14
Aug
2001
• 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. It also provides that the offenses include the unlawful delivery of any controlled substance (rather than specifically listing them) that result in death or great bodily harm or permanent disability to the person who injects, inhales, or ingests the substance. You can see the bill for yourself at (http://www.legis.state.il.us/scripts/imstran.exe?LIBSINCWHB0126). It provides for some interesting reading on the so-called War on Drugs; if you and your friends do some drugs, you can be charged with murder if one of them dies.
• Ryan also recently signed "Scott's Law," which will increase the penalties for people who cause crashes by failing to drive safely around emergency vehicles. The law was inspired by the death of Chicago firefighter Scott Gilllen, who was killed by a driver while he was working at a roadside automobile-crash scene. Penalties under the law, which takes effect on January 1, include fines up to $10,000 and possible loss of a driver's license for two years if a driver causes someone's death. Speaking of emergency vehicles: If you see an ambulance, fire truck, or squad car coming with its lights and sirens on, please pull over as far to the right as you can, even if you are driving in the other lane. It helps no one to stop in the left lane and might even cause a crash, because ambulances and fire trucks don't stop or maneuver very well due to their weight.
• The American Bus Association recently announced that the Quad City Arts Festival of Trees, to be held November 16 through 25 at the RiverCenter, has been designated by a selection committee as one of the top 100 events in North America for 2001. The Quad City Arts Festival of Trees was selected from hundreds of U.S. and Canadian events that were nominated by state and provincial tourism offices and visitors bureaus. Judges considered the event's broad appeal, its accessibility to motorcoaches and other large groups, and a variety of other criteria.
• Here's a surprise - or perhaps not. The money coming soon to your mailbox that is being called a tax rebate really isn't a tax rebate at all, but an advance on the refund you would have gotten when you file next April. Yes, that means that your refund check will be $300 lower or, if you owe taxes, you'll have to pay $300 more. This also means that the tax tables you look at for next year will look quite familiar, because next year's 1040 form will charge you the old 15-percent tax rate, not the new 10-percent rate. Careful reading of the law shows that in 2001, the advance refund occurs "in lieu of" the rate cut from 15 percent to 10 percent.
• The Friends of the Davenport Museum of Art Board has elected the following community leaders to serve as officers for the 2001-2002 fiscal year: Terry Schroder will be the new president; Dana Wilkinson will be the first vice president; Larry Tierney will be the second vice president; Teresa Simon-Harris will be the new secretary; and Al Harris will be the new treasurer. Established in 1925, The Friends of the Davenport Museum of Art Board serves the museum and the community by raising funds to help support exhibits and educational programs.
• If you've driven by Trinity Medical Center's 7th Street location, you might have noticed a bunch of construction at one end of the four-year-old campus. By October of this year, a freestanding, 192,000-square-foot emergency department will have been added to the facility and will enable Moline to have a full-service hospital. It will also make the hospital eligible for an Illinois hospital license that would allow the campus to treat patients in all emergency situations. It will also take some of the strain off Trinity West in Rock Island, which sometimes doesn't have enough beds to meet patient demand.
• There is a petition being put together, not against Scott County's $5 million dollar grant to Davenport for its River Renaissance riverfront development project (the contribution was among the final financial pieces to trigger a $20 million award from the state's Vision Iowa board), but to force a referendum so Scott County voters have the opportunity to decide whether bonds for the project should be issued. Tom White is in charge of it, and you can get more information and blank petitions by calling Rich Moroney at (563)386-5463. You can drop off filled out petitions or pick up blank ones at Chuck's Tap at 6th and Division streets in Davenport. I talked with Rich recently and can say to expect this grassroots campaign to pick up steam in the next week or so. It should be noted that the $5 million bond referendum represents only 4% of the entire $113.5 million revitalization project for downtown, which includes a museum, a music history center, a skywalk across River Drive, two parking ramps, and an ag-tech venture capital center. Because the County's contribution to the overall project is essential to receiving the $20 million from Vision Iowa, if the petition is successful and the bond issuance does come to a vote and fails, Davenport will lose the $20 million and most likely kill the majority of the project. Scott County taxpayers need to ask themselves if they are willing to risk such an important project by calling for a referendum. While nothing is as important to the democratic process as open debate and the ability to express ourselves through voting, this particular referendum is set up by state law so that to pass, it would require a super majority which is 60% of the vote. This is extremely difficult to achieve. It actually allows the minority of voters to control the outcome. Taxpayers must weigh the consequences of calling for the referendum against the high probability that if the petition is successful and a referendum is called, the project will most likely be voted down and we will lose the $20 million. The result would be a severe reduction in the scope of potential revitalization of downtown Davenport.
