Rock Island Meeting Gets Heated

ROCK ISLAND – The Rock Island County Consolidation meeting ended in a yelling match Tuesday afternoon.

“The role of this commission is not to decide what’s going to happen for the next 150 years,” Rock Island resident Paul Inman yelled to chairman Tom Rockwell.

Inman was angry that Rockwell adjourned the meeting without getting any comment from the public. About 40 people jammed a tiny room in the Rock Island County Office to hear what could happen to the existing building.

“I knew that there was going to be some heat,” Inman said. “I’m sure [Inman's] against the move to the ‘QCIC.’”

Inman’s referring to an option that would move the Rock Island County offices over to the Quad City Industrial Center in eastern Rock Island. The ‘QCIC’ is home to the old Farmall plant.

“The space would work,” building owner Scott Christiansen said. “The land would work too.”

Christiansen wants to see the county offices move to his building, but people like Inman disagree with him. He thinks moving the offices to eastern Rock Island would be harmful to downtown.

“The people are going to be suffering for the next 100 to 150 years,” Inman said. “Do we want to take our people from other counties and other perspective businesses down there across the railroad tracks?”

The consolidation committee will only make a report to the county board as to what plan it likes. Option one calls for Rock Island County to make a completely new office building. Option two calls for the county to renovate the existing one. Option three would place the Rock Island County offices over at the ‘QCIC’ building. Option four calls for the county to maintain the existing building as it currently stands. There’s no word yet on when board members will choose one of the options.