West Burlington IA News-Sports-Opinion

Photo by www.DanHockett.com

Raven Messamaker, 5, looks to mom, Heather Messamaker (left) for help as she writes her name on a notebook for use in Mrs. Wilkerson’s Kindergarten class during West Burlington School District’s open house Tuesday.

8/16/08 – 9:16 p.m. at 502 S. Marshall, Burlington.
Amanda Elizabeth Schillie, 17, 205 W. Shepherd St., Danville; criminal trespass.

New baseball photos from 4-games now available on

www.DanHockett.com

Notre Dame v. West Burlington
Holy Trinity Catholic v. West Burlington
Keokuk v. West Burlington
Louisa Muscatine v. West Burlington
Harmony v. West Burlington

If you know parents or players from these teams please pass it on.

Thank you,

Dan

Hi Falcon,

Heard an awful rumor today at a business from a customer, they said Champion Spark Plug is chomping at the bit to shut the plant down!

How could this be possible? The Chamber and the City made a 3 MILLION DOLLAR deal with them to retain the jobs for at least 5 years in BURLINGTON didn't they?

I sure hope this rumor is BOGUS and the jobs are safe and doing well! Because if this is true the taxpayer and Burlington have been hoodwinked again!

-Worried about jobs

8/17/08 – 9:04 p.m. at 324 W. Agency (Wal-Mart), West Burlington.
Lisa Mayes Perry, 22, 505 S. 9th, Burlington; fifth degree theft.

Falcon:

Some have called former Congressman Jim Leach a RINO for endorsing B. Hussein Obama. Is Mr. Leach really doing the Lord's work?

Iowa Republican National Committeeman elect and head of the Iowa "Christian" Alliance is not happy with his party's presidential nominee. In pursuit of Christ's work on earth, Mr Sheffler sent an email warning his Alliance followers. John McCain is soft on homosexuals because he appeared on a daytime television show hosted by a lesbian. Mr. McCain is further threatened with non-support.

Laura and Jena Bush have appeared on the same show. Does this make them hell bound lesbians?

Citizen Leach holds no public office as a Republican. He holds no Republican party office. His actions have deeply disappointed many Republicans who supported him over the decades. Far worse is the stab in the back from one who has sought and obtained high office in the National Republican Party.

Are some Republicans lower than RINOs?

-QPH

Hello Falcon,

I see in the advertiser a couple stories of interest in Sundays wrap! First the either stupid or corrupt county supervisors pleading ignorant to charges of an illegal closed session meeting, and the advertiser calling them on it! BULLY FOR THE FISH WRAP!

And second the CHAMBER OF CORRUPTION! Who are trying to beg around a million doll hairs or more to pay the un godly bills they have accumulated in their fancy digs! And I heard they got another $200-thousand dollar state grant and hired two more 50 thou a year employees!

So the CHAMBER and Hinkle are promising if their partners donate they will retain business' in Burlington! Or do they mean the taxpayers of Burlington will? And that if the members donate they will be paid back by business!

In other words whoever donate get a piece of the action, and whoever does not gets none of the business! What a little organized corrupt racket! All funded by the taxpayer and the dumb saps whom work hard for a living and whose lifeblood the PARASITES suck out.

These two things are exactly what is wrong with Des Moines county in whole some of the highest taxes in the state, high unemployment, high welfare recipients, high crime, Just plain CORRUPT MISMANAGEMENT of taxpayer money and people who are either too stupid to figure it out or who do not care!

The paper basically drew a picture for any dumb person to read and came to this conclusion! Now the only thing left is to decide what to do about it!

-Tired of it all

Photo by www.DanHockett.com

Clear cloudless skies allowed a good view of full moon last night.

Falcon,

WB City Government is way overdue for replacement, the problem is no one wants to get involved so the losers in place keep getting re-elected, I believe at the last election the Mayor got re-elected with under 100 votes what a joke, he and the whole council need to be replaced, however till people want to get involved nothing will happen, WB Citizens get off your duff and get involved and take your city back!!!

