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The fight over Milan Bottoms and a Democratic minority trying to stop the Republican led Iowa legislature.

We'll look at both confrontations in the cities.

We'll.

Iowa Republicans are dismantling DEA initiatives.

They've removed gender equity from civil rights protections and are moving to ban some books from public libraries.

So what's a Democrat in the minority to do?

That's just ahead.

But first, a ten acre development that could impact a wildlife area in Rock Island.

Midan bottoms is a 3500 acre wetland near Interstate 280 and Illinois 90.

Now, the city wants to see the development of a cannabis dispensary and a gas station that could help improve the city's retail tax revenue.

But environmentalists fear it will only do harm to nesting eagles and other wildlife in the area.

The city is committed to the $12 million development, but has also proposed ways to minimize the impact of this development and still enhance the area while preserving what's already there.

Now, on Monday, those opposed to the project will go to the city once again in a last ditch effort to put a pause on the construction.

We're joined by Sierra Club chairman John Duva and wildlife biologist Kelly McKay.

John, let's start with you.

Why is myelin bottoms so important?

Well, it's important for several reasons.

As you've seen, eagles, effect on the eagles was what kind of made it important publicly.

And that got this whole effort started.

But just from a biological point of view, it's probably the largest wetland area in the Rock Island County, even identified by the Illinois DNR and its natural, area inventory.

It's depending on where you draw the boundaries.

It's several thousand acres.

It's several times bigger than that Marsh, which is our jewel.

Also on the other side of the river.

So we have multiple species in addition to bald eagles.

Federally listed species.

We have Illinois state listed species.

It's a big area for migratory birds with Kelly can tell you more about, passing through there.

And a lot of people aren't aware of it because it's very inaccessible.

Well, Kelly, that's what I was thinking, is that when you drive by there, it's just it looks like dirty wetlands and.

Oh, my gosh, this is ripe for development.

Why not fill it in and use the land?

Well, and that that's the thing.

It is the closest thing to wilderness that we have in the Quad Cities.

It's not wilderness, but it's the closest thing that we have.

It's one of the most biologically and ecologically diverse, sites on the upper Mississippi River.

And there's one reason for that.

It's because it is like you're saying, it is so wild and so untamed, basically.

And if you want to keep that, that very rich diversity, biologically, you have to you have to keep the land wild.

I mean, a lot of these species won't tolerate a lot of disturbance.

The eagles being one of them, like John said, that was that was sort of the main focus of our opposition to this.

Right from the start.

Was, you know, you've got the largest documented night rooster, bald eagles in the lower 48 states.

So this is really special.

It's not just the run of the mill night.

It's the largest one that's ever been found.

And half of all the eagles that winter in the Quad Cities rely on that one site for night roosting.

And night roosting.

Eagles don't don't tolerate any type of human activity or disturbance.

I was going to explain that to me a little bit better.

Night roosting is so critically important and so sensitive.

Why?

Okay, so during the winter a lot of people don't realize this.

Eagles have a hard time surviving the winter, especially young birds that haven't perfected their hunting skills or anything.

But all the eagles, they.

I always say they walk a fine line, or I correct myself and say they fly a fine line between having enough energy to survive those lean winter months and not having enough and perishing.

So the primary function of an eagle during the winter season is energy conservation, and communal night roosts are one of these habitat types that eagles are able to use in order to conserve energy.

They gather communally in these areas.

They're out of the way places because they're not they're out of the way.

So they're not being constantly disturbed by people, and they're usually oriented in such a way, that they give the birds maximum shelter and protection.

These floodplain night roosts, like my own bottoms, the only type of area that will function as a floodplain night roost is you have to have a large big patch of forest, and the birds get on the backside of that and they get maximum shelter and protection from the wind.

I always tell people, it's a lot like this if you're walking along the river on a cold, windy winter day and you feel and there's just a narrow strip of trees between you and the river, you feel the full force of the wind.

It feels very cold.

But if you're walking along the river behind a big patch of forest, the trees give you a lot of shelter and protection.

It feels a lot warmer.

Same thing applies to night roosting eagles.

The problem is, when they're in the night roost, they are extremely, extremely, susceptible to being disturbed.

And they, they undergo this, this process that's called fright flights, where a lot of times a disturbance will occur that'll cause 1 or 2 eagles to flush, and then they cause 3 or 4 others to fly off, and then they it's almost like a domino effect that'll ripple right through the roost.

And that's our concern with this proposed development is the impact it will have on that neighbors.

The argument, John, of course, would be that, you're talking about a large area that's already protected, and they're talking about a ten acre development hall.

