While the process has not been as public as those to develop a concept for the River Music Center and to choose a firm for the skybridge, the city's effort to develop new plans for its property at 53rd Street and Eastern Avenue is moving forward.
• The one-cent local-option sales tax in Scott and Muscatine counties that helps fund education might be implemented all across Iowa. The additional statewide sales tax would give those districts that haven't been able to pass a local-option sales tax access to more funding, without having to raise property taxes or relying on a vote.
Local business and political leaders fear that to gain a few thousandths of one percent of the state's budget, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is threatening the economic balance of the Quad Cities. As part of his budget proposal two weeks ago, Vilsack announced a tax-policy change that could hamper efforts to attract businesses and workers to the Iowa Quad Cities.
On December 16, the Quad Cities lost a fine and loving mother when Laverne Williams passed away while sitting in a chair in her Spencer Tower apartment in Rock Island. She celebrated her 91st birthday on October 15.
The ThinPrep 2000 System, which prepares the ThinPrep® Pap Test, is intended as a replacement for the 50 year old Pap smear, the most widely used cancer screening test. More than 100 million Pap tests are performed annually worldwide.
• The good news about the Centennial Bridge is that the tolls are tentatively scheduled to be removed by June. The bad news: Traffic slowdowns and tie-ups are likely while improvements and renovations are made to the bridge, and these could drag into 2003.
There's currently a syndicated game show called You Don't Know Jack on which host Troy Stevens, played by Paul Reubens, asks contestants a series of satirical and irreverent questions based mostly on pop culture.
As an undergraduate in the mid-1980s at what was then Marycrest College, I was given the basic foundation of a liberal-arts education. I had learned logic, ethics, morals, and, on a good day, something about computers.
• A law that went into effect on January 1 makes Illinois one of the harshest states in the nation on the club drug Ecstasy. Under the new law, sale of as few as 15 Ecstasy tablets will be treated as a Class X felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison and with a mandatory-minimum six-year sentence.
• Iowa's budget woes mean thousands of Iowa taxpayers will have to wait three months for their income-tax refunds during the upcoming tax season. Normally, the state needs about eight weeks to process an error-free tax return that is filed on paper.

Pages