Alderman Bill Lynn

Davenport Promise.
I am providing you with a powerpoint presentation that has been presented to some groups. I was involved in its development, and I believe it does a good job of presenting important information from the study. Much of this is being omitted by the people supporting the program. I do support education, but I believe this is not the type of program we should pay for with taxpayer money. It simply has too many problems and it would not be good for the city if we fund it this way. Click Here to View the PowerPoint Presentation
Click Here to view a PDF of the Presentation

First, in the area of Economic development I think we have made some real strides.  I have spoken about them in my newsletters.  We are going to see a new Menard’s store in the near future, but this may be delayed due to the financial market problems.  The AT&T call center was completed.  We are also seeing the completion of the Walgreen’s store at Locust and Brady.  We have also seen numerous small businesses open along Locust and on Brady.  The Hilltop area is showing signs of change, and the Village of East Davenport is seeing a real turn around. 

We are building a new terminal at the airport (no cost to the taxpayers), and we have seen completion of some buildings in the industrial park.  We should begin construction of the railroad spur next year.  We will see the renovation of the Blackhawk in 2009, and we believe this will lead to other improvements downtown including the Forest Building at 4th and Brady. 

We are also seeing development on West Locust and on Brady.  This is all good news for the area. 

While we have seen many foreclosures in Davenport, I am told houses seem to be holding their value.  I also hear employers complain about not being able to hire employees.  At least at this time we seem to be bucking the national trend on job loss.  According to our numbers we have seen an increase of 2500 jobs in Davenport in the last year.

In the area of crime, I think our new police chief has done a good job.  We are seeing improvements, but as I have warned it will be slow.  We did not get into this situation overnight so we won’t get out of it quickly.  The background checks that many landlords are doing are really helping.  Those background checks have resulted in over 60 arrests.  This means these people are not living in our city and many landlords are telling me if they tell a prospective tenant they are going to do a background check the prospective tenant simply hangs up.  This has had a big impact.  The next step is concentrating on the landlords that continue to create problems.  We anticipate an ordinance being brought forward that would penalize those landlords that create too many problems for the police department. 

One major problem we have continues to be the courts.  We need to have higher bails for these people but they are currently set by the state and they are way to low.  In many cases the maximum bail is $5000 and this means the person being arrested must only come up with $500.  This simply creates a revolving door in our jails and some people continue to be arrested and released and rearrested.  This makes no sense and we must pressure our state representatives to change this. 

In spite of this, crime rates are down but much more needs to be done to make people feel safe in the city.  This image continues to create problems for us.

Finally in the area of customer service I am happy to tell you that Dawn Sherman the new Human Resources Director had created a task force.  I have complained to the police chief about treatment of citizens by dispatchers and he has set up an internal committee. This is still critical.  The treatment people receive at the hands of city employees does impact their decision to live in Davenport.  We must get this point across to the employees.  Literally their jobs depend on their treatment of citizens since fewer people in Davenport means less tax revenue for the city.

One problem we have is the lax nature of the civil service commission.  In order to dismiss any employee we must go to the civil service commission.  In many cases the commission has been reluctant to dismiss employees even when they are not doing their job or worse.  This makes improving attitude difficult.  The members are appointed by the mayor and I am hopeful that future appointees will be more concerned about the taxpayer’s money. 

One program that is being promoted is the funding of the Promise program to pay for college tuition for students graduating from Davenport Schools.  Although I supported a special referendum I do not support the program.  I will be giving you a detailed analysis on this website. 

In January I will be adding a new service on the website.  I will be giving reviews of major issues on the council agenda.  In all honesty we have had few problems or many major issues during the last year, but I believe we may have more in 2009.