Here are some excerpts of Matson's address given to Rotarians and others at the Rhythm City Casino at noon on Monday.
"We've had a tragedy a few weeks ago here in Davenport specifically in our downtown where wonderful people passed -- Brandon Colvin, Ryan Hitchcock, and Daniel Prien. Please, let's give them a moment of silence.
"Thank you. Also want to recognize all the residents that have been affected, impacted, and displaced, in particular Miss Berry, who sustained a life-threatening injury, our thoughts and prayers, our hearts are with them.
"Now a couple years ago, they'd say 'Mike when you going to fix the city, when you going to fix the streets, when you going to fix the sewers? So now the calls I get are 'we got too many barricades, we got too many roadblocks, we can't get around the city, you're making my commute hard. Would you please take down some of the barricades?' We'd like for you not to go into the construction zones. So we're going to keep doing this. We're going to keep putting more money into streets and sewers and stuff under the ground.
"In 2019, people were not happy with us, so we engaged our friends from the Corps [of Engineers]. Coloel Curry, thank you very much for your leadership on this and during this flood. Engaging so many other people, and then built quite frankly, building the berm bigger and stronger and having the corps tell us how to do it. That's what we do. We learn, we grow, we fix things.
"Now, it's [called] the Coordinated Assessment Program, so that we can figure out what's going on with the youth. So when those six come to be in the presence of our law enforcement agencies, what do we need to do? How can we help them from doing it again? There is an immediate in less than 24 hours a staff member that has been trained, brought in from outside of here that meets with them works with them, their families to assess them what services, they need. Almost seven hundred referrals of people -- youth -- that have been contacted working with taking services and getting them on the right path.
"MidAmerican Energy, Russell Construction - a whole industrial park, Amazon. So people said, 'Mike, you're never gonna get Amazon. Yeah, they built a building, but they're not gonna staff it.' They're hiring now. More than a thousand jobs and they were committed. We are committed. We delayed? They delayed, but it's happening. As we speak, we are committed. The mayors of this Quad Cities are committed to bringing in business, the [Scott County] supervisors, all of us working together to bringing in opportunity.
"So you heard the word perserverance. This is simply the efforts of our friends, from MLK Park, the NAACP, Lulac, keeping after us, and Estes Construction taking it on to do this park at a location close to, where Marting Luther King spoke. If you haven't driven up the south end of Brady, you should see the construction going on there. We had a ground opening [sic] and they're already to open by the fall. This is going to open a park in our downtown to recognize the wonderful contributions and leadership of Martin Luther King.
"What it is I say now, I can't thank the partners that engaged to weeks ago, on a Sunday evening, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday and continuing. I don't have the words. I can only thank you because of the partnerships we have. We call, you don't say, 'What is this about?' You don't ask, 'What will this cost?' You just come to help. And if there's no other message here, I can't thank you enough. So many people involved with this with the purpose of caring to help."
The mayor highlighted many other topics. Usually, it takes a few days for the city to post videos on its website and YouTube channel.
June 13, 2023: Corrected a transcription error. Perry changed to Berry.
