Welvaert, O'Brien face off at Chamber event
Moline Alds. Don Welvaert, At-Large, and Pat O'Brien, 2nd Ward, faced off at a town hall meeting Monday at the Moline High School auditorium, an event sponsored by the Illinois Quad City Chamber of Commerce.
When asked what would he do as mayor to encourage development of the WIU campus in Moline, Mr. O'Brien referred to a recent trip to Washington, D.C., by more than 80 community leaders. The purpose of the trip was to lobby for Quad-Citie priorities, one of which was WIU.
Mr. O'Brien, who did not go on the trip, said he didn't think he needed to go because he already works closely, and communicates often, with area state and federal legislative leaders.
"I would do anything possible to get them here," said Mr. Welvaert. He did go on the trip to Washington D.C. "These trips are important and we need to keep up the dialogue with Springfield, with Washington, and with local community leaders."
posted by The Inside Dope @ 3/22/2005
2 comments
2 Comments:
latinv... welcome back. We've missed you around here.
I wasn't aware of this "debate" and wished I could have seen it myself. Thanks for the review from your perspective. And you are just as qualified as anyone to judge how the candidates performed.
I was there - O'Brien was the clear winner in every category. He stood and spoke and acted like a statesman with well thought out responses to all questions. And this was done without rattling papers and notes around like his opponent - O'Brien did not have a sheaf of papers in front of him like the other guy. Too bad more people did not see this event because it would have likely swayed more voters to vote O'Brien for Mayor.
IT's all over now but the Chamber did all they could to help their guy look like a mayor and it was not effective in that venue. O'Brien looked like the mayor and yet, sadly O'Brien lost his election by a razor thin margin so we are stuck with someone who will be much like Stan Leach which is exactly what the Chamber wanted.
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