New GOP senators promise to cooperate

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Fatal crash victim’s mother wants an apology
Accused driver
wants to share
lessons with teens
LETTER
To read the letter Mitch Gayer
intends to put before a judge, go to
this story at qctimes.com.
Brian wellner
Gayer awaits trial in December on two felony counts of
aggravated driving under the
An Andalusia man’s letter
influence. The Nov. 27, 2013,
of remorse over losing his two
best friends in a drunken driving accident near Milan killed Jamie
crash last year falls just short of Sedam, 22, of Port Byron and
Clayton Carver, 24, of Taya confession.
“I should have thought twice lor Ridge.
The letter is written like a
before getting into that vehicle,”
speech to teenagers. Defense
Mitchell Gayer, 24, writes,
attorney William Schick said
although he doesn’t rememGayer wants to speak on the
ber if he was the one behind
dangers of drunken drivthe wheel.
ing to students at Rockridge
Police say he was.
[email protected]
gayer,
accused
driver
Carver,
victim
High School in Taylor Ridge,
where he, Sedam and Carver
all graduated.
Gayer has a court appearance
today in Rock Island County,
where he is expected to give a
copy of the letter to a judge.
“So when he goes to trial or
his sentencing hearing, I want
Sedam,
victim
Natalie,
Sedam’s
daughter
the judge to know what he’s
done to help other people,”
Schick said.
“This is an opportunity for
him to do some good.”
Schick called the letter
“emotional” and hopes students at Rockridge and other
schools will get a chance to hear
about Gayer’s experience in his
own words.
Gayer writes: “I will never get
Jamie and Clayton back. Their
families live with the gaping hole
of their absence in their lives.”
Tell that to Tracey O’Hara,
Jamie Sedam’s mother.
She received a copy of the
letter in the mail last week
and shared it with the QuadCity Times.
“He never once said sorry to
me,” O’Hara said.
Sedam had lived with her
mother in a rural Port Byron
home hidden from the main road
by cornfields when the stalks are
— VICTIMS | A9
New GOP
senators
promise to
cooperate
Young Professionals leader wants Q-C to
‘think big’
Augie grad has grand vision for the organization
Jennifer Dewitt
After fiery campaigns, many
vow to work with party leaders
[email protected]
When Aiden Landman
visualizes the future QuadCities, he likes dreaming big.
The new director of Young
Professionals Network, or
YPN, envisions a day when
light-rail connects all the
downtown cores across the
Quad-Cities or a ferry taxis
passengers between Rock
Island and Davenport on the
Mississippi River.
“Wouldn’t it be cool to
see?” he said. “I know they’re
big-city amenities. But I think
we deserve to think big here.”
Now as the advocate for
the region’s 20-something
and 30-something workers,
the Hillsdale, Ill., native also
wants YPN to expand its professional development opportunities through its i-network
for interns and a new mentoring program. He wants to
connect young professionals
“with people at other times in
their life.”
YPN is an initiative of
the Quad-Cities Chamber
of Commerce.
One of his top goals is one
that has begun to take root
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — New Republican senators who sometimes breathed tea-party fire as
candidates are adopting a more moderate tone
as they enter Congress.
A few of the 11 incoming GOP senators —
the number could reach 12 — may still opt to
battle party leaders, as some tea party-backed
House Republicans have done. Thus far, however, they seem willing to cool their earlier
rhetoric and work with senior colleagues to
push a conservative mainstream agenda while
confronting President Barack Obama.
Some who took hard-right positions on
reproductive rights, for instance, have deemphasized or abandoned those stands. Some
who picked early fights with party leaders have
made peace as the GOP prepares to take control
of the Senate in January.
They are “a great new bunch” who will help
“make the place function again,” a beaming
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell
said Wednesday as he welcomed the senatorselect to his Capitol office.
Few of the newcomers are drawing more
attention than Joni Ernst, who won an open
— SENATORS | A4
— YPN | A4
YOUNG
PROFESSIONALS
NETWORK
YPN is a growing network of
more than 3,000 young professionals in their 20s and 30s from
the Iowa and Illinois Quad-Cities.
The network hosts monthly
networking meetings, ‘Network @
Noon’ and ‘Network @ Night,’ as
well as other activities.
To join or learn more about
YPN, contact Aiden Landman
at 563-823-2659, or visit: http://
www.thenetworkqc.com/
AP
Louis Brems, QUAD-CITY TIMES
Sen.-elect Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, strides through
the halls of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday as
lawmakers return for the lame duck session
following the midterm elections.
Aiden Landman is the new director of the Young Professionals Network, or YPN,
which advocates for the interests of Quad-City 20- and 30-somethings.
Bettendorf residents speak against Davenport project
Thomas geyer
[email protected]
Bettendorf residents living
along Crow Creek Road across
the street from a proposed fourstory senior housing development in Davenport continued
to speak against the project
Wednesday at Davenport’s city
council meeting.
Real Estate Equities Development LLC of Eagan, Minn., is
asking aldermen to rezone 7.56
acres just north of Crow Creek
Road and east of Utica Ridge
Road in Davenport from A-1
agriculture to a Medium Density
Dwelling District.
The company wants to build
a 61-unit owner-occupied
senior housing cooperative on
the property and develop other
vacant lots.
Davenport aldermen passed
the first reading unanimously
10-0, but not before several
Bettendorf residents said a fourstory building does not belong
in their neighborhood.
Ethel Freiberg said that residents along Crow Creek Road
were not properly notified of
the proposed zoning changes.
Signage on the property alerting
people to the rezoning request
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was not in place before the issue
began moving forward.
“You’re supposed to put
signage up before the process
of rezoning begins, not in the
middle of the process,” Freiberg
said. She added it appears that
aldermen have made up their
minds already and there’s nothing anyone can do.
Jon Meier, who lives along
Crow Creek Road, told aldermen, “I cannot overstate the
concerns my neighbors have
about having a four-story building on that property. A fourstory building of that size does
not belong in our neighborhood.
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It just does not fit.”
Neighbors of the project also
voiced concerns about stormwater runoff.
Davenport Public Works
director Mike Clarke told aldermen and the audience that the
city has one of the strongest
stormwater runoff ordinances
in the state, and that everything
the developer does to manage
runoff will be scrutinized.
“We’re not in that development mentality where we were
20 years ago when we just
wanted to get things built,”
Clarke said. “We’re in a sustainability mentality where we don’t
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do destruction to neighborhoods.”
Ed Schloemer of Bettendorf
told aldermen that he wants
the development to proceed.
Schloemer said he and his wife,
Eileen, are among 45 people who
are prospective shareholders in
the facility.
“We have looked into this
very seriously,” Schloemer
told aldermen. “I didn’t know
anything about this company
before it got here. This is a very
reliable company. They have 14
of these in place and four under
— COUNCIL | A4
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