story time

Just some stories floating around this morning.

A Panda was released in China after being taught survival skills. The story is here.

A 13 year old golfer played with the pros, but didn’t make the cut. Mom’s dying of cancer and wanted to see her play. That story is here.

Lastly, the dittoheads are crying. Limbaugh busted for drugs again, but will probably beat the rap. that story is here.

Venting again

Since almost all the other blogs are talking baseball I figured I try to delve into the problems with local politics. I agree with Alderman Lynn that the city staff of Davenport isn’t professional. My only question would be, why not? Everyone on the council ran for office, most had a platform they ran on. I think it boils down to accountability. They can totally screw up, get a lot of people mad, spend more money and still get re-elected. It never ceases to amaze me. Instead of arguing who holds the reins over the legal department, they should have performance reviews imposed on themselves.

The courts aren’t any better. What the hell is Pachino Hill doing out on the streets? It used to be if you killed someone you were a guest of the State for several decades. Burglary? That’s a joke too if you get the Times and read the record section. A lot of theft and burglary cases got 5 to 10 years, now they get probation. That has to give the Police alot of incentive to get these guys.

The Senate can’t seem to get a lot done, unless a pork barrel project. They cut money where it’s needed and give it where it doesn’t make any sense. A wall between us and Mexico? Ship back the illegal, make them learn English, and if they don’t, ship them back too. Let’s face it, wages are not keeping up with inflation and raising the minimum wage isn’t going to help anyone. There aren’t too many younger people out there who know they have a pension any more. A lot don’t have health insurance. I think the whole system is broke from the highest office, to our local officials, and it needs to be changed. I don’t pretend to be smart enough to have the answers, but it’s glaringly obvious that there is a problem.

think about it

I’m getting mad again and I don’t like it. In the old days I would go to bar, pick a fight, and get over it. Now I think. Here’s what I been thinking. Let’s say you knew a very little girl with several health issues. Let’s say the parents make the Osborn’s look like the cover of Life magazine. Let’s say a government agency steps in and tries to remove this child. But there is nowhere to set-up to handle this child’s disabilities.
This being the real world the child returns to the parents care, both kids themselves. Of course the agency doesn’t do any follow up to see to the child’s welfare. Because of the actions of said government agency and health care facility the child dies in 2 months. No one from the government agency, the health care facility, or family accepts responsibility for the death or will be charged.
The child ends up cheated out of a decade of life, albeit a sickly decade. If this is how compassionate, educated, government employed people act with children, it is no wonder America is having the problems we face today. No one will get fired, no reprimanded, no big change in policy, just “I did what I could do.” I say it’s not good enough. Someone should be held accountable, someone should go to prison.

Memorial race

May 5
Ronnie Weedon Memorial Race

Hot laps at 6, races at 6:30
¼ mile track, admission is $9 adults, $8 students and seniors, $4 kids 7-12

Ronnie Weeden

Ronnie Weedon is going to inducted into the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame next week. With a career like his all that can be said is it’s about time. Anyone who drove race cars for 55 years and wins more than 500 races deserves it. I can’t think of another local person who did more to promote motorsports than Ronnie. For someone with no formal education to attain such success is very rare in this day and age. Everyone wanted his opinion on a variety of subjects and he would oblidge when he knew the answer. I first met Ronnie in the 70’s at Streiter’s in the body shop and liked him right from the first time we talked. He was that kind of guy.
The media in this area is generally not to friendly with car people. Races are usually listed in the back of the Sports section of newspapers, and TV news will do 30 seconds on a Nascar race after 5 minutes of football. Thank God we have the internet to keep up with the racing news. Having been a car nut all my life I’m sometimes left wondering if I’m the only person who follows these events. Surely if 3 or more people followed the racing at Cordova Dragpark, Hawkeye Downs, the Fairgrounds track, there would be more coverage.
It’s just too bad someone in motorsports has to be dead over a year to recognized for thier talent.

Here’s a link to a QC Times story about Ronnie getting into the hall of fame Hall of Fame

techno geek stuff

Here’s a link for people interested in mechanical type things transformer
Can only guess at the size and the narration is in some oriental language, but it’s still neat.

A little side note, we went to the Southpark cruise Saturday night with about 300 other cars and had a pretty good time. They moved it from by A & W to the other end of Southpark so we had to stop and get a gallon of root beer before we left.

