Life during Bushtime, Pt. II
While thousands of mothers, children, and families will soon be feeling the crunch and being denied a decent diet and shelter, many of them will also be shivering or forced to give up basic necessities to keep their homes above 40 degrees.
A $1 billion package of additional low-income heating assistance awaiting congressional action this week would leave Iowa and several other northern states out in the cold.But... at least area businessmen are giving land and more money to improve the Nahant marsh.
Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other frigid states struggling to keep up with high heating costs would get little or nothing from the funding package, according to a new congressional analysis. Instead, warm-weather states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona would get the windfall.
The culprit is a complicated federal funding formula used to hand out grants for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which helps thousands of poor households in Iowa and across the country cover utility bills.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, Iowa would see no LIHEAP funding increase if an extra $1 billion is approved, while Florida would receive an additional $36 million in energy assistance and Texas would get an extra $59 million.
Davenport’s Nahant Marsh area is being expanded and improved, thanks to gifts to the city from Mel Foster Jr. and Mel Foster Co. Inc.
The company is donating 27.92 acres of wetlands to the City of Davenport. In addition, Foster, the company’s chairman, is donating $100,000 to the city for financing construction of an observation deck to provide public access to the nature preserve.
The city will formally receive the donations during a presentation at 2 p.m. Monday along the causeway to Credit Island Park. In case of inclement weather, the presentation will take place in the Credit Island Park lodge. The City Council voted in September to accept the land.
The property, located northeast of the current Nahant Marsh and adjacent to Credit Island Park, has been owned for about 35 years by Mel Foster Co.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 12/15/2005
3 comments
3 Comments:
I was initially outraged when I read this article too, wondering why the South needs heating assistance. Then I realized the Times just called it heating assistance to make it seem worse, since it really should be called heating or cooling assistance. Elderly folks living in Phoenix need AC in August just as bad as they need heat here in January. It will be interesting to see if energy prices go back down by summertime, in which case the South wouldn't need the extra money as much as the midwest and northeast.
Foster probably was going to build another Garden Additon here 35 years ago.
Yeah until he realized what a disaster the garden edition turned out to be. Ask former Mayor Gibbs about it - he used to live near there and was actually pretty good about helping the folks during one of the recent floods. That MelFoster guy made a boatload of dough ripping off small households who bought the homes with their hard earned money only to be dashed by the poor urban planning that went into that stupdily concieved edition. The City officials who let that happen should be ashamed of themselves.
Be thankful every time the elected Council questions a developer. Maybe they will save someone some money and heartache by not rubber stamping every single development accross their desks!
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