Davenport Mayor Pitches
Funding Baseball over Branch
In a play to keep minor-league baseball in Davenport, Iowa, Mayor Phil Yerington is proposing that some $3.1 million that had been set aside by the city toward constructing a new, $6.2-million branch library be reallocated for renovations of Davenport’s baseball stadium. Yerington, who formed a committee in mid-September to study the city’s options, favors the idea to lure a Major League Baseball–affiliated team to town to replace the Quad-City River Bandits, who are departing at the end of the 2002 season.
Apparently mindful of the need for more library access points, Yerington has proposed instead that Davenport school media centers remain open after school to serve the public. “We can do this all over town and we don’t have to spend $3.1 million,” the mayor told the September 25 Quad-City Times, challenging members of his administration “to explain to me why this doesn’t make sense.”
Library trustee Michael Noyes seemed willing to play ball, telling the newspaper, “At the appropriate time, the money will be there. We’ll get the branch built.”
Posted October 1, 2001.
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