27
Dec
2005
• The new MMS Thermal Processing business in Davenport was awarded a $500,000 short-term float loan from the Iowa Economic Development Board and nearly $200,000 in tax benefits from the High Quality Jobs Creation program. Iowa's Economic Development Board invested in the project to create 17 jobs, nine of them paying an average wage of $22.05 per hour. MMS is the first location where a patented vacuum carburizing technology from Surface Combustion Inc. will be deployed and tested for heat-treating steel. The new process brings improved metallurgy and environmental benefits to steel treatment. A new 18,000-square-foot building will be constructed as part of the $5.6-million project, $3.8 million of which will be covered by a bank loan and $725,000 of which will come from private investors. Government sources will contribute more than $800,000 in tax incentives, loans, and other aid. The plant would be located at the Eastern Iowa Industrial Center, an industrial park just north of Interstate 80.
• MetroLINK, the mass-transit district for Rock Island County, last week celebrated the opening of East Pointe, a new transfer hub in downtown East Moline. The $1.8-million, 4,500-square-foot facility, near 13th Street and 14th Avenue, connects at least six routes and features a six-bay, raised platform, passenger shelter areas, enhanced security, and a training room available for use by community groups and businesses. The transfer hub is not only meant to make public transit more convenient for travelers but also to provide a development spark for downtown East Moline. The facility was built on the former site of the John Deere Malleable Works, using $1.6 million in federal funding.
• John Lewis Community Services will receive $867,000 for service coordination for permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, and other services as part of $7.1 million in homeless-assistance funds for programs across the state of Iowa. The funds come from the Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance competitive grant program, which provides funding for a range of assistance to homeless persons, including transitional housing, permanent housing, and a variety of supportive services.
• The four libraries in Scott County have released the fifth of six reports of their Libraries Together project. The report, Public Perspectives: Libraries in Scott County, Iowa, provides the results of a survey and public meetings on different ways that libraries could be organized. The libraries kicked off Libraries Together on March 1, 2005. The 10-month study is using public input to plan for the future. As Iowa searches for ways to deliver all government services more efficiently, the libraries initiated the study to allow Scott County patrons to help shape the directions their libraries will take over the next several decades. For more information, visit the Libraries Together Web site at (http://www.librariestogether.org).
• Scott County received $91,051 as part of more than $1.2 million for Emergency Food & Shelter (EFS) grants for Iowa from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The funds are used to help individuals and families with non-disaster-related, temporary financial emergency needs, such as shelter, food, and supportive services. Congress appropriated $153 million for the EFS program for Fiscal Year 2006. This funding will support social-service agencies in more than 2,500 cities and counties across the country to help feed and shelter the nation's hungry and homeless. EFS funds are used to supplement food-, shelter-, rent-, mortgage-, and utility-assistance programs. The EFS program has been existence since 1983 and has distributed more than $2.8 billion in communities nationwide. Information on the ESF program grants for Fiscal Year 2006 is available online at (http://www.efsp.unitedway.org).
• IPSCO, a steel plant located in Muscatine County, has donated $25,000 to the building fund for a new Blue Grass fire station. Fundraising efforts have been underway since last summer, and it is hoped that construction of a state-of-the-art fire station on the west end of town can begin in three years.
• The U.S. Senate has approved Fiscal Year 2006 Department of Defense appropriations for the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Rock Island Arsenal, the Midwest Regional Counterdrug Training Center, John Deere, and a variety of other local businesses, colleges, and communities. The bill must be signed by the president before it becomes law. Rock Island Arsenal would receive $5.6 million to replace an asbestos-contaminated roof of a major building, $7 million for Industrial Mobilization Capacity to cover the cost of maintaining plant facilities that are necessary in wartime but unused during peacetime, $2.8 million for the production of the Dragon Fire Mobile Artillery System, and $5.5 million for the Arsenal Support Program Initiative that brings in tenants. John Deere would be awarded $7 million for the production of heavy construction loading equipment for the Army Reserve, and $3.5 million for the production of heavy construction loading equipment for the Navy. ALCOA in Davenport would be given $1.4 million for aluminum research to lower costs of lightweight artillery manufacture, and $2.5 million for the design and development of innovative technologies for weight and cost reduction for the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. Carleton Life Support in Davenport would be awarded $4.025 million to equip F-16s with an On-Board Oxygen Generating System, which provides a continuous supply of breathing oxygen to pilots, and $4.2 million for research on ceramic oxygen generators, which might be a cost-effective replacement for liquid oxygen tanks.
