Blago comes to town with $2.4 million for WIU

9:00 p.m. Monday - Governor Blagojevich is set to fly in to Moline tomorrow for a press conference at WIU's existing campus on 60th St. and John Deere Rd. to announce that Western Illinois' Moline riverfront campus will receive $2.4 million in Opportunity Returns funds to be spent on more preliminary planning for expanding the campus.

They say that this development, which won't be able to start until yet more state funds are found, will more than double the number of students WIU currently serves in the Quad Cities from 1,200 to more than 3,000, and of course, they trumpet the added economic boost from construction, and the assumed influx of more money into the local economy.

This is a hopeful sign that the WIU riverfront expansion may just actually happen. Local legislators should be commended for their part in pushing the issue with the governor and successfully getting him to see the wisdom of at least providing the funds to pay committees and consultants to work up a plan and do some drawings.

If the WIU riverfront campus project can be seen through to completion, and this step is cause for cautious optimism, it sounds very exciting, with it's focus on technological, business, health-care related, and education degrees. It will be a boon for local corporations and businesses who will gain skilled workers or train their existing work force, and it will benefit many who may have otherwise not been able to leave the area in order to get a degree.

Danger, cynicism ahead. Eternal optimists may wish to avert their eyes.

The City of Moline is also planning to revitalize the area around the campus and call it an "Urban Technology Corridor", and plan to redevelop a nearby unused warehouse which, it might be thought, won't even recognize it's new name, "Technology Transfer Center". Ya gotta love these $20 names. But is this where they unload technology from the east coast and put it on different trucks to take it to the west coast? And with all those ambitious place names, I can imagine the tragically hip devolving into acronyms. "Hey, I just left WIU, I'm driving through the UTC, meet me at the TTC ASAP for a BLT, BYOB."

The "Technology Transfer Center" will be "formed to advance local research into business development opportunities and other development." Got that? Sounds like "weapons of mass destruction program related activities".

I guess it means that they'll "advance" "research" on "development opportunities". In other words, they'll try to provide a place for people to find some way to make some money somehow, or at least try to find some opportunities, which of course, is pretty tough since only those with ready cash can take advantage of opportunity. So money makes more money which makes more money, etc. and pretty soon you have the country turning into a banana republic, especially with Republicans doing all they can to hurry the process along like their lives depended on it.

But I guess large local employers have finally figured out that they've gotten about all they can out of unskilled people, and importing skilled, educated workers is, well, expensive. The climate's right to get some locally trained and skilled people to run the technologically advanced equipment needed these days as they are coming cheaper all the time. And if this floods the market with skilled workers, all the better, as it will depress wages and they won't have to pay as much as they do now to them-there uppity know-it-all yuppies from the coasts or urban areas who expect top dollar to work here.

And the unskilled worker who invests his or her money (and the state will no doubt foot the bill for a lot of it. Kinda too bad the Republicans just slashed federal student aid, huh?) on retraining might be able to make a good fraction of what they used to make from their union jobs a decade or more ago and the young workers just starting out will think the wages are great.

It's all good. No more pensions, just 401Ks and bare bones insurance coverage which costs a huge chunk of their income and thousands of $200,000 plus house and condos going up for them to look at and wonder where the people that buy them come from. But yet it's hoped that perhaps some of these brave new workers might even be able to afford a dinner at the Blue Ribbon on a special occasion once in a while.

It's clear that something is finally is getting done because it was starting to hit the big guys in the wallet. Why not have the taxpayers essentially train their workforce for them? And this way, it's so close it can be like their own private training facility and they can dictate the curriculum to fit their needs at the moment.

Deere is donating a lot of valuable property for this project. Think it's out of the kindness of their corporate heart? Maybe 40 years ago it may have, but not now. Nothing wrong with them expecting the school to train their workers I suppose, as long as their needs don't interfere with the rest of the curricula, but perhaps they should just call it Deere U. rather than WIU.

Largely due to Republican policies at all levels of government, our government at all levels can't seem to do much of anything beyond basic services without involving corporations and or big developers. I guess we can just wave good bye to the state or local governments, or the federal government for that matter, doing anything just for the public benefit. The "Reagan Revolution" has suceeded in starving government to the point where they can barely accomplish the basic services they exist to provide.

And as allluded to above, the Republican congress recently voted to slash federal student aid. Who's going to pick up the slack? Deere? Or is it just going to exclude many people who now can't afford school?

So a big round of applause for all involved and let the endless and overblown praise begin. At least this plan offers regular folks the opportunity to get themselves a little bigger bite of the apple than they currently are.