- [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

Now providing live streaming capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or Memorial service at their chapel in Rock Island.

- The votes are counted and Moline wants change, plus keeping an eye on the year 2030 and beyond in "The Cities".

(upbeat music) Those who were keeping an eye on "The Cities" are launching a new initiative to make sure this area stays vibrant, inclusive, and fun.

More on that in a moment.

But first the big vote.

In Moline, it means a change in leadership.

Not only is Sangeetha Rayapati going to be the city's new Mayor, she's also bringing with her three new Aldermen who pledge to end a divided council criticized for its attacks on city staff.

The new Mayor-elect talked with me about her victory.

Let's clarify one thing, you will not be both Mayor and School Board President at the same time.

- No, not at all.

- [Jim] That would be a foul play as a matter of fact, wouldn't it?

- That would be impossible, yes.

No.

My term finishes in April on the School Board, so.

- What is your key?

I mean, what do you really wanna accomplish in the first 100 days?

- Staffing.

Staffing is the key.

And we have significant needs there with the City Administrator position open and the Community and Economic Development Director position open.

So, we're already starting the onboarding process of learning where we're at and participating and making sure we are moving ahead with fulfilling those needs.

- Well, for the City Administrator position there you have five candidates.

Where are you on that?

I mean, have you met all five?

Do you have a feeling on who might be picked?

- No.

And I couldn't comment on that at the moment anyway.

But no, we're in the final interview stage process.

- [Jim] What are you looking for?

- I am really looking for a great collaborator and I'm looking for someone with experience who can really hit the ground running and be a great teammate with new council members and some of us with experience and in elected office like myself, and some without that.

So a great team player and a great leader is what I personally am looking for.

- 'Cause we have seen that time and again, in cities large and small where you have an administrator that butts heads with the elected City Council and it becomes a real tension-filled position.

And you're looking for, like you said, a collaborator but are you looking for a person who's strong that's gonna be able to direct the staff that so many are so new in their positions?

- You know, I think that is a quality, that leadership qualities are developed over a long tenure of being a professional in a lot of different places.

And so, we just really need to make sure we have someone who understands local government, who knows how to get the best out of all workers at all levels of our organization, and who knows how to turn around and also link with elected officials in a positive way and really move the ball forward.

And I think those professionals are out there and like I said, we're just getting into the process.

So we really, those of us that were elected on Tuesday night have really hit the ground running and are enjoying the process.

- And let's talk about that because you have a number of, can I call them allies or at least people that you had supported that are now on the City Council?

I mean, this is a very different Mayor's office and City Council than we saw two weeks ago.

- Sure.

You know, that was one of the wonderful things about the people that were running, that were challengers is that we all come from a variety of professional backgrounds, a variety of service backgrounds.

We bring some new ideas, some fresh faces and that's just the reality.

That's what the public chose.

And I'm looking forward to melding that with the experience that's already on the City Council.

So I'm very positive about the outcome of all of us coming together.

- So does that vote give you like some inspiration?

Do you think the Electorate told you something?

- Well, absolutely.

Absolutely.

They are ready for change.

They were ready for a different style of leadership.

- Let's talk about the other major position that you really wanna see filled as quickly as possible, and that is Community and Economic Development.

You have said that it's been a part-time position for far too long.

- Yes, absolutely.

There's no way we can fulfill our commitments to our budget without someone full-time leading the charge on how we can grow economically.

That is how we keep tax rates low for our community by having all that business activity in town.

And so, I thank those that have filled in and worn multiple, multiple hats in that office but it's really time to have the head person there and really work well with new staff in City Administration and with the Council to make sure we can fulfill our promises that we speak of in our budget.

- Well, I don't know exactly how they're gonna do it but you're probably gonna have a big scissors at some point and cut a big ribbon when I-74 Bridge is done.

Let's be honest.

I mean, at one point, what is it three or six billion dollar project that comes to an end and really transforms the heart of Bettendorf, and the heart of Moline.

- Yes, yes.

It is a tremendous opportunity.

And there are so many community partners that are at the table.

I'm in the process of setting up meetings with people to learn more about this project and where we're at and what the timelines are and all of those details.

And I am very excited for what this means for the Quad Cities as a whole and Moline in particular.

- Especially downtown Moline.

I mean, there's been so much attention to downtown Moline.

