Some mornings in Keokuk feel like déjà vu.
The same cracks in the sidewalk. The same half-boarded windows. The same downtown storefronts with “Coming Soon” signs that never quite deliver. And behind it all, that same undercurrent of frustration — the sense that something here is being squandered, not because people don’t care, but because those with the power to change things never quite follow through.
This isn’t a rant. It’s more of a sigh.
I love this town. That’s the part that makes all of this hard to write. The river. The bridges. The quiet streets with too much history and too few options. I grew up seeing potential in places like this. But potential has a shelf life — and Keokuk is dangerously close to letting its expire.
We’ve had plans. Vision documents. Beautification committees. Strategic development workshops. Consultants flown in to tell us what locals already know: downtown is underused, housing is aging, jobs are scarce, infrastructure is brittle. But we keep treating symptoms instead of systems. A coat of paint on a broken policy. A festival to distract from a failing budget. A road repair that narrows traffic and widens tempers.
It’s not that nothing is happening — it’s that the wrong things are.
City council agendas are packed with petty debates while big-picture issues stall. Transparency is treated like a nuisance. Public input is either ignored or channeled through one-off surveys that go nowhere. We’ve normalized dysfunction by wrapping it in Midwestern politeness.
But underneath the politeness, people are tired. Tired of broken promises. Tired of patch jobs. Tired of watching our neighbors leave because the city gave them more reasons to go than to stay.
We have good people here — business owners, teachers, retirees, young families who haven’t given up. But they deserve better leadership. Better planning. Better follow-through. Not just slogans or social media updates — real change.
And here’s the question I keep coming back to in this notebook:
Does Keokuk still believe in itself, or are we just pretending for each other’s sake?
Maybe I’m being too bleak. Maybe not. What I do know is this: pretending things are fine because we’re used to how broken they are isn’t resilience — it’s resignation.
We can do better. But first we have to admit that we haven’t.
If you’re seeing what I’m seeing — or if you’re seeing something different entirely — reach out. I’m not here to just report what’s safe. I’m here to write what matters.
And sometimes, what matters most is right outside your front door.
— Rachel