On Thursday, July 23, business leaders announced the realignment of Quad Cities economic-development organizations. This will mean the end of DavenportOne and the Quad City Development Group, and the beginning of the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce and Quad Cities First.

mp3 mp3 file of the announcement event (33 minutes)

Effectively, this shifts control of external marketing and business-attraction efforts from the Quad City Development Group and its board to two chambers of commerce: the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce and the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce (the successor to DavenportOne, whose staff and resources will be merged into the new entity).

The two chambers' chief executives will run Quad Cities First -- a new organization, taking over the role of the Quad City Development Group -- and the chambers will together nominate 10 of its 17 board members. (Seven city and county governments will each appoint one member.)

Dissatisfaction with the effectiveness and fragmentation of regional economic-development efforts has been brewing for a long time. Three years ago, the Reader published "Note to Self: Why Is the Business Community Threatening Itself About Regional Economic Development?" about a letter that clearly set the stage for this shift.

The Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce has "endorsed" the new economic-development model but will not merge into the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce.

Other resources:

DavenportOne releases about the Iowa Quad City Chamber of Commerce (1, 2) and the economic-development model.

Argus/Dispatch coverage.

Quad-City Times coverage.

The budget - if you can call it that - that passed the General Assembly last week has as much as a $5-billion hole in it, borrows more than $7 billion from Wall Street and state vendors, disguises huge cuts to some private social-service agencies with 87-percent funding for others, and sets up the state for a surefire disaster next fiscal year.

Break out the party hats.

There is just no way on Earth that you can call that budget "balanced," or "serious-minded." It is, at best, a punt until next year. Actually, it's more like a blocked punt with a big loss of yardage.

"You guys are going to have to come up with a new conspiracy theory," Attorney General Lisa Madigan told Rockford Register-Star columnist Wally Haas last week about her decision to go for re-election and forgo runs for governor or U.S. Senate.

"I had it from a pretty good source as recently as Friday that she was going to run [for governor]," state Senator Brad Burzynski (R-Clare) told Haas about Ms. Madigan, adding: "It makes me wonder: What's [House Speaker Michael] Madigan's end game?"

So many people have assumed that Mike Madigan had sent this legislative session into overtime to somehow help his daughter become governor that they neglected to remember his long history as the House speaker.

Former House GOP leader Lee Daniels summed it up best to me not long ago: "Mike Madigan is Mike Madigan. He's one of the brightest leaders the state has ever had, but he's Mike Madigan. He's always been the way he is today."

Sen. Richard Durbin

Official website: http://durbin.senate.gov
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2152 Fax: 202-228-0400
Contact Dick Durbin via web