Quincy Mayor John Spring and Alderman Paul Havermale, R-3, are scheduled to report on the state of the city at this week’s Quincy Tea Party meeting.

The Democratic mayor and Republican alderman say they don’t see the double billing as a debate or showdown of any sort.

Spring said he’s happy that the city has kept up its services with a budget that’s essentially the same size it was in 2009 and with a reduced workforce. His biggest concern is the state’s financial condition, which has kept Illinois from catching up on funding that is owed to the city.

Havermale said his biggest concern is on providing city services and finding the best way to manage city resources. He sees the city’s workforce as the biggest positive.

“It may sound like an oxymoron, but to me, it seems like folks who work for the city are trying to do the right thing and do the best job they can,” Havermale said.

The session starts at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Microtel, 200 S. Third.

As noted last week, Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Mount Sterling, would be facing the prospect of running against Rep. Norine Hammond, R-Macomb, if the Tracys had not built a house on the outskirts of Quincy in the past year.

Under the Illinois House Democratic map unveiled late last week, Tracy and Hammond both would be in the same district. Instead, Tracy plans to establish residency in Quincy. The redistricting plan will create a district that gives her all of Adams, Hancock, Henderson and part of Warren counties.

The video shown above was shot by Illinois Statehouse News, and Tracy said she should be known in the new district from her years with the Illinois attorney general’s office.

In the past month, many pollsters and political analysts have talked about the big swings they’ve seen in the voter surveys involving the Illinois gubernatorial race.

Most polls have shown Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, with a lead over Gov. Pat Quinn, but a couple of polls have shown the race so tight it is considered a tie. The polls can’t all be right.

Quinn’s camp has said the polls showing Brady with up to an 8 percentage point lead are flawed. They say the ones that have the candidates nearly tied are accurate. Their argument is that some of the early “big-lead-for-Brady” polls didn’t include the additional candidates running for office.

That argument is not holding much water, since the latest polls include the alternative candidates and Brady still wins by 4 percent and 5 percent.

Still, I was hoping somebody would do a good job of telling about the danger of taking the alternative candidates’ numbers as clear and irrefutable evidence of how they’ll do on election day.

Anyone who owned a less-than-reliable analog TV knows what a ghost image is. A picture tube that isn’t adjusted correctly will have this faint outline that may shift right or left of the true image. If there are a pair of large images on the screen, say a pair of people speaking to one another in a close camera shot, the ghost images are noticeable but not overpowering. With some of my own TVs, I saw ghost images of about 2 millimeters wide — which was negligible when the image that gets ghosted is 4 or 5 inches across.

But let’s say there’s a little line on the TV screen. Let’s say it’s 2 mm wide. Well, it now looks twice as wide because has a 2 mm wide ghost image.

This is roughly equivalent to voter polls. The mainline candidates are big images and even if they’ve got a little ghost image — the static that comes when surveyors ask likely voters what they’re going to do and run into that small percentage of respondents who want to mess with them — the big picture is still relatively clear. But the little candidates who are likely to get 2 or 3 percent of the votes may get the benefit of lots of telephone poll static that may make it look like the little guys are going to get twice the number of votes they’ll get on election day.

That brings us back to the enthusiasm gap.

Pollsters saw in 1994 that Republicans had greater enthusiasm to get out and vote. The enthusiasm gap was 9 percent in favor of Republicans who won majority status in the middle of Bill Clinton’s first term as president.

This year’s enthusiasm gap is 26 percent in favor of the Republicans. The GOP edge may not be that big in Illinois or Missouri, but then again, it could be that big or bigger.

Those polls that show Republicans with a 4 to 6 percent edge, which lots of people say are too close to call, could be sitting on wins of 10 percent or more come election night.

I’ll add one disclaimer. Not all Democrats will lose and not all Republicans will win. Each campaign has its own dynamic. Candidates are not all created equal. The enthusiasm gap just means that Republicans will have the edge in races that might have been nail-biters in other years.

And as for those alternative candidates, the Republicans and Democrats both have a huge enthusiasm advantage over people who initially plan to vote for “someone else.” If you’ve got no reasonable expectation that your candidate can win, you’re going to be less enthusiastic — less dedicated — about getting out to vote or even doing so ahead of election day.

Andrew Breitbart (michaeltotten.com)

Tucker Carlson (AP Photo)

With one month to go before the Quincy Tea Party’s Sept. 12 rally in Washington Park, organizers see it getting bigger as it gets closer.