There've been so many new upstart buildings, you know that I believe that a downtown occupancy is at 100% and the need for housing downtown is just growing.

- Yeah.

But I would like to remind everyone that Moline is more than its downtowns.

Certainly we wanna focus some good energy there.

We've got good people working, Moline Center partners, Geoff Manis and that crew that are doing wonderful things.

But we have a lot of opportunity for development across Moline or redevelopment.

The area South of the airport is ready to go.

It's shovel-ready.

We just really have to have the strategic plan in place, and then the steps to execute to make that come to fruition.

We've got interesting neighborhoods that need revitalization.

The Belgian Bluffs I've mentioned before, that three-block walking distance is really ready for revitalization and also harnessing the history that's there.

I talked with some of the business owners there a few weekends ago with alderman-elect Macias, just getting to know what their concerns were, what their ideas were.

And as we walked those streets and saw some of the empty buildings, we thought, "Man, this is an area that could really harness some interesting tourism and commercial activity and be a real niche kind of market for people who are looking for something interesting in the Quad City.

So there's a lot to explore about all different parts of the city, but I definitely don't want to only be thinking about the downtown.

- Absolutely.

And in some areas are flourishing.

I mean, look kind of at the Flociente neighborhood, Mercado on Fifth, just what's being done in that area.

As you said, the Belgium Village area, and there's pockets throughout Moline, that really kind of makes this community pretty rich in its heritage.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And as more people come into the Quad Cities from all over the world that richness just increases, right?

And we have an opportunity to highlight all of that and really have something for everyone, whether they're coming to reside here or to visit here.

We really, really are a special region of this country and we need to continue to highlight all of those benefits we have.

- Now, one of the benefits that Moline has of course, is a great retail foundation.

I mean, if you're at the area where the mall is located, you've got avenues of the cities, as well as downtown you have a John Deere Road as well.

Are you pretty secure in how retail is going to prosper once we get out of this pandemic?

- Yeah.

You know, I think that the professionals in Community and Economic Development and our City Administrator are really gonna have a lot to say about what retail looks like going into the future, simply because we did learn a lot from all the adjustments that our retailers had to make over the course of the pandemic and all of the different restrictions they had to live through.

I think that changes the scene a little bit.

And so, there might be some amazing opportunities we have there.

Definitely, we hear a lot of comments about the South Park Mall area and how we can revitalize that.

There are some great ideas out there but we have to have the staff in place to coalesce around those ideas and then make the action steps that will bring some of that to fruition.

- You have Governor JB Pritzker and you've got President Joe Biden and both seem to be very supportive of infrastructure as well as Amtrak and passenger rail.

Are you expecting that sooner rather than later?

I mean, we've waited so long Moline is invested in its infrastructure, but the train still hasn't arrived.

- Right.

And my understanding is, it's held up in areas outside of Moline, but certainly I'll be talking with those that have been at the table to make sure that we've got a clearer picture of when things might happen.

It's very important to the overall picture of economic development that we have that access to other parts of the region, Iowa city, Chicago, and all of that commerce that can happen with that kind of infrastructure upgrade.

So I will definitely be looking at updates on that.

- Moline's new Mayor, Sangeetha Rayapati.

In a moment, doing more than looking into a crystal ball to see the future of the cities, how people are actually getting everyone involved in a vision for 2030.

But first, Laura Adams is enjoying everything spring has to offer.

And it has a lot.

Here's her ideas if you're ready to go out and about.

- [Laura] This is out and about through April 19th.

Join WQPT for a free preview screening of "Hemingway" at the Blue Grass Drive In April 2nd at eight followed by "Sharknado".

Enjoy an afternoon with family at the Grace Family Church's Scrambled Eggs Community Easter egg hunt, April 3rd from two to four.

It's College Night at the Figge hosting a celebration of nearly a hundred contemporary and historic American masterpieces.

Register for a tour.

Take a virtual trip through the 73-year history of Quad City Music Guild with their "On With The Show" cabaret available for streaming March 9th through 18th.

Circa 21 presents Church Basement Ladies in "You Smell Barn" through May 15th.

And for kids, "Madagascar, A Musical Adventure" starts April 10th.

Their Stock Car Racing at the Davenport Speedway located at Mississippi Valley Fair opening April 2nd while WQPT is holding a virtual Hemingway-themed trivia night the 9th starting at seven.

Quad Cities Interfaith is also holding an online trivia fundraiser as well.