• Ryan also recently signed "Scott's Law," which will increase the penalties for people who cause crashes by failing to drive safely around emergency vehicles. The law was inspired by the death of Chicago firefighter Scott Gilllen, who was killed by a driver while he was working at a roadside automobile-crash scene. Penalties under the law, which takes effect on January 1, include fines up to $10,000 and possible loss of a driver's license for two years if a driver causes someone's death. Speaking of emergency vehicles: If you see an ambulance, fire truck, or squad car coming with its lights and sirens on, please pull over as far to the right as you can, even if you are driving in the other lane. It helps no one to stop in the left lane and might even cause a crash, because ambulances and fire trucks don't stop or maneuver very well due to their weight.
• The American Bus Association recently announced that the Quad City Arts Festival of Trees, to be held November 16 through 25 at the RiverCenter, has been designated by a selection committee as one of the top 100 events in North America for 2001. The Quad City Arts Festival of Trees was selected from hundreds of U.S. and Canadian events that were nominated by state and provincial tourism offices and visitors bureaus. Judges considered the event's broad appeal, its accessibility to motorcoaches and other large groups, and a variety of other criteria.
• Here's a surprise - or perhaps not. The money coming soon to your mailbox that is being called a tax rebate really isn't a tax rebate at all, but an advance on the refund you would have gotten when you file next April. Yes, that means that your refund check will be $300 lower or, if you owe taxes, you'll have to pay $300 more. This also means that the tax tables you look at for next year will look quite familiar, because next year's 1040 form will charge you the old 15-percent tax rate, not the new 10-percent rate. Careful reading of the law shows that in 2001, the advance refund occurs "in lieu of" the rate cut from 15 percent to 10 percent.
• The Friends of the Davenport Museum of Art Board has elected the following community leaders to serve as officers for the 2001-2002 fiscal year: Terry Schroder will be the new president; Dana Wilkinson will be the first vice president; Larry Tierney will be the second vice president; Teresa Simon-Harris will be the new secretary; and Al Harris will be the new treasurer. Established in 1925, The Friends of the Davenport Museum of Art Board serves the museum and the community by raising funds to help support exhibits and educational programs.
• If you've driven by Trinity Medical Center's 7th Street location, you might have noticed a bunch of construction at one end of the four-year-old campus. By October of this year, a freestanding, 192,000-square-foot emergency department will have been added to the facility and will enable Moline to have a full-service hospital. It will also make the hospital eligible for an Illinois hospital license that would allow the campus to treat patients in all emergency situations. It will also take some of the strain off Trinity West in Rock Island, which sometimes doesn't have enough beds to meet patient demand.
• There is a petition being put together, not against Scott County's $5 million dollar grant to Davenport for its River Renaissance riverfront development project (the contribution was among the final financial pieces to trigger a $20 million award from the state's Vision Iowa board), but to force a referendum so Scott County voters have the opportunity to decide whether bonds for the project should be issued. Tom White is in charge of it, and you can get more information and blank petitions by calling Rich Moroney at (563)386-5463. You can drop off filled out petitions or pick up blank ones at Chuck's Tap at 6th and Division streets in Davenport. I talked with Rich recently and can say to expect this grassroots campaign to pick up steam in the next week or so. It should be noted that the $5 million bond referendum represents only 4% of the entire $113.5 million revitalization project for downtown, which includes a museum, a music history center, a skywalk across River Drive, two parking ramps, and an ag-tech venture capital center. Because the County's contribution to the overall project is essential to receiving the $20 million from Vision Iowa, if the petition is successful and the bond issuance does come to a vote and fails, Davenport will lose the $20 million and most likely kill the majority of the project. Scott County taxpayers need to ask themselves if they are willing to risk such an important project by calling for a referendum. While nothing is as important to the democratic process as open debate and the ability to express ourselves through voting, this particular referendum is set up by state law so that to pass, it would require a super majority which is 60% of the vote. This is extremely difficult to achieve. It actually allows the minority of voters to control the outcome. Taxpayers must weigh the consequences of calling for the referendum against the high probability that if the petition is successful and a referendum is called, the project will most likely be voted down and we will lose the $20 million. The result would be a severe reduction in the scope of potential revitalization of downtown Davenport.