It's not really protected yet.

It's a like I say, depending on where you draw the boundaries, it's several thousand acres and it's an inner Spurgeon.

Private holdings.

The city now owns 500 and some acres, and most of that abuts up against federal land, which is Corps of Engineers land.

But that's managed by co-managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service for endangered species, the Illinois DNR, for hunting and fishing.

So try and even just manage the federal area is always a challenge because everybody has a little different, regulations and goals, etc.

Monday is really the due day, you know, when when Rock Island, City Council does meet on this vote.

What is it?

Is it a is that a definite vote that you think is going to go against what you want?

Well, that's what we've been led to believe.

Every, vote so far has been, is all across the board for the developer.

But since our group of organizations like Audubon, River action, and several others have kind of brought this issue to the forefront, I think maybe some of the aldermen and maybe the mayor's opponent are having second thoughts, a little bit to.

That's what we hope anyway.

Well, I'm Kelly, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

No, I said what we're really asked for, like at the last meeting was can you just table this for, you know, a couple months, three months, at least through the spring season, so we can finish some of these studies and find out what the impacts really will be.

You know, so far, we don't know what's there.

So you can't really tell what the impacts are.

We don't know what the final design plan is yet either.

They have just shared kind of artist's renderings so far.

And yeah, and Kelly, I mean, you don't think it's a foregone conclusion?

Well, I don't think I, I'm not willing to give up until the buildings are standing there.

And even then, I think we'll, we'll protest it.

The problem that we have is that the only environmental assessment, and this is the assessment that the city hangs their hat on, saying we've done our due diligence.

That assessment is so inadequate and so flawed, and we've pointed out all the different areas that there's flaws in it.

For instance, the entire environmental assessment was done without anybody ever visiting the site.

So there's been no site surveys, nothing done.

All they based the environmental assessment on is, is a desktop exercise where they pull up a database, and the database only includes species at the county level.

So all the database can say is, well, this species occurs in Rock Island County.

It doesn't say anything about Mile and Bottom specifically.

And even in their environmental assessment, the the Illinois DNR puts a disclaimer in there saying this assessment should in no way be a substitute for actual on site field surveys or biological surveys that are required for environmental assessments.

So even their own disclaimer, basically they're saying, here's our opinion, but this should not be the end all, be all of it.

And you, you you were just saying they didn't even address bald eagles in there.

Yeah.

Never.

Once a 34 page environmental report.

The word bald eagle is never mentioned.

One once, despite the fact that it's the largest use area in the lower 48 states.

John, as you know, I 280 interchange is very attractive for commercial development.

And you also know that Rock Island has always looked for areas to get some retail income.

If not this project, don't you think there's gonna be a fight over and over and over again because of the attractiveness of this interchange?

Well, I'm a Rock Island citizen and I understand that need.

And I, you know, support the mayor's efforts in other places to get more taxes.

You know, everybody mentions 11th Street, you know, and the Walmart that fell through there.

But this particular site, I mean, it's so important for a lot of reasons.

One of the listed species for Illinois is the Blandings turtle.

A lot of people probably don't even know what it looks like or heard of it before.

But according to a retired herpetologist from Black Hawk College, this is probably the only usable nesting site for that species in the whole bottom that ten acres.

Yeah.

For example, river action came to me and said, hey, we'd like, we could do some prairie plantings in mile and bottoms and said, where would be a good place?

And I said, well, it's all wetland.

There's really no place you can plant Prairie.

This ten acres is about the only spot where you have high enough ground out of the.

I think it's even above the 500 year flood plain or close to it.

Okay, that's a high point in that area, to be perfectly honest, Kelly.

I mean, just one last word.

Monday City Council meeting is just around the corner.

What do you want people to do and what do you think is going to be the impact if they do show up?

Well, it's Monday the 14th.

The Tiff vote, we want people to show up.

And what, like they have the last two weeks and just let the city know this is not the city has sold this, especially early on that.

Oh, everybody's in favor of this because this is an economic boom.

And this is not going to have impact on the Eagles.

Kind of circling back to what you said earlier.

You know this is a big area.

This is just ten acres.

The problem is this ten acres is immediately adjacent to the high use area.

That's the widest part of my own bottom.

So that's where 80% of all the Eagles use that spot.

Right next to that.

And the acres we've we've, suggested to the city that, you know, if you go right down at the, at the corner of 92 and Andalusia Road, there's farm fields there right next to the Rock Island Business Park.

The infrastructure is already right there.

Move the dispensary and truck stop down there and we won't have any problem with it.

