Keokuk likes a headline.
A riverfront dream plan. A tech hub idea. Another feasibility study. An out-of-town investor promising to “revitalize” downtown with boutique this and upscale that. We’ve heard it all before. And yet, for all the noise and ribbon-cutting optimism, some of our sidewalks still don’t have curb cuts. Some of our streets don’t have working lights. Some of our neighbors still don’t have heat in the winter.
We keep skipping the basics.
In a recent walk down South 14th, I counted three dead streetlights in a two-block stretch and a storm drain so clogged with debris that it looked like it hadn’t been touched in months. Meanwhile, I saw a sign touting the city’s “transformational growth strategy.” I’m not sure who it’s transforming, but the people I talk to every day are still asking when the alley behind their house will stop flooding or when the park down the street will get repaired.
Don’t misunderstand me — I believe in dreaming big. Keokuk should have a future that’s bold and imaginative. But vision without maintenance is just branding. And we are drowning in branding.
It’s the same pattern: a mayor or administrator announces a flashy initiative, social media lights up with civic cheerleading, maybe a temporary mural gets painted or a podcast is launched — and then the details fade. No metrics. No audits. No follow-up. Just another bullet point in a grant application or a campaign speech.
In the meantime, the water department struggles with aging infrastructure. The fire department is under-resourced. The schools are under pressure. And the residents — the people who keep this place going — are left to adapt, endure, and hope that maybe next time the money will be spent where it actually matters.
Maybe it’s not glamorous to fund sidewalk repairs or replace sewer lines. But those are the things that show a city cares. That it functions. That it sees its people.
I’ve heard officials say “we’re doing our best with what we’ve got,” and I don’t doubt that some of them are. But when the basics are ignored long enough, people stop trusting that the big things will happen either. And once you lose that trust, you lose the foundation of a community.
We don’t need another rebranding. We need reliability. We need accountability. We need the things most cities take for granted.
And until we stop chasing the shiny and start fixing what’s broken, Keokuk’s best ideas will always live on a press release — not in the neighborhoods that need them most.
— Rachel