The Moline Public Library will be holding a visit from Ernest Hemingway event the 12th, while Tomfoolery on Treemont with Sam Tallent takes place the 14th with shows at seven and 11.

The classic music of John Denver lives on in a Rocky Mountain High Experience coming to the Adler April 16th at eight.

While the 17th starting at 10, enjoy the 2021 Geneseo Artwalk.

For more information, visit wqpt.org.

- Thanks Laura.

It was a couple years ago when the Quad Cities Chamber helped launch a plan with a vision to the future, the year 2030 and that's how Q2030 was born.

But now it's morphing into something much bigger.

And this month it's launching something new.

We talked with the Reverend Dwight Ford who's part of the Q2030 team about it's plan to have a permanent presence in the cities.

Reverend Ford, why really was the thought to turn this into a nonprofit organization?

Now, why now?

- Well, one of the things that we remember very early in the process that kept coming back up again, and again is how do we make this sustainable?

And also thinking about, how do we leverage the work that has already been done?

We know that this started out as a movement.

It really was a kind of a organic kind of mobilization of people that kept wanting to come together time and time again, to expand the conversation and see what the great possibilities would be if we worked together long enough at it.

And one of the ways that we knew that sustainable efforts can continue is through the formalization of the initiative itself.

And so the 501c3 is an effort to establish and to leverage the work that has already been done in the past, but also give us a sense of sustainability so that we would have a flood hold into the work that is being done so that we could take bigger and bolder steps.

- I gotta tell you the truth, Q2030 really started as a germ of an idea, maybe about, what do you say about four or five years ago?

Is that not correct?

When the year 2030 seemed more distant and it's not anymore, but it started as an idea of, how do we move community forward in so many different ways to improve society?

Is that the way you see the way Q2030 started and how it's grown?

- Yes.

I wanna be sensitive to the fact that over the past seven years because the ideas started really formalizing around Q2030, around seven years ago, but that's not to suggest that there hadn't been great efforts in the past.

One of the things that we acknowledge that we are a part of a continuum, this is a journey, not a destination.

And so, we understand where we are in time and space and the individuals that have found a way to leverage their position and be able to widen the tributary for more growth and development of such an idea.

So seven years ago was that widening effort of a stream that had already had its genesis and beginning before the formalization ever took place.

And so, what we've been able to do with a lot of people involved is to take this movement and then keep pushing ourselves, pressing ourselves, if you will, to reimagine what the Quad Cities could be and how we could essentially remove the barriers whether there are proceed barriers or real barriers and rework it time and time again.

It's what the potter does with clay.

We don't take the clay and throw it off the wheel because we see something that needs adjustment.

We just keep working it and working it.

And that's kind of what this process has been.

- A lot of people know Q2030 perhaps just through the Big Table which was the huge discussion, community discussion project where you brought so many people together.

So many diverse topics, all the sit and talk and to almost talk their way into the future.

- That's right.

The Big Table was an idea.

How do we create an experience, not just an event, but an experience where people that for whatever reason may not be connected to another group of people or individuals or efforts or initiatives.

And so, the Big Tables are something people could relate to is what happens over and across a table that is meaningful.

It's just not the cup of coffee or tea, it's the conversation that makes the tea or coffee great.

Or beverage of your choice.

The idea is how do we get people across from each other, speaking, not about each other, but with each other and going to those tables where they, I would like to say our effort was to hope that people would enter it onto those tables with a mindset, "It's not about who I agree with or disagree but about what I can understand about others and what I would hope others would understand about me."

And so, all of those efforts across the Quad Cities started moving on their own after that.

So you see people working with each other that had not worked, whether they were across the river from each other, or a separate in municipalities or difference in the work obligations, whether for-profit, nonprofit, governmental.

You started seeing people start coming to the table as individuals possessing their totality of humanity and talking from their own vantage point, which I think is so exceptional.

I'll say this concerning the Big Table.

That in and of itself, was one of the ways that we started this great idea of how do we form and start meaningful relationships?

You know, the way that we move forward in any organized effort is only at the speed of trust.

And trust is always a derivative of the time and effort people put into relationships, and those were the beginning days.

And I'm so glad we did it.

- It was amazing.

And it was really community-wide but you know what?

There's words and deeds.

And so, let's see what was the success from the Big Table as far as fostering the deeds of improving the Quad Cities?

- That's a great question.