Organizer Terri Cary said Jon David, a conservative blogger and song writer, has joined the long list of speakers and celebrities who plan to attend. Andrew Breitbart, a conservative columnist, wrote in the Washington Times on Monday that he would be attending the Sept. 12 event in Quincy. He will be joined by Instapundit professor Glenn Reynolds, Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft and syndicated columnist Tucker Carlson.

“We were saying it would go from 1 to 3 p.m., now we’re working on extending that time,” Cary said.

She expects the event to grow even more as other speakers are announced closer to the event.

The Quincy Tea Party also has launched its Military Care Packages program, with collections being made by the Vac Clinic at 638 Maine and Travel House of Quincy at 3011 Maine.

A list of suggested items for donation to military men and women will be on the Web site soon. Donors also can buy postal containers that will be used to ship the items to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Quincy Tea Party will host a Freedom Celebration at the Women’s City Club, 16th and Maine from 11 a.m. to noon on July 4.

Terri Cary, an organizer, said the event will feature patriotic music, live singing and speakers.

“We are reaching out to all Americans. We’re proud of our country, and we’re passionate about our freedom,” Cary said.

The Quincy Tea Party held a rally that attracted hundreds of people to Clat Adams Park on April 4. Cary and organizer Steve McQueen said the group is interested in government involvement and wise choices. McQueen said in a previous interview that being labeled a tax protester or a conservative shortchanges the goals of Tea Party members, who are from different political parties and backgrounds.

Participants July 4 are asked to bring items for military care packages. Preferred items include phone cards, non-perishables, stamped envelopes, disposable cameras and personal care items.

Seven Quincy aldermen — all Democrats — didn’t want to hear a five-minute complaint about taxes and rising water and sewer fees Monday night. They denied a Quincy man the right to address the council.

That five minutes of discomfort they avoided may well turn into months of complaints they’ll hear from angry residents who have just found a rallying cry.

Steve McQueen, an organizer of the Quincy Tea Party held along the riverfront on April 4, thought the U.S. Constitution guaranteed him the right to speak. Even after hearing that city rules require a council vote before public comments, McQueen could not believe that elected officials could just tell citizens/voters/taxpayers their comments or concerns are not wanted.

Alderman Steve Duesterhaus, D-2, said the vote against hearing from McQueen had to do with timeliness — or a lack thereof. McQueen’s complaints about the budget or water and sewer fees should have come during previous meetings, before the items were approved, Duesterhaus said. Other Democratic aldermen had similar concerns.

The problem with the Democrats’ action is that it creates a martyr of sorts.

McQueen’s comments would have been news at Monday’s meeting. The fact that he couldn’t speak was bigger news, and the public will see this as a situation that has not yet been resolved.

When Republican aldermen — one of whom was absent and all the rest voted to allow McQueen to speak — move forward with their stated plans to freeze some city salaries and amend the budget, there will be more attention from the public.

Democrats still hold the edge. Even though it’s a 7-7 split between Democrats and Republicans on the council, Democratic Mayor John Spring would decide any tie votes.

Republicans will have a decided advantage any time they’re all present and any one of the Democrats is absent.

It will make for a tense time during the next two years with this tie council. It will make for even more tension in two years when the next city election will almost certainly see several tough campaigns for aldermanic positions. GOP challengers will raise the rallying cry about arrogance or hubris on the part of aldermen who won’t listen to voters/citizens/taxpayers.

The aldermen avoided five minutes of discomfort, though.

Quincy aldermen gave first reading to a rate hike for water and sewer rates Monday night, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that the size of the total increase was known.

David Kent

Utilities Director David Kent said water fees would go up 25 percent and sewer fees 30 percent when he spoke with reporters Monday night. When Kent sent out follow-up material late Tuesday morning, he included information about a $13.31 meter charge that would be added every three months.

Adding the meter charge to the water and sewer hikes brings the total fee increase to 39 percent.

Under the rate schedule provided by Kent, the average residential customer uses 20 units of water every quarter. The water/sewer fees for that usage has been $65.45. Under the proposed rate and fee structure that same customer would pay $91.11.

In a year the difference would total $102.64 — going from $261.80 now to $364.44.

Kent clearly explained to three journalists that water and sewer rates need to rise because the city is “subsidizing” rate payers to the tune of 17 cents per unit of water and needs higher sewer fees to cover costs as well.

The meter service charge is needed because meters need to be replaced on an ongoing basis, Kent said.

There would typically be two more readings of the rate and fee increase ordinances.

Now that the 39 percent cost increase is out there, look for aldermen to ask tough questions about why meter fees of $53.24 per year need to be added.