-CR

Falcon,

Property taxes rose too! Everybody should look at their new property tax statements and you can see who raised your taxes. The Burlington School District had the highest increase and then the City of Burlington and actually the County Supervisors did pretty well. I guess we now know how they are paying for the Manor fiasco. They just keep lying and screwing us and they get away with it.

-Taxed Enough

8/16/08 – 4:30 a.m. at 3000 block of Fleming Ct., Burlington.
Ryan Jay Duncan, 21, 701 E. Pennington St. Apt. 139, West Burlington; operating motor vehicle without consent, operating while intoxicated – first offense, failure to prove insurance, and failure to maintain control.

Falcon,

Bottom line... Is that us the small minority as they may call it or think it.. The smaller people really are the one's who count. Whether in Burlington or West Burlington we are the one's who will pick up the tab. I am, and did not say for one minute the Burlington resident's were getting treated any better. Just for the record there. I am just so tired of being gouged! Yeah the oil company's can get away with it. But it shouldn't happen in your own small town by the people running it that we are supposed to trust. We all work hard enough for our money. Come on give us a break!

-WB Citizen

Falcon:

I wonder how much of the WB water rates are tied to the TIF deals where school, fire and other taxes must be picked up by the taxpayer because this TIF organizations pay little to no taxes. Of course should the TIF organizations not hire the required number of employee’s as stated in the contract or pay the required livable wage no action is taken because WB elected officials have no balls to enforce the contracts and find it much easier to rob the taxpayer? These companies also hire temps in order to reduce pay and benefits while city officials look the other way.

Has the city ever published the process of handling the water once received from Burlington or is it just piped directly to users and metered by the city? Are the wages of city employee’s much higher than those of surrounding places of employment? Does a city worker receive more pay as a maintenance person than does a maintenance person at one of the Italian plants? Does a clerk for the city earn more salary than a clerk at the local bank? There just has to be a reason the city is robbing the taxpayer since it’s obviously coming up short somewhere else and the city is trying to hide the shortfall by excessive water rates.

I also think WB has a city government that needs to be replaced and that can only be done at the voting booth. The current mayor has exceeded his usefulness and needs to go. Here in Burlington the same people are just shuffled in and out of office every couple of years and nothing ever improves, the folly just continues year after year because Burlington voters just vote for party without any consideration of intelligence or capabilities.

One would think that as the union jobs vanish and the union voting mentality declines that the voting public would soon learn how to vote but here in Southeastern Iowa they just can’t seem to grasp it after being told how to vote for so many years.

This part of Iowa is backward when compared to most other areas of the state, which have left WB and Burlington in their wake.

-Worried

Falcon,

Remember the big deal the state of Illinois and some other states made of prescription drugs being supposedly cheaper in other countries? Well apparently they’ve learned that they aren’t really cheaper after all. Illinois has all but abandoned their program (I-SaveRx) of importing medications because it is cheaper to buy them right here. Where is the glare of the media spot light now? Why aren’t the Hawk Eye and other news organizations talking about the end results of their great populist program?

Things aren’t perfect here but they are a lot better than in other places in the world.

http://www.buffalonews.com/149/story/406714.html

-Why won’t the media cover this?

Falcon:

Just how much does a gallon of the first 3000 gallons cost the citizens of West Burlington? Here in Burlington a family of two subsidizes a family of 10’s water bill because the city has determined the number of bathrooms and rooms control the amount of water used and people that use the water don’t. What did cost $75 in Burlington in the 90’s now cost $128 in the 2000’s.

In other words if two people live in a home with five bathrooms they pay much more than a family of 10 that have only one bathroom. Just which one of these homes will be using the most water? This means, “In Burlington terms” people don’t control water use but rooms do. Now I always thought people used the water and not rooms, how foolish of me to think logically.

In order to support the benefits, yearly raises and wages of city, county and state workers a considerable hardship is put upon those that have to work for a living and never get the comfort of cradle to grave care given public servants or should I say public elitist.

-Tired

West Burlington City Hall pays $1.39 per thousand gallons and charges homeowners a minimum of $12.80.

In other words, City Hall charges a 1000-gallon homeowner a whooping $12.80 for water that only cost $1.39. That’s 900-percent profit. Oil companies don’t make that much profit.

-Falcon