We’ve been doing a round robin of sorts the last few weeks by having conversations with the different mayors around the Quad Cities. We’ll continue that with Moline.
The city played hardball when it comes to gambling recently, specifically related to businesses with video slot machines or other games of chance like it.
Moline banned the dozens of video game parlors in the city from putting up any new signs, billboards or fliers to advertise the businesses.
Twelve days ago Moline City Council voted to increase the fees these businesses pay for each machine.
The city expects that move to generate $155,000 in revenue.
Moline already collected more than $247,000 in taxes from these machines this year — just through October.
All of that comes after the council voted to limit the number of these businesses that can operate in the city to 35 earlier this year.
It’s been an eventful year for Moline.
The city goes into the new year with a budget that eases the property tax burden on a lot of homeowners.
City leaders credit an increase in taxable property for being able to lower the tax rate while still collecting more revenue.
Moline is looking for a new police chief after the last one retired under embarrassing circumstances related to a DUI arrest.
This coming year should bring big changes to the new I-74 bridge and hopefully more clarification about direct train service to Chicago.
Moline has been and continues to be aggressive on a lot of issues, taking a leadership position in the Quad Cities.
That’s just fine with Moline Mayor Stephanie Acri. She joined 4 The Record for a conversation.
Budget
Growth made the property tax cut possible. Acri talked about how confident she is this can be sustained and what kind of risk she thinks there is that this could lead to higher property taxes later.
Video gaming
Moline took a strong stance on the video gaming issue this month and earlier this year with those new restrictions and fees we mentioned earlier.
We asked Acri why this was important for the city and what she says to the business owners who say this will ruin them.
We’ve seen dominoes fall when one of the Quad Cities does something the others follow suit.
These businesses don’t exist in Iowa.
Acri addressed how likely these businesses are to go to neighboring cities like East Moline and Rock Island because of the changes adopted by Moline.
Watch the full interview in the video above.
