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One month as an East Moline Alderman… What has happened in the first 30 days?

It was on May 7, 2007, when I was sworn in as an East Moline Alderman, representing our city's 4^th Ward. In case you don't know, the 4^th Ward runs from the east side of 7^th Street to the west side of Archer Drive and from the Mississippi River south to 36^th Avenue.

In that area, about 3,000 people live… roughly 1,000 or so homes.

If you are one of these 3,000, I will do my best to communicate regularly with you, letting you know what's going on in our city, what we're trying to accomplish and what we have accomplished.

Here are the highlights: 

• FedEx Freight, which is a division of the Memphis-based FedEx Corp., will be building a $15 million, 130,000-square-foot facility at the Quad-City Downs. FedEx Freight now operates a 13,000-square-foot facility on Morton Drive in East Moline's Industrial Park. With this move to the new site, 25 full-time jobs and five part-time jobs will be added. In order for this project to happen, the City Council approved a five-year tax abatement of $44,000 to help cover the cost to relocate a gas main beneath 45 acres at the Downs. If nothing were built on this land, the city would receive just under $25,000 in tax money over the next five years. With the abatement, that will jump to $103,000 over the next five years.
• In the coming few months, we will be repairing 38 streets and 46 alleys, using motor fuel tax dollars and non home-rule sales tax dollars. We'll spend about $1 million to do this, and it is needed. Of all the projects, 23 of them are in our 4^th Ward. Some of the repairs are temporary fixes, with more permanent resurfacing to be done next year. For a complete list of all street repairs in the city, go to www.EastMoline.com.
• The city has received a $99,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to renovate the exterior of the former Strand Theater in downtown East Moline. The work should be done by the end of the summer. This is part of an overall plan toward beautifying the downtown area on 15^th and 16^th avenues between 6^th and 13^th streets. The hope is that after the exterior improvements, a buyer will be interested in developing the theater.

City Council meetings are also filled with such agenda items as intergovernmental agreements, paying bills, hiring city personnel and other such day-to-day matters.

I have begun meeting one-on-one with city department heads and also with the mayor and other aldermen in an effort to better understand the city's workings. So far, I have toured the water and sewer plant and am visiting the city garage and engineering departments this week. In the coming weeks and months, I will visit the fire and police departments, finance department, with the health inspector and the rest of the city's directors.

My major focus is working on downtown redevelopment, street improvement, economic development/job growth and innovation (new ideas for the city.) I'll keep you posted on progress we're making.

In the meantime, we will host our first 4^th Ward Citizens Advisory Board meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 12, at MetroLINK East Pointe, 1201 14^th Ave., East Moline. We'll call it a Community Conversation. You're welcome to join us if you have interest in moving the city forward. Great ideas are welcome!

Hope to see you there.

Cheri Bustos, 4^th Ward Alderman, City of East Moline, 752-9496, CheriBustos@qconline.com

Copyright East Moline 2007.  All rights reserved