In a world of pervasive apathy, where citizens feel politically powerless to effect change in their communities, comes a group of real live civic heroes to prove that nothing could be further from the truth; the power is still most definitely with the people.
The City of Davenport has rolled out its master plan for the area north of 53rd Street at Eastern Avenue, and the Prairie Heights development (as it's now called) features a park and more than 1,100 new residences over 630 acres, 220 acres of which are owned by the city.
The board of the Davenport Community School District on Monday failed to pass a measure that would have added advertisements to scoreboards at Brady Street Stadium and baseball fields and basketball courts at the district's three high schools.
Activists trying to ensure that the City of Davenport improves public access to cable-television-production and -broadcast services are competing against some tough opponents: a public vocally concerned about cable rates and a cable provider threatening to pass increased public-access costs onto consumers.
A nationally recognized planning firm will give a presentation Thursday designed to spark a community "conversation" about riverfront development in Davenport, as well as planning for the entire city. Principals from the California- and Massachusetts-based Hargreaves Associates will give the public presentation "Cities & Their Waterfronts: Reclamation & Revitalization" at 7 p.
Last week, the Riverboat Development Authority (RDA) announced more than $1.3 million in grants for its fall cycle. The RDA makes decisions about how to distribute a percentage of gambling proceeds from the Rhythm City Casino.
While the voter turnout for last September's Davenport school-board election was dismally low, the highest vote-getter in nearly every precinct, including east Davenport's three precincts, was Grant parent Alan Guard.
Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of articles on new developments in Quad Cities-area downtowns. The City of East Moline is taking a two-pronged approach to re-building its downtown and riverfront areas.
It's the political season, and all sorts of interest groups are trying to assess which candidates are going to do the most for their agendas and constituencies. Quad Cities Interfaith, though, is trying to speak for populations that don't normally get much attention during campaigns.
The hullabaloo last week over the announcement that crime in Davenport rose nearly 16 percent in the first six months of 2002 ignores a more troubling trend in the city: Crime in Davenport has been on the rise since 1998, and the police department to this point can only guess at the causes.

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