by next spring, unfortunately. Its about time the city got on this. I might have to update my signature picture if they get it up and running again.

2. Trick-or-treating will be from 5pm-8pm on October 30th. According to the US Naval Observatory, (the authority on this kind of stuff) sunset will be at 6pm that night. So 2/3rds of the trick-or-treating will be in the dark, as it should be. Thank God they aren't trying that daylight hour junk again this year.

Consider the rest of this an Open Thread.

Crackdown

Score one for the DPD last night.

Of course, after I typed up the following, I went to QCTimes.com and found this excellent article that summarizes what happened better than I did. (Score one for the mainstream media) According to the article over 70 law enforcement officers were involved.

Police arrest 12 in Centennial Bridge sting -QCTimes

I don't know if it was related to the pizza delivery guy getting shot last night, but there were more cops on the street last night than any time I can remember. In addition to the usual beat cops, I'd say I heard at least 15 other cops referred to by badge number. There was a checkpoint set up at the bottom of the Centennial for a few hours, which nabbed a ton of people. I heard them say one car was going 71 over the bridge. The DPD had a OWI team set up to process drunk drivers, and I heard at least 3 people get nailed for that. One person told me they saw at least 20 law enforcement officers near the bottom of the Centennial, including Iowa State Patrol. The jail must have had to bring in extra people too, because a lot of folks were getting sent there.

It would cost a fortune, but imagine the message it would send to the thugs and career criminals if we did this every night for a month or two. Good job to whoever was in charge of last night's operation.

Downtown News: Davenport and Moline

Moline project announcement planned -QCTimes
The blurb linked to above says "A news conference has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at the Bass Street Landing Plaza Stage to announce an economic development project for downtown Moline. The announcement involves a project that could bring more than $50 million in investment to the community, officials said in the announcement."
Hopefully this is related to the highrise tower that was in the news back in April. I also had a small blog post about it back then. It sounds like we'll know by this afternoon. (Oops, I mean Thursday afternoon)


Isle of Capri offers to give Blackhawk to city for restoration -QCTimes
This SEEMS like good news, but I'm waiting to see all the details of the offer. IOC has lost all trust and good will I ever had for them long ago. I'll believe it when I see it.


Between the Blackhawk restoration, the Putnam/Parker renovation mentioned yesterday, and Bill Wundram's revelation that the cement plant at 4th and Iowa is going to be torn down, we've got several pieces of good news for downtown Davenport in about a week's time. Hopefully the streak continues. Downtown is getting closer all the time to really taking off, and more people are starting to wake up and notice it.

Random Snippets

Major renovation on tap for former M.L. Parker store -QCTimes
Obviously this is great news for downtown, although not as great as when they start announcing that tenants are moving in. I hope they're willing to go after the really big fish, and maybe offer them very discounted rents to get people coming down to the area. Bring in Hollister, Crate and Barrel, just something that would be a first in the QC. As I posted in the past, they have a website at OnePutnamCentre.com. Unlike last time, its up and running now. This is a very important building at arguably the most important intersection of downtown Davenport.


WIU's plans for Q-C campus on hold -QCOnline
Of course they mean for the RIVERFRONT campus, since WIU already has a Q-C campus. This project is simply a no-brainer, but lately that seems to be an accurate description of Illinois politics.

Yard sign shenanigans -Me
Fourth ward candidate Lisa Lewis dropped me a line a couple days ago to say that some of her yard signs had been disappearing. This seems to be a growing problem, and really doesn't it fit right in with our city council? Childish behavior like this is one of the main problems we're having, both in the council chambers and now in people's yards. On the other extreme, this person placed a Frink sign in their yard, only to have it magically joined by a Gluba sign. So while some people are having signs stolen, others are having them placed in their yards without prior consent. Lisa promised that signs will be replaced wherever dimwits steal them from. (dimwits is my word, not hers)

Davenport Promise teams with police in attempt to reallocate tax -QCTimes
I'm mostly in favor of the Promise idea, but not at the cost of giving a beat-down of Davenport's budget for the next few years. I'm not dissing the project itself Pioneer, so don't jump on me, but you guys need to hold out for a better funding idea. Tin-foil hat theory would be that D1 pushed for these ideas to be lumped together in order to kill off the police idea. It seems so out there that there almost has to be some weird explanation.

2 Examples of Police Cooperation

Last night, as most weekend nights are, was a busy one on the Police radio. There were 2 events that struck me in particular.

#1. A lady was spotted leaning out over the river outside the railing on the Centennial Bridge. Rock Island and Davenport PD cooperated in closing the bridge, and the Davenport Fire Department deployed several vehicles and got the rescue boat in the water very quickly. DPD officers were able to communicate directly with DFD personnel in the boat. The police worked quickly to find out who the potential jumper was, and contact people that could help them talk her down. After less than an hour's time, the woman got off the railing and the incident was ended safely.