Lynn newsletter II

Just thought I’d add a few more sections from Alderman Lynn’s newsletter.

Problem-How to Cut Budget
Some of the members of the council did not want to cut public safety and I agreed. We looked at several ways short of raising taxes to keep public safety. The new council members found out that many of the cuts they proposed would not solve the problem because the money was tied up in funds that could only be used for one thing. What we needed to do was cut operating costs in other areas. We did cut some money out of public works, but much of that money is tied up in funds such as road use funds and we can only use this for roads. For example, we looked at engineering, but most of the engineers are paid by road use funds.

Automated Garbage Program
I have been receiving calls about the automated garbage pickup. This was enacted by the previous council. I opposed this program for several reasons, but the biggest reason was that I felt the details had not been worked out. Also, this was part of a very large bond issue and felt this could have waited a while since we were bonding some very expensive projects. It was simply more money than we should spend at one time. Also, I felt that we should have tried it on one or two routes first and see if it works. We could then expand it. That aside, it has passed and we are going to implement it. There will be a new fee that replaces the old garbage and recycling fees. You have a choice of three can sizes. If you choose the smallest one, your fee will go down a little. The other two will cost you a more than you are now paying. If you have a problem in moving the can to the curb on pick up day, you need to call public works at 326-7732.

Panhandling Ordinance
You may have heard that I introduced an ordinance against aggressive panhandling. I have received many complaints about this and have been approached by panhandlers myself. I felt an ordinance was necessary to curb this problem. By the time you read this, it should be passed and will be in force by May 1.

cruise-in

I’m getting ready for the first cruise-in of the season tonight. It will be at Southpark near Dillard’s and will kick off at 6:00 p.m. These events used to be called cruises, but since there were no organized cruises during the event they changed it to cruise-in. Makes sense in a way, but if you’re a car person you already knew what it meant.
Cruise-ins, like car shows, are a place for people with really big egos to show off their multi-thousand dollar billetmobiles. It used to a gathering of car guys who talked shop; who bought what, sold what, put in a new cam. Now the egotist who pay someone to put the car together, pay someone else to paint, and someone else to upholster it talk about how much money they got it their work of rolling art. They can’t give much technical information because they don’t know the first thing about working on their own cars. This leaves us real hot rodders off in a corner talking about who bought what, well, you get my drift. The funny thing is, the real car guys don’t mind the billetmobiles getting all the attention, if fact we think them a bit crazy. We know it’s not about showing off your $3,000 set of billet wheels and fancy tires, it’s about putting your ride together and driving it. So remember, keep the shiny side and enjoy the ride. And if you see and old vehicle with faded paint, loud pipes, and a driver smiling ear to ear with his, or her, greying hair in the wind give them a wave.

againsters

On another blog I read something like “the againsters are just against anything”. That seemed like it needed to be addressed so here goes. Againsters are for fiscal responsibility in government. Againsters are for professionism in government. Politicians should be held to a higher standard that common folk like me. Againsters are for progress in our cities, not declining populations and lame excuses. Againsters are for bringing new businesses to town and not running established business out. Againsters are against raising taxes to pay for things not needed or wanted enacted by a lame duck council with an inflated ego.
As a so called againster, I would like to see Windbag gone next election, but if history repeats itself he’ll get back in. The big problem, I think, is the total lack of opponents who can offer a viable change that the people like. This past election was a case of the lesser of two evils. Alderman Lynn states the city lacks professionalism and I couldn’t agree more. If these people could work together instead of figuring ways to out do the opponents we could have a great city.
Maybe city council needs to be volunteer. No salary, no perks, just people who really want to serve the public. Since most council members don’t need the money anyway, why not give their salary, and insurance back to city. It would be a great token effort to show they mean business.
Some people resort to name calling when they disagree, and that’s too bad. I’m as guilty as the next guy at times, but I’m going to count to 10 and see if I can better argue my point.

council meeting

A couple stories in the Quad Cities Times caught my eye. The first one involves the inspections of rental property. You can read the story

here.

Spending this kind of money up front doesn’t seem very cost efficient when they were trying to make up $200,000.
The other story

here

involves moving the legal department from Malin to the council. This always seemed to make sense to me. When the legal department writes Malin contracts with the city, I think the council should be the one in charge.