Dale Haake of Davenport is the fourth Quad City Poet Laureate, joining former laureates Dick Stahl, Rebecca Wee, and Kathleen Lawless Cox. The new Quad City Poet Laureate will officially begin his two-year term on Wednesday, April 16, at 7 p.m. at the Quad City Arts Center, 1715 Second Avenue in Rock Island. There, Haake will be formally introduced to the public and will give a reading of his work. The event is free and open to the public, and will be happening in conjunction with National Poetry Month.

Project NOW Incorporated has received an Energy Conservation Home Repair Grant to assist homeowners within a targeted area of Silvis with weatherization. The targeted area encompasses Second/Hero Street to Eighth Street and First Avenue to Second Avenue C. Qualified homeowners will receive assistance with home repairs including furnace work, attic and wall insulation, door and window repair or replacement, water-heater replacement, small plumbing and electrical measures, and minor siding repair. Interested applicants should contact the weatherization department at (309) 793-6391.

Sean O'Harrow, the Figge Art Museum's executive director for the past seven months, sounds diplomatic. He says all the right, polite things about collaboration and about serving the community.

"I'm very keen on building bridges," he said last week.

When the City of Rock Island created its "Green Team" last year, one thing it did was initiate an in-house recycling program.

Yes, the City of Rock Island - which likes to consider itself progressive - had no recycling program within city buildings.

Some recycling was done, said Tim Ridder, assistant to the public works director, the city's environmental-services coordinator, and the staff person who leads Green Team efforts. "It just wasn't uniform throughout the city," he said, and it wasn't being collected as a function of city government.

This isn't offered as proof that Rock Island is out-of-step. Rather, it shows how far the Quad Cities have come in the past year. Environmental initiatives range from obvious little things to multi-million-dollar projects, and it's evident that municipal government has gone green.