• Scott County voters will head to the polls on October 23 to decide whether Scott County will commit $5 million to Davenport's River Renaissance project. The vote will happen just weeks before the Vision Iowa Deadline to secure all local funds.
• A grassroots effort run out of a bar on Sixth and Division has succeeded in forcing a referendum on whether Scott County should contribute $5 million for the River Renaissance revival project. At a press conference, organizers Tom White and Rich Moroney showed off 702 pages of petitions with 11,234 signatures, far more than the 7,057 required to put the measure on a ballot.
• The City of Bettendorf has purchased the former Eagle Store at 2850 18th Street, located across from the Family Museum on Bettendorf Learning Campus Drive. The City has been in negotiations with the building's owner, Stan Coin, for more than one year, and while the building's sale price was $2.
• Patrons of the Bettendorf Public Library checked out 52,202 items in July, including books, audio books, videos, DVDs, compact discs, music tapes, CD-ROMS, DVD-ROMs, and magazines. This is the highest monthly circulation in the library's 75-year history.
• On August 6, Illinois Governor George Ryan signed what's being called "Kelly's Law," which adds Ecstasy and other club drugs to the same category as cocaine, heroin, and LSD. Named for Kelly Baker, a 23-year-old Rolling Meadows woman who died of an Ecstasy overdose in 1999, the law becomes effective January 1 and amends the 1961 criminal code relating to the offenses of drug-induced homicide and drug-induced infliction of great bodily harm.
• The Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities will be conducting a study to assess the viability of a new power plant in Muscatine. The association hopes to build a $900 million coal-generating station capable of producing 700 megawatts.
• Construction of the Putnam Museum's IMAX Theatre has been moving steadily forward since breaking ground in January. Over the past several months, work has focused on earthwork and concrete foundations. Drilled caissons, concrete footings, and walls that establish the initial "footprint" for the entire building have been completed.
• The State of Iowa will lose $3.4 million in road-construction money from the federal government because it decided not to change a law requiring certain penalties for third-offense drunken drivers. Legislators didn't wanted to tinker with the law, concerned about possible amendments, including proposals to lower the level at which a person is legally intoxicated.
• The State of Iowa will become one of the first states in the country to charge for nuclear shipments across state lines. A rule by the Iowa Department of Public Health would charge fees from $250 to $1,750 to ship radioactive materials across the state, depending on the type of material and whether it's shipped by highway or rail.
• The State of Iowa is one of 27 states participating in a lawsuit against Hoechst, a German pharmaceutical company, alleging that the company blocked a generic version of a heart medication from being put on the market.

Pages