So it's not that we're opposed to their development, we're just opposed to the development at that particular ten acres because of the impact it'll have on this high use area for, for Eagle.

So we're hoping people show up on the 14th.

On Monday the 14th to protest.

And and what the city know that we are not in favor.

We are not willing to sacrifice, something that's kind of unique to the Quad Cities we brought.

We bring people in from not just all over the country, all over the world to view bald eagles.

And if we jeopardize this one site, we're jeopardizing, a large part of the wintering eagle population here in the Quad Cities.

And this is, you know, the eagle viewing, by some rough, estimates that we've done generates between 8 and $9 million a year in the local economies of the quad Cities.

Just bald eagle viewing.

We're putting that in jeopardy.

And the point I made to Mayor Toms, I was on the candidates forum, night for last.

And, the point I made to him is it's like, you know, there are communities up and down the river from small to large that come up with ingenious ways to not only celebrate this unique Mississippi River ecosystem that we have and have figured out ways to make money off of it.

And I said, the city's way to Rock Island is way to celebrate.

This resource is with a casino, a pot shop, and a truck stop.

Really, that's the best you can do?

Our thanks to Sierra Club co-chair John Duva and wildlife biologist Kelly McCain.

Now, the Rock Island City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday night at City Hall.

Republicans in the Iowa Legislature will be turning to fiscal matters this month as the session starts to come to an end, but already lawmakers have approved moves to remove Dei initiatives in the state, strike a gender identity, protections from the Civil Rights Code and make it illegal to text and drive.

New bills could restrict Medicaid and food assistance programs and lower the age for gun ownership.

Democrats in the minority who oppose this can do little to stop the legislation.

We talked with Davenport, Democratic state representative Ken Grogan.

The next big thing on the list of agenda, of course, for the Iowa Legislature is the budget.

Where do you see the budget's focus right now?

Well, it's early days.

We don't really begin to focus.

And when I say we, I mean, the Appropriations Committee doesn't really begin to focus until after the last funnel, which is when all the policy bills have to make it through.

The, the I think the issues surrounding the budget are, the, the, the need.

And I believe it's an urgent need for property tax reform, and the declining revenue situation, it's under Iowa Constitution.

The state cannot prudently cannot, spend more money than it has in revenue.

And the Revenue Estimating Council meets several times throughout the year to best guess what the revenue is going to be.

And that number keeps going down.

So it's very difficult to build a budget when you don't know how much money you have.

So that that work is we'll start in earnest after the, the 4th of April.

Well, as you well know, the income tax reforms have brought intact income tax levels down, corporate tax levels down.

Other areas of income generating has been reduced in Iowa.

Democrats have said this is a mistake.

Is this what you believe is the beginning of the mistake?

Yes.

We are in a position right now where we will have to dip into what people might generally refer to as savings.

I'm not convinced their savings, but.

Okay.

People will have to start using one time money for ongoing expenses.

The belief, the hope, of some is that, this, this change in our income tax structure is going to ultimately result in more revenues.

I don't know why that's true.

Trickle down economics has never worked, as best I can tell.

But be that as it may, it hasn't worked yet.

And I think one of the big confusions around the whole income tax situation is people keep talking about a flat tax.

We've got a flat tax of 3.8.

We don't have a flat tax of 3.8.

We have a flat tax rate of 3.8.

People with asset rates are still entitled to all the deductions they were ever entitled to.

So it's it's, it's a, it's a subtle but critical distinction for who's, who's benefiting from the flat, flat tax.

The argument that say that.

Yeah, it's a flat tax.

It's not even it has been argued that with a lower income tax and lower corporate taxes, more people will stay, more companies will stay.

This will be a more attractive state.

How do you argue against that?

Well, first and foremost, as I say, I don't view it as a flat tax.

But be that as it may, we've also done so many other things to discourage people from coming to Iowa.

And indeed, we've encouraged people to leave Iowa, with our policy, that are extraordinarily unwelcoming.

The, the action taken by the, the GOP on, D-I programs, which, oh, by the way, do not cause planes to crash.

The, the changes were the first state in the union to actually withdraw civil rights protections from a vulnerable group.

The gender identity, the gender identity as far as reaching.

Yeah, I, just earlier this week, we passed laws, restricting the use of of snap money and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program money and, Medicaid work requirements, or all of which send a message.

And unfortunately, it's a it's a false message.

Just by the way, you know, we spent hours debating the need for, Medicaid recipients to work.

Well, Medicaid recipients are working the Kaiser Family Foundation research shows that 92% of them are working.

And whether or not you agree with 92 or 91 or whatever you number you want to land on, this is not the problem we have.

