20
Dec
2004
• For the 2003 calendar year, Bettendorf Fire Rescue, & Emergency Medical Services was one of 14 departments in the State of Iowa to receive a Life Safety Achievement Award from the Residential Fire Safety Institute for its proactive efforts in fire-prevention and -education while protecting its community and achieving zero structural-fire deaths. This is the first time that Bettendorf Fire Rescue has received this award. In addition to its firefighting activities, the department conducts routine inspections of hotels, motels, rental properties, health-care facilities, day-care operations, and all liquor-license holders. Personnel also provide fire-safety education programs to day-care providers and Bettendorf, Pleasant Valley, Lourdes, and Rivermont schools.
• The City of Moline has opened the lower level of its new parking facility at 17th Street and Seventh Avenue for public parking through Sunday, January 2. During this time, parking will be free and available all hours. The lower level provides additional parking for post-office traffic, retail shopping, and downtown-restaurant activity during the busy holiday season. Visitors should use the entrance off 17th Street to access parking. Beginning January 3, the lower level will be closed, and the contractor will resume work on the parking structure. The anticipated completion date for the structure is June 2005. Once complete, the four-story parking facility will provide 450 parking spaces, both public and leased parking.
• Because of the community's passage of the library levy on November 3, 2003, the Davenport Public Library will be open Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. starting January 9. The library has now started receiving additional funding to operate its two proposed new branches and to enhance services at the downtown library. Part of that funding will be used immediately to again provide Sunday hours for the public. The Sunday hours will run through April 24, except Easter Sunday. Free parking will be available on Sundays in the library parking lot at Fourth and Brady streets.
• Iowa is receiving more than $22 million in training, emergency-response equipment, and terrorism-prevention and -deterrence grants from the Office for Domestic Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security. This is a cut of more than $7 million from last year's levels.
• Judicial Watch, the public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced that it has made available free-of-charge on its Internet site the financial records of federal judges. As part of a new judicial-monitoring project, Judicial Watch has made available financial-disclosure reports that must be filed by federal officeholders under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. By early 2005, the reports for all federal District Court judges - about 950 documents - will be posted. The reports will include information on noninvestment income, gifts, liabilities, investments, trusts, and positions held outside of the federal government, and will be organized by federal circuit. Judges must file the reports when they are nominated, each year they are in office, and when they retire. Take a look at (http://www.judicialwatch.org/judges.shtml).
• The Fejervary Zoological Society is offering holiday specials for the Animal Adoption Program at the Fejervary Children's Zoo. You can select any one of their North American animals for "adoption" - a way of financially supporting the care of the animal at the zoo - and give it as a holiday gift for your child, spouse, or even a grandparent. The "adoption certificate" comes with a description of your adopted animal and is delivered in a red holiday-adoption envelope. All animal adoptions are only $20, and four one-day zoo passes cost an extra $5. For more information, call Julie at (563)326-7859.
• The Army's Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant General Carl A. Strock, approved a Chief of Engineers report that offers a framework for ecosystem restoration and navigation improvements on the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway. His report has gone to the Secretary of the Army for review and submission to Congress. The recommended plan includes a program of incremental implementation and comprehensive adaptive management to achieve the dual purposes of ecosystem restoration and navigation improvements. Its first costs include $5.7 billion for ecosystem restoration and $2.6 billion for navigation-efficiency improvements. The plan, if approved, will be implemented in a phased manner with future checkpoints for the administration and Congress. Details about the Upper Mississippi study are at the Restructured Navigation Study Web site (http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/umr-iwwsns/).
• The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports that active ingredients in cannabis provide therapeutic properties that might be clinically useful in the treatment of neurologic disorders, according to a review published in the journal Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clinics of North America. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine determined: "Cannabinoids have the capacity for neuromodulation through direct, receptor-based mechanisms - at many levels within the nervous system, providing therapeutic properties that may be applicable to the treatment of neurologic disorders. These include antioxidation, neuroprotection, analgesia, anti-inflammation, immunomodulation, modulation of glial cells, and tumor-growth regulation." Full text of the study appears in the November issue of the journal.
• The City of Moline has opened the lower level of its new parking facility at 17th Street and Seventh Avenue for public parking through Sunday, January 2. During this time, parking will be free and available all hours. The lower level provides additional parking for post-office traffic, retail shopping, and downtown-restaurant activity during the busy holiday season. Visitors should use the entrance off 17th Street to access parking. Beginning January 3, the lower level will be closed, and the contractor will resume work on the parking structure. The anticipated completion date for the structure is June 2005. Once complete, the four-story parking facility will provide 450 parking spaces, both public and leased parking.
• Because of the community's passage of the library levy on November 3, 2003, the Davenport Public Library will be open Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. starting January 9. The library has now started receiving additional funding to operate its two proposed new branches and to enhance services at the downtown library. Part of that funding will be used immediately to again provide Sunday hours for the public. The Sunday hours will run through April 24, except Easter Sunday. Free parking will be available on Sundays in the library parking lot at Fourth and Brady streets.
• Iowa is receiving more than $22 million in training, emergency-response equipment, and terrorism-prevention and -deterrence grants from the Office for Domestic Preparedness at the Department of Homeland Security. This is a cut of more than $7 million from last year's levels.
• Judicial Watch, the public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced that it has made available free-of-charge on its Internet site the financial records of federal judges. As part of a new judicial-monitoring project, Judicial Watch has made available financial-disclosure reports that must be filed by federal officeholders under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. By early 2005, the reports for all federal District Court judges - about 950 documents - will be posted. The reports will include information on noninvestment income, gifts, liabilities, investments, trusts, and positions held outside of the federal government, and will be organized by federal circuit. Judges must file the reports when they are nominated, each year they are in office, and when they retire. Take a look at (http://www.judicialwatch.org/judges.shtml).
• The Fejervary Zoological Society is offering holiday specials for the Animal Adoption Program at the Fejervary Children's Zoo. You can select any one of their North American animals for "adoption" - a way of financially supporting the care of the animal at the zoo - and give it as a holiday gift for your child, spouse, or even a grandparent. The "adoption certificate" comes with a description of your adopted animal and is delivered in a red holiday-adoption envelope. All animal adoptions are only $20, and four one-day zoo passes cost an extra $5. For more information, call Julie at (563)326-7859.
• The Army's Chief of Engineers, Lieutenant General Carl A. Strock, approved a Chief of Engineers report that offers a framework for ecosystem restoration and navigation improvements on the Upper Mississippi River and Illinois Waterway. His report has gone to the Secretary of the Army for review and submission to Congress. The recommended plan includes a program of incremental implementation and comprehensive adaptive management to achieve the dual purposes of ecosystem restoration and navigation improvements. Its first costs include $5.7 billion for ecosystem restoration and $2.6 billion for navigation-efficiency improvements. The plan, if approved, will be implemented in a phased manner with future checkpoints for the administration and Congress. Details about the Upper Mississippi study are at the Restructured Navigation Study Web site (http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/umr-iwwsns/).
• The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) reports that active ingredients in cannabis provide therapeutic properties that might be clinically useful in the treatment of neurologic disorders, according to a review published in the journal Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Clinics of North America. Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine determined: "Cannabinoids have the capacity for neuromodulation through direct, receptor-based mechanisms - at many levels within the nervous system, providing therapeutic properties that may be applicable to the treatment of neurologic disorders. These include antioxidation, neuroprotection, analgesia, anti-inflammation, immunomodulation, modulation of glial cells, and tumor-growth regulation." Full text of the study appears in the November issue of the journal.