#2. Word comes out on the radio that Scott County Sheriff's Deputies and Clinton officers (Sheriff or Clinton PD, I don't know which) are pursuing a drunk driver into Davenport. The chase had already reached speeds over 100+mph according to the dispatcher, and they were coming in on Welcome Way towards 53rd. A Davenport officer asked his supervisor something very similar to, "Should we get ahead of them and block off side streets so they don't crash into anyone?" That's definitely a leading question, as it is very much directed at a yes answer. The response was, "We're not going to get involved." The officers weren't able to easily communicate directly with the other departments, although I believe several DPD units saw the chase go past them, as it was called out when they went through a few intersections. It had to be frustrating for all agencies involved to have Davenport units (who know the city best) forced to sit by and do nothing. It would have been nice if they'd been able to deploy stop sticks, considering that the chase stayed on 61 South for several miles. The last thing I heard was that the chase continued east on Kirkwood. I don't know what the resolution was.

So in the first case, we have an example of everything and everyone working together for the best outcome possible, and succeeding. It also provided a glimpse into how well consolidate dispatching could work, in theory. In the second case, the other departments were basically on their own, probably due to Davenport's misguided chase policy. If the drunk driver had waved a gun around and jumped into a car, DPD would probably have been able to pursue. Yet driving 100+ miles an hour in a small SUV isn't dangerous enough to warrant chasing? What happens when officers keep letting these criminals get away, and later they kill someone? Will that be safer than chasing? When did we get to the point where all you have to do to get away from the police is try?

This is priority #1 for me when choosing a new police chief. After all, in order to fight crime, you actually have to catch the criminals.

Almost Fall Open Thread

This image comes from last Saturday's Fall Festival at Vander Veer.

This is a wide open thread, except I'd prefer people keep the rental talk on the appropriate thread a few posts below.

Anyone going to the AARP forum/debate tonight at the Adler feel free to send me some images, and I'll probably post them.

Aiport news

Q-C Airport sets new passenger record for August -QCTimes
Its pretty cool that its becoming "normal" to have passenger records on an almost constant basis lately. It seems like a real indicator of the health of the area.

Compass building a $9.85M project at site in Louisville -QCTimes
This headline seems to have nothing to do with the Quad Cities, but the article reveals that the "QCI Airport" was nearly selected for the project. Losing out to Louisville and DSM, especially Louisville, is nothing to be ashamed of.

I also posted about these news items over on the AbsoluteDSM.com forums.

From under the radar to front page above the fold

Updated at 6:45am Tuesday:

Rent-to-own ordinance faces revision -QCTimes

So Lynn wants to "fix" the ordinance himself, now that he was caught in the act. Unfortunately, his "fix" doesn't fix any of the real problems with this ordinance. It only requires that these contracts be recorded, so now there will be proof that they can't be inspected as rentals. I don't see how this really makes the situation better at all, but I'm sure some landlords will be on here to attempt to explain it any minute. If they had honest intentions here, they'd just add contract sales to the inspections without subtracting rent-to-owns. Unfortunately, not many of us think there are honest intentions involved here.

Original post:

Rent-to-own homes avoid inspections under ordinance -QCTimes

Thanks to Tory Brecht for bring this out into the open for the non-blogging public to read about. The letter to the FD with a list of properties that no longer need inspecting is VERY telling. This seems to have a high rate of disapproval from the people who know about these things, police and firefighting rental inspectors. From what I'm hearing it was slipped past into the consent agenda without all Aldermen knowing the implications. Shame on some of them for not reading closely, but shame on Alderman Lynn for bowing to landlords once again.

If the ordinance was really to "increase inspections" as claimed in the article, why not just add contract sales without eliminating rent-to-own inspections?

Also, I'm going to ban any accusations of being Dan or Wally on this thread. I don't know if I'll really delete violations, but I'll definitely consider it.

Goodbye to the old Police Station(and good riddance!)

My dad and I went down to the auction preview at the old police station and snooped around. I wish I had taken more than the 20 or so pictures I took, but I was doing more looking than photographing. I know my way around it pretty well, but with so much stuff moved out it was a challenge even for me to navigate the maze. Here are a few images:This is pretty much the standard hallway in the converted car dealership that our officers called home for decades. If you want to pass someone in the hall, you have to turn sideways and shuffle past each other.This was something I was kind of surprised didn't make the news. From the looks of it, the entire south wall of the station sank several inches sometime during construction of the new station, which is mere feet away. I wouldn't want to have been working in the old station when that happened. All the offices on that side of the building now have a slope to their floor. Fortunately the whole building will be gone within weeks.


On the left was the Tactical Operations Bureau, which consists of undercover detectives and gang officers, and on the right is the Detective Bureau. Imagine trying to deal with a witness or suspect on the phone with another officer doing the same only 2 feet away. The TOB offices were formerly a closet.


For you CSI fans out there, these are the 2 tiny rooms that the DPD's civilian evidence techs had to work out of. I don't watch the shows, but I doubt theirs look like this. The DPD techs don't drive H2's either. For those of you that took the tour of the new PD, these were replaced by that spacious basement room with the counter around the outside and 3 or 4 long workspace islands. They also now have several cubicles, whereas in the old station they shared one desk seen in the lower right of the 2nd image above.

