Rebuttal to Davenport Mayor Jason Gordon’s State of the City Address
Note: Ezra Sidran is a local reporter and has contributed to QuadCities.com in the past. As part of a robust and active free press, which we believe is especially important now as corporations have taken over considerable swaths of the media, we welcome different opinions and letters to the editor.
I made the mistake of posting this snarky response to a story about Davenport Mayor Jason Gordon’s State of the City Address and Sean Leary challenged me to write a rebuttal.
Full disclosure: I was not actually at the State of the City Address for two very good reasons. The first reason was that tickets were $20 each. And the second was that I was scheduled for a colonoscopy later that day in Iowa City and I’m just going let that joke write itself.
Also, full disclosure: I’m suing everybody in that picture. No, not Baghdad Bob. The picture above it: Alderman Gripp, Mayor Gordon, somebody who looks like an alderman, so I’m probably suing him, too, and Rick Dunn (I’m definitely suing him). More about the lawsuits, below.
Anyway, I wasn’t there in person, but here’s what I learned from reading the article at the link:
- The theme of the event was, “A New Day in Davenport.” Dear God that’s a wretched, meaningless pablum of a slogan. I shudder to think that we’re paying Denise Hnytka six figures a year to come up with that whizbanger.
Every day is a new day. I mean, seriously?
But, imagine if the theme was: A New Deal in Davenport. And there was some legislation to actually back that up. The one thing we all know is that there will be no new deal in Davenport; not with the same group of ‘developers’, bankers, construction companies and fly-by-night wheeler-dealers calling the shots. The vast majority of citizens know the city is crooked and they have given up participating, given up voting (less than 1 in 5 citizens of Davenport voted in the election that got us the current cast of characters) and they have given up hope of things ever changing.
- The city had to spend the money on a splash park in the flood plain. Honest. Mayor Gordon seems very adamant about this.
Look, I understand funding. But, seriously, the state of Iowa did not put a gun to a puppy’s head and threaten to pull the trigger unless the city of Davenport built a goddamn splash park in the flood plain!
That’s not how state funding works. I think. I mean I’m pretty sure that’s not how state funding works. I understand that the money had to be spent on something downtown but there is a universe of better ideas than that monstrosity. Look at this:
They are putting a bridge to nowhere under a bridge to nowhere! Again, I understand that state of Iowa was threatening a puppy but, seriously? We had to build this fugly monstrosity? Well, at least the construction companies are making a bundle.
- “I am fully committed to taking bold action to address this city-wide challenge,” Mayor Gordon said. “All the right people are in the room in this collaboration to make a positive impact on people and families experiencing homelessness.” I’m looking at a picture of the people in the room and I don’t think the right people are there at all (maybe because it cost $20 to get in).
And here’s the interesting thing: the right people that they aren’t talking to are only a block away from City Hall. They congregate at the Davenport Library on Main Street. The used to live under the train tracks not even forty yards from City Hall but the cops rousted them and I don’t know where they went.
The solution to homelessness is putting people in houses. Yes, it’s really that simple. Every neighborhood in Davenport has an abandoned house. Work out the goddamn details. It’s what we pay you for; not reciting low-grade BS. “All the right people are in the room,” my ass. Nobody believes you’re going to do a goddamn thing to help the homeless. There’s no money in it for you or your backers.
- “This is not the Davenport of last year, or five years ago, or ten years ago!” Apparently this was a very important statement by Mayor Gordon. I assume that what Gordon was trying to imply was that Davenport had put the infinite and ongoing scandals at city hall behind it. No, in fact they’re still being litigated. Recently former city attorney Tom Warner was officially reprimanded by the Iowa Supreme Court for giving away millions of dollars in payoffs without bothering to have the city council vote on it as required by law (the city council has to approve any payment over $50,000, but city staff routinely finