Bettendorf City Council members should end the practice of meeting secretly in small groups to discuss controversial issues.

According to the city's administrator, the practice has been ongoing for more than a decade and grew out of concern by alderman they didn't wish to be "surprised" by issues/topics which came up at council meetings. (See article below)

The secret meetings certainly eliminate any "surprises" to aldermen, but they leave the public in the dark when important decisions are being formulated by city staff and the council.

By the time the issue arrives for a "public" discussion, aldermen have often, if not always, reached a consensus on the matter. The public hearings where citizens can comment on these issues are mere formalities to be held before the council holds an "official" vote.

The Bettendorf City Council routinely meets secretly to discuss controversial, contentious or complicated issues, avoiding violation of the state open meeting law by gathering in small groups of three aldermen at a time.

The small groups usually meet for lunch at city hall. Aldermen do not vote on the various issues discussed, but one of the purposes of the sessions is to help them form a concensus prior to the matter being placed on the council agenda.

The most recent private sessions involved discussion about selling the city-owned Eagle's Food Store building on 18th Street to a Moline contracting company for $1 million. The aldermen also heard a pitch from developer Dave Smith who is seeking public Tax Increment Financing (TIF) funds from the city to build a low-income and moderate-income housing project along E. Kimberly Road.

Only four noise barriers are recommended for the proposed new six-lane Interstate 74 corridor, despite the identification of 11 locations where the increased traffic sounds are expected to exceed federal noise abatement criteria.

The noise impacts and recommended list of four projects are contained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement issued for the project last month.

Seven of the 11 noise abatement projects were not recommended because they were deemed "economically unjustified" based on the number of residences currently adjacent to the roadway.

The four noise barriers recommended for construction in the impact statement are:

• Southwest of the Middle Road, Iowa, interchange adjacent to two apartment buildings. The 14-foot barrier would be 1,806 feet long and cost an estimated $110,000.

• East of I-74 and north of Lincoln Road, Iowa, adjacent to an apartment complex. The 8- to 16-foot barrier would be 500 feet long and cost an estimated $204,000.

I read your "letter to readers" in this morning's (2/20) Quad City Times and was surprised at how your newspaper management views its own economic situation.

Your "update on the financial health of our parent company (Lee Enterprises)" comes at least a year too late for most investors and readers. The lack of any substantive coverage of the newspaper chain's stock decline and economic peril over the past year has not been lost on us Quad City Times readers. We've had to rely on annual report, SEC filings and online articles by the Associated Press, Forbes and other business publications rather than any coverage of Lee in the Times.

Nearly $18 million has been spent so far on preliminary designs, environmental studies, surveys and engineering for the new Interstate 74 bridge and proposed corridor improvements.

The initial estimate for replacing the four-lane bridge with a new six-lane structure and upgrades to the interstate corridor between 53rd Avenue, Davenport, and Avenue of the Cities, Moline, was $600 million. More recent estimates have pegged the cost at $900 million.

A public meeting on the project's "Final Environmental Impact Statement" will be held Tuesday, Feb. 10, from 4 to 7 p.m., at The Mark of the Quad Cities, Moline (aka i wireless center).

CH2MHill, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, is the project manager for the bridge and corridor improvements. It and its subcontractors have received nearly $18 million to date for work related to the structure and corridor improvements.

Published January 28 in Quad City Times

By John B. Askew
Administrator, Region 7, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

On Jan. 6, the Quad-City Times published an editorial with the headline “EPA unjustly condemns Q-C.” We believe that some of the points expressed by the editorial board were inaccurate and misrepresent the work of the Environmental Protection Agency for the people who work and live in the Quad-City area.

First and foremost, we want people to understand that air quality as it relates to public health has to be our No. 1 concern. We have to ensure the best possible environment for the citizens of the Quad-City area and their children. It is our fundamental and statutory responsibility.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Tuesday (1/27) said a new 3-year average of fine particulate pollution doesn't support the non-attainment designation of Scott and Muscatine counties by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The DNR accelerated its 2008 data collection and analysis in order to submit the information before Feb. 20, the deadline set by the EPA for any change to its non-attainment designation order issued December 22.

In the December order, the EPA used 2005-2007 PM 2.5 (Particulate Matter less than 2.5 micrometers) data which showed pollution levels were exceeded at monitors near Blackhawk Foundry in Davenport and at Garfield School near Grain Processing Corp. in Muscatine.

First quarter earnings for Lee Enterprises, parent of the Quad City Times, fell nearly 69 percent despite the newspaper chain reducing its workforce by more than 10 percent during the quarter.

For the company's first fiscal quarter which ended Dec. 28, earnings per share were 15 cents, compared with 48 cents per share for the first quarter a year ago.

Revenues declined 13 percent from the same period last year to $243.5 million.

The lower revenues reflect a more than 15 percent decline in advertising revenues from a year ago. Classified ad revenue sank 26 percent, including a 43 percent fall off in employment revenues, a 26 percent decline in automotive revenue and a 30 percent decrease in real estate revenue.

Even the online ad revenue fell 14 percent from $13.5 million a year ago to $11.6 million for the quarter ending Dec. 28, 2008.

In yet another sign of the changing media times, newspapers have slipped to third among sources for national and international news, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

When asked "Where do you get most of your national and international news," 70 percent of the national survey respondents cited television, 40 percent the internet and 35 percent newspapers. It was the first time in the annual Pew research results the internet ranked higher than newspapers on the national and international news question.

Among 18 to 29 year olds, the shift to the Internet is even more pronounced. Asked what is their main source of news, 59 percent cited television, 59 percent the internet, 28 percent newspapers, 18 percent radio, and 4 percent magazines.

CLICK HERE for the top 20 point source emitters of PM 2.5 in Scott and Muscatine counties.

The Bi-State Regional Commission is in the process of broadening membership on its Air Quality Task Force in the wake of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's finding that most of Rock Island, Scott and Muscatine counties are in non-compliance with air standards for fine particulate matter.

The task force was formed 10 years ago as a subcommittee of Bi-State's QC Urban Transportation Policy Committee and had been primarily concerned with ground-level ozone pollution in the metropolitan QC area.