• MetroLINK, the mass-transit district for Rock Island County, last week celebrated the opening of East Pointe, a new transfer hub in downtown East Moline. The $1.8-million, 4,500-square-foot facility, near 13th Street and 14th Avenue, connects at least six routes and features a six-bay, raised platform, passenger shelter areas, enhanced security, and a training room available for use by community groups and businesses. The transfer hub is not only meant to make public transit more convenient for travelers but also to provide a development spark for downtown East Moline. The facility was built on the former site of the John Deere Malleable Works, using $1.6 million in federal funding.
• John Lewis Community Services will receive $867,000 for service coordination for permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, and other services as part of $7.1 million in homeless-assistance funds for programs across the state of Iowa. The funds come from the Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance competitive grant program, which provides funding for a range of assistance to homeless persons, including transitional housing, permanent housing, and a variety of supportive services.
• The four libraries in Scott County have released the fifth of six reports of their Libraries Together project. The report, Public Perspectives: Libraries in Scott County, Iowa, provides the results of a survey and public meetings on different ways that libraries could be organized. The libraries kicked off Libraries Together on March 1, 2005. The 10-month study is using public input to plan for the future. As Iowa searches for ways to deliver all government services more efficiently, the libraries initiated the study to allow Scott County patrons to help shape the directions their libraries will take over the next several decades. For more information, visit the Libraries Together Web site at (http://www.librariestogether.org).
• Scott County received $91,051 as part of more than $1.2 million for Emergency Food & Shelter (EFS) grants for Iowa from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The funds are used to help individuals and families with non-disaster-related, temporary financial emergency needs, such as shelter, food, and supportive services. Congress appropriated $153 million for the EFS program for Fiscal Year 2006. This funding will support social-service agencies in more than 2,500 cities and counties across the country to help feed and shelter the nation's hungry and homeless. EFS funds are used to supplement food-, shelter-, rent-, mortgage-, and utility-assistance programs. The EFS program has been existence since 1983 and has distributed more than $2.8 billion in communities nationwide. Information on the ESF program grants for Fiscal Year 2006 is available online at (http://www.efsp.unitedway.org).
• IPSCO, a steel plant located in Muscatine County, has donated $25,000 to the building fund for a new Blue Grass fire station. Fundraising efforts have been underway since last summer, and it is hoped that construction of a state-of-the-art fire station on the west end of town can begin in three years.
• The U.S. Senate has approved Fiscal Year 2006 Department of Defense appropriations for the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, Rock Island Arsenal, the Midwest Regional Counterdrug Training Center, John Deere, and a variety of other local businesses, colleges, and communities. The bill must be signed by the president before it becomes law. Rock Island Arsenal would receive $5.6 million to replace an asbestos-contaminated roof of a major building, $7 million for Industrial Mobilization Capacity to cover the cost of maintaining plant facilities that are necessary in wartime but unused during peacetime, $2.8 million for the production of the Dragon Fire Mobile Artillery System, and $5.5 million for the Arsenal Support Program Initiative that brings in tenants. John Deere would be awarded $7 million for the production of heavy construction loading equipment for the Army Reserve, and $3.5 million for the production of heavy construction loading equipment for the Navy. ALCOA in Davenport would be given $1.4 million for aluminum research to lower costs of lightweight artillery manufacture, and $2.5 million for the design and development of innovative technologies for weight and cost reduction for the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. Carleton Life Support in Davenport would be awarded $4.025 million to equip F-16s with an On-Board Oxygen Generating System, which provides a continuous supply of breathing oxygen to pilots, and $4.2 million for research on ceramic oxygen generators, which might be a cost-effective replacement for liquid oxygen tanks.