The problem we have is that, our cancer rates are skyrocketing.

Our, per capita physician, numbers are deplorable.

We have lots of very real health care problems, and we're focused on this one, which is an a problem.

Let's talk about that for a moment, because, the Republicans have a supermajority.

They have control of the, but you could argue it's a conservative, Supreme Court and you have, the entire congressional district.

You have got, the governor, of course, who's a Republican.

Republicans are winning.

So this must be what the people of Iowa want.

Well, I believe it's what the people of Iowa were told they want.

Now that they have it, I. I wonder if it's what they want, but your point is well taken.

We had an election.

The election.

The Democrats lost the election.

It is what it is.

And there are consequences to elections.

But people haven't lived with the consequences yet.

As I say, Republicans have been promising, Iowa property tax reform now for, for years.

I was on a phone call yesterday with a lady who was crying because her property taxes continue to go up year after year after year.

Her income doesn't.

And now she's thinking she's going to have to sell her her family home.

We we need real solutions to real problems.

Not the endless culture war debates.

Over, over concerns that aren't concerns.

Let's talk about the rapidity, how quickly that Bill went through in regards to gender identity being removed or removed from the Iowa Riot Code.

It was rushed through so quickly.

And Democrats have no power to stop this.

No.

What power do you have?

The bully pulpit.

I think all we can do is, the strength of our arguments.

I, I believe the, the the morality of the issue, I, I believe the best we can say is.

And.

Yeah, this is a little unfair of me, I guess, but I'll go ahead and do it anyway.

I know many people who ended up voting for that bill.

Don't believe it's the right thing to do.

I think the party politics has, become way too powerful of force, and our system of government, I, I couldn't even estimate.

Well, I will estimate the overwhelming majority of our of our business in des Moines passes on straight party line vote.

Everybody feels compelled to vote with their party.

With with only a handful of exceptions.

And I think that's a terrible shame.

And I think it it results in bad behavior.

One area where there is, a cross between, bipartisanship and partizanship has to do with the issue of eminent domain and these carbon pipelines that are being constructed or proposed for Iowa carbon capture as well.

Republicans are talking about this and are opposing one another.

Your thoughts on eminent domain.

And a lot of, you know, anybody who's in a rural district, you know, there's farmers who do not like this.

Well, and why would they, I, I too was, I to oppose eminent domain.

I voted yes to ban my domain.

You know, it's kind of a double negative thing, but, I don't believe property rights should be, subjugated to for profit ventures because someone wants to do it.

Now, that's complicated, of course, because we do want to decarbonize the planet.

I'm just not convinced this is the best way to do that.

And, taking someone's property is is it's just a founding principle of the country that, you know, property rights are very important.

And I am not going to take them away from somebody because someone has a for profit venture they want to do.

If you persuade people to give you access to their land, if that's what you want to do, one other area and that has to do as you were alluding to, some of the issues of the social issues that have been approved by the Iowa legislature, including what one could call a book ban, or one could say restrictions of who has access, particularly children, to books that have certain content.

At first, the Iowa Legislature had made the, book ban or the changes effective for school libraries.

Now there's the move to do it for public libraries.

Your thoughts on that?

And really, what power do you have?

I'm assuming you oppose it.

What what type of power do you have to actually have a safe assumption?

As a former president of the Davenport, Public Library Board, I will oppose any state interference in library operations.

People have the right to read what they want to read.

I don't believe people have the right to decide what I will read or what you will read.

That's up to you and me and whoever else.

That's that's interference.

That is maybe the very definition of overreaching, but isn't it good public policy to keep books that may be harmful?

I shouldn't say harmful, but may be inappropriate for certain age groups out of the out of the hands of those people?

Well, and that is the role of parenthood.

I had a particular my children are in their 40s now, so they don't really ask my permission anymore, but, people, people have the responsibility to monitor what their children are exposed to.

But that's that's an affirmative obligation, not a passive obligation, where you can just wave a wand and say, well, no one can have it.

Therefore, and in that way, my children won't have access to it.

Take your children to the library.

Ask what they're reading.

Talk to their teachers.

Decide what you think is inappropriate.

Read with your children.

Don't, don't try to decide what my children are going to read.

Our thanks to Davenport Democratic State Representative Ken Grogan 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.

I am VCU, we've always been here for you.

You are and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial health and we are here I am VCU is a proud supporter of Wqpt and Public Affairs.

Programing on Wqpt is brought to you by the Singh Group at Merrill, serving the wealth management needs of clients in the region for over 35 years.

This program was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.