Today Becky Kloos Bernard and I attended the Moline Park Board meeting to participate in the discussion about the bridge. The job at hand for the park board was to make a recommendation to the city council about the direction for the bridge reconstruction. After reviewing the engineering report, there were three basic options on the table:

1. Preserve and reconstruct the existing bridge at a cost of 1.8 million
2. Tear down the steel portion of the existing bridge and replace it with a new 10' wide bridge.
3. Tear down the steel portion of the existing bridge and replace it with a new 12' wide bridge.

The park board voted to recommend option 3, the demolition of the existing bridge and replacement with a 12' wide bridge.

There seems to be wide support for reopening the island among all interested parties including the historic preservationists that were in attendance. There is far more things that we agree about than we disagree.

This is the beginning of a long process to spend a lot of taxpayer money. There is no doubt that the project has support from city leaders and the community. As members of FORC and the greater community, Becky and I have committed to working with the city to insure that the island is reopened as soon as is reasonable. We are also committed to making sure that the island is better and more inviting than ever and that the events that are held continue to grow. We believe that this is the opportunity to make Sylvan a biking/outdoor destination right in the heart of downtown Moline.

In the future we will be asking directly for input on the best way to achieve the broad goal of making Sylvan the best that it can be. Feel free to post any ideas below.