This note was written before voting ended
Dear Mayor-elect and Councilmen-elect.
It is a part-time job. Don’t make it into more than it needs to be. Your job is Davenport, its streets, its sewers, garbage collection, concerning yourself with its boundaries watching over its budget and keeping taxes low to protect the citizen’s budget. Police and fire sufficient for our size, reasonable safety ordinances and inspections, utility franchise provisions only when necessary but not to prevent innovation or protect passe’ monopolies, minimal zoning regulations – that is the nature of what your job is properly about. Parks and recreation areas sufficient for the city’s size — sure — but they should be low-cost, low maintenance, multi purpose as much as possible (reference golf courses) and not compete with private initiative.
There you pretty much have it. Most of these tasks are pretty much set. Periodic evaluation is necessary, insisting on fairness and good management a constant but it is all still part-time. Pursue only those things for the city that private entities cannot do that need to be done. Your job is not to think you are a bank for private enterprise or to “partner” with business. Your job as far as commerce is concerned is to treat new and existing businesses fairly and uniformly, keep basic services great and taxes low. Leave the art galleries, the zoos, the museums to charitable entities otherwise there is no demarcation as to the use of taxpayer money. If not, then every really cool idea “guaranteed” to bring settlers and commerce and culture is up for discussion. And such are all BS.
Sincerely,
A Constituent
We attended a Quad City Chamber of Commerce sponsored forum for the Davenport candidates prior to the general election and it gave us the willies. The talk of public private partnerships that were bandied about were nauseating. Mayor Gluba was most effusive of course but on some matters Klipsch tried to compete. Klipsch said that “getting (people) to move from Illinois (to Davenport) does not help my region.” What?! It was as if he and Gluba and some of the others were pushing for some sort of regional management governance.
People moving to Davenport from Illinois is a “natural” result of seeking lower taxes and less corruption. Cooperating with “foreign governments” so mismanaged, so bankrupt, essentially guaranteeing the tab for them — is no treat for taxpayers here. If Klipsch and others of that mindset meant not giving special incentives “TIFF’s” and the like, that current residents and business here do not receive, then fine. But thinking “regionally” is not what is needed when it de-localizes community government or entangles us in more layers of government.
We appreciated Yerrington’s criticism that the downtown and that portion of the riverfront gets more attention than it deserves at the expense of other areas of the city. There was a statement from Gripp that troubled us – something to the effect that ~~ (people) don’t come here to look at roads. It was in context of expressing or fostering festivals and the like but he is off the mark even in that context — try dancing around a pothole at a festival. When the visitors and residents come and go, it is the roads that leave an impression (especially the residents which he should be most concerned about). It is streets and street maintenance and garbage collection and snow removal and good value for our taxes that foster commerce.
Anyway, we note worrisome symbolism expressed on yard signs —
The union printer bug? Heavens no. The mark of the beast? Well, not exactly, although they were printed by Victory Enterprises.
It is the confounded bridge symbolism, no doubt meant to convey something of Quad City unity, one local government or something, which translated, is pure Quad City Chamber of Commerce tax money-grubbing, big-government, crony handshake bunch of stuff. Get off of it and take care of the damn streets in Davenport.