And your point is so true, that we know that words should lead naturally into what we do.

There is always theory and then there's the practice or the practices thereof.

And so what happened and what is happening out of that is that there are a number of efforts that were already existing that found more support.

And I can give a couple of those.

One of the things that we understand is that what needs to be done in our community more often than not is already being done.

It may not be recognizable.

It may not be scalable yet, but more often than not, the work that needs to be done in our communities is already being done.

And so what we wanted to do is provide space for people to start articulating and meeting and sharing.

And out of that, people started working together.

I'll mention the well-suited initiative where it was organized to ensure that African-American young men would be exposed purposely to individuals that were in the corporate sector or some governmental sectors, wherein we knew that their next step would engage adults at that level one day.

So we brought all these students together and put them at a table, must be like our Big Table but purposely put them at the table to enjoy an experience in event, but also lead to relationship building.

And out of that, not just the sponsoring of that event, not just the underwriting of some opportunities in the future for the young men, but out of that came personal relationships.

And some of those young men still have the business cards to the individuals that they were with.

And they have started those relationships, mentorships, and possibly internships.

John Anderson, we work with as well at Quad City Bank and Trust said out of those experiences that we were fostering with African-American leadership society and some of the other things that, "I wanna do something through my bank."

And he was able to say, "Let me set aside a scholarship to a deserving young man that is interested in finance, the world of finance and banking."

And we were talking about pipelining how do we create pipelines for underrepresented populations, into whatever industry or whatever that underrepresented population may be.

And out of that came an opportunity for the scholarship at a local university at St. Ambrose and out of that, that young man interns at the bank.

And out of that, at his graduation, he'll graduate within another year.

That he'll interview for a formal position there and out of that will also come an opportunity because we're trying to keep talent here, that he would have the resources and the help to secure his first home.

And that is what we mean by pipelining insecurity but all of that started in relationships around the table.

- Well, and as you pointed out, I mean for the Quad City area to prosper, you need young people to be developed in the area but also you need them to wanna stay.

You need to create a community that has fun as well as work, as well as a good home life.

- Absolutely.

We've heard it time and time again about why it is so important to engage this younger generation as they're maturing and matriculating and trying to create the spaces.

And even more so, get their input into the spaces that we need here for them to be fully engaged.

I feel like there's a sense of opportunity and an escalator, and elevator, and a ladder for them to keep climbing up.

And I think these are the things that make more sense than not, of how do we kind of create the spaces?

It's one thing to say, "We want to see this."

It's another thing to say, "How do we build the house or the home or the environment that we want generations to inherit and explore and have to hold?"

- And how do you build Q2030?

And your group has decided to make it a nonprofit and to have an executive director to be in charge of it.

That person is gonna be, for the very first executive director of Q2030 that's gonna be a critical position.

What are you gonna look for in an executive director?

- That's a great question.

Now, of course, everyone, we are a very diverse group and which I'm appreciative of is what we've been trying to model to the entire community while we've diversified our Board of Directors in so many significant ways not just with gender, racial ethnicity, and backdrop in careers, nonprofit, governmental sector profits but also in experience and understanding.

And so it's out of that, that if we have been able to work together over the last seven years, and then now formally over the last year and a half kind of really turning over this, and how do we expand the board and bring more people to the table?

One of the things we're looking at is an individual that has such a high level of relatability.

They don't have to have all the world of experiences, but they do need to know how to connect with different populations and make everyone that you connect with feel as if they have a part, which they do.

And the overall vision, and hope, and aspirations of the Quad Cities.

I think they also have to have a great sense of mobility to be able to intentionally locate and to be able to engage populations that have not been always welcomed to tables in the past for whatever reason, or simply overlooked.

So the great effort then is for them to be highly relatable, highly mobile because it's gonna take a lot of intentionality.

And then of course, the measurements that everyone will start looking toward after we get our feet under us fully understanding that this takes time.

However, we do need to be able to turn some projects over and initiatives over that are sizable enough for the weight that we've been carrying.

And so that person would have to definitely understand people, understand the local politics, how to engage structures, how to work with large segments of our society, whether they're in education or grassroots initiatives.

They have to understand those movements that make a community strong.

- The Reverend Dwight Ford on the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on "The Cities".

(soft music) - [Announcer] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory a proud supporter of WQPT, has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

Now providing livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or Memorial service at their chapel in Rock Island.