Davenport Iowa USA - Last Wednesday, the Davenport City Council voted unanimously to accept a bribe.
 
In exchange for the council agreeing not to object to a proposed rail merger, the city will get $8 million to use as it sees fit and an extra $2 million for a grade separation at South Concord to permit passage of vehicle and pedestrian traffic when a train is passing by.
 
The two grand is conditioned on the city raising the balance of the money required for that project from other sources.
 
The proposed merger will join the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and its associated lines with Kansas City Southern Railway and its operating subsidiaries.
 
The combined company will give CP's string of lines across southern Canada and northern U.S. a direct link to the Gulf Coast and Mexico.
 
The key is that one link between Kansas City and Shreveport.
 
When you look at a map of the whole system, you realize that all the traffic in that single link is going to be funneled through Davenport, some 22 trains a day.
 
That's up from the current daily average of eight.
 
It's going to mean a lot of noise and interrupted access to Davenport's riverfront amenities.
 
It's not the sort of arrangement that citizens would approve in an election, but they weren't given a choice.
 
The merger was first proposed early in 2021, but was derailed when Canadian National put in a competing bid that offered Kansas Southern more money.
 
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board killed that deal and CP and KCS finally filed their application in October.
 
Word of what this would mean for Davenport surfaced last November, but the CPKC transaction didn't make headlines.
 
Cities along the north/south route were contacted individually and offers were made to compensate for the disruptions that would ensue.
 
No city would be more adversely affected than Davenport.
 
When the news finally spread this summer, it was too late for affected cites to take collective action.
 
Former Davenport mayor Bill Gluba made an appeal to the council to organize other communities to stop the merger and citizens loudly complained, but informal agreements had already been made.
 
So here we are, with a promise of money and nuisance to come.
 
Cities along the route were romanced with promises of many new jobs, heavy investment in improving aging railways, even potential passenger service.
 
Statistics were laid out, computing average traffic waits in seconds.
 
There was talk of noise mitigation, but it was mostly confined to the rumble of passing rail cars.
 
I don't hear much about muting of horns at crossings.
 
Those of us who live in Rock island will share the noise.
 
It is worth noting that the US$8,000 (the amount is US$8 million) donation may be spent as the council wishes.
 
Will it go to noise mitigation and reliable access to the riverfront?
 
It will be tempting to spend it elsewhere, we have the example of the Scott County Board diverting COVID relief funds to an expanded facility for adolescent offenders, in defiance of objections from citizens and directives from the federal government.
 
The American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funneled federal money into states and cities to help citizens whose lives and incomes were impacted by the pandemic.
 
Local and regional political bodies were give latitude in distributing the funds.
 
Scott County was not the only one to abuse the system.
 
If the rail merger goes through, and the city council uses the money it receives wisely and justly, things can still go wrong, even with careful planning.
 
What if someone suffers a heart attack when strolling in LeClaire Park while a train is passing by?
 
How long might it take for an emergency vehicle to get through?
 
What if there is a spill?
 
They do occur, and the nasty ones involve that thick Canadian oil, actually asphalt, passing to the gulf.
 
One such occurred years ago, in Arkansas, as I remember.
 
It devastated portions of a small town, but the news was kept under wraps for weeks, until photographs taken by homeowners finally got out.
 
It's hard to imagine that the merger will not be approved.
 
All across corporate America, there is money to made in mergers and acquisitions.
 
Lawyers, investors, and executives earn serious money in the process.
 
We seem to be drifting back to the era of huge trusts that dominate major sectors of the economy.
 
Competitive capitalism may be the gospel, but it isn't quite the practice.
 
You hear complaints about over-regulation, but the important ones that keep the financial sector in line have been steadily weakened over the past four decades.
 
When big money moves, constraints weaken, and citizens take what they can get.
 
For Davenport, it was a cool ten thousand (it was ten million).
 
Don Wooten.