Here are all 20 of the pictures I took, hosted on Flickr with small descriptions. You really can't get the full impact of these unless you took the tour of the new Police Station.

If anyone can look at those images and say a new Police Station wasn't needed, I certainly can't understand how.

Not necessarily a Friday Open Thread

Just a few disconnected items:

• I read somewhere that a stoplight is being installed at Elmore and Dexter Court (the dead end street between Best Buy/Lazy Boy and the medical offices. It should help slow down traffic coming around the curve there, and also make it a lot easier to get out of Best Buy. Lets just hope they get it in by the day after Thanksgiving.


• Don't forget all the stuff happening this weekend, such as Riverssance, Brew Ha Ha, and the Vander Veer Fall Festival. I've cut back on posting upcoming events since it seems like the papers cover them, but I've gotten complaints about people not hearing about stuff. Maybe I should go back to posting "What's happening this weekend" more often.


• Davenport police to auction leftover items -QCTimes
  I am sure they don't want people doing this, but this would be a good time for those folks who took the tour of the new PD to snoop around the old station and see how bad they used to have it. And hey, if you are starting your own police department, this auction would be right down your alley.


• Check out this random guy from St. Louis's images of the Figge on Flickr. Its pretty interesting to see what him and the people commenting on the images have to say, including a lot of "Where is that amazing building?" questions. We're on the map for architecture nerds, at least.

Deja Vu: Blogs at City Hall?

Davenport city workers' access to blogs is questioned -QCTimes

Once again, folks are wanting to make sure city employees aren't blogging on the clock. This was the topic of the first QCOnline article about Fly's blog back in 2005 or whenever that was, as Craig Malin had DDP banned from city computers. Blogs also came up during the Webb controversy, when the city hired folks to make sure no city employees were doing the posting about her.

As I've said before, it depends on what these employees are posting. If they're posting anonymously saying who to vote for, etc, that's clearly not work-related. If a city employee clarifies a procedure or answers a question, then how is that different from answering a citizen's question in the office? Some of this is outdated pre-internet thinking, while concerns about employees posting politically-motivated comments may be valid.I've previously suggested they ban the blogs, after all. I hate to see the city spend a lot of time and effort combating blogs though.

One thing the article doesn't address is how the QCTimes.comments fits into this? Would access to the QCTimes website be monitored as well? Are there times when posting something work-related on city time is ok?

Rebuild

Today, I'm just going to rerun a post I made last year around this time.

"One of the biggest tragedies of 9/11 to me personally is that we are accepting defeat in that battle. We're taking the attitude of, "they won this time, but we will prevail in the long run." I truly believe we will prevail in the long run, but I don't see why we have to let them leave a hole in NYC. Instead of rebuilding the World Trade Center, we are building an enormous monument to terrorism. Instead of putting back what terrorists tried to destroy, we are leaving it destroyed.

If terrorists had knocked down the White House, the Capitol, the Statue of Liberty, or other Washington monuments, I would like to think we would rebuild them just as they were. Why, then, are we throwing in the towel on the Twin Towers? What makes a better statement then having the World Trade Center rebuilt stronger than before, so potential terrorists will see that NYC has been restored to the way it was before September 11th? It would show them the futility of the mission to destroy the United States through murdering civilians. The hijackers would still be dead, and the towers would stand again over New York.

Instead we're building an ugly spire, and leaving 2 empty sockets in the ground of NY and calling them memorials. They will be a perfect place for future terrorists-in-training to come and see what their kind have done before. Imagine them instead coming to the site and seeing it looking essentially the same as it did on September 10th? If I had been killed working or visiting a national symbol, I would most certainly want it rebuilt. Replacing what was lost gives a big "F You" to terrorists everywhere.

In fact, I have come up with 2 rules I'd like to leave behind in the exceedingly unlikely chance that I'm ever killed in a terrorist attack.

#1. Don't use my death as justification to kill anyone not directly involved in my death. I'm not going to get into this one.

#2. Rebuild. I don't care if I was killed by terrorists in the Statue of Liberty, the Sears Tower, or a Kwik Shop in Davenport, Iowa. Build it back the way it was, and find another way to memorialize the people lost besides leaving a gaping hole.

More info can be found on rebuilding at makenynyagain.com"

Late Summer Busy Weekend

Even though it seems like the Summer of 2007 is wrapping up, there are still a ton of events, happenings, and festivals left this year. I managed to make to a few things, and next weekend is Riverssance , Vander Veer's Fall Festival, and the QC Marathon.

This first two are from the Quad City Symphony Riverfront Pops Concert. All you need to avoid paying for the $20 ticket is a $50,000 boat and a couple hundred bucks of fuel. Seeing the Contours play with the Symphony backing them up made me really wish I'd been able to make it to last year's Beatles-oriented concert.

Here's a movie I took of the Contours doing "Higher and Higher"

Here's a shot of the Beaux Arts Fair, which definitely had beautiful weather for a change.

I also stopped by and saw the Nina, which I plan to check out in depth later, and Friday night I went down and watched the movie filming again.

I'll get back to some "real" content eventually, but QCImages has to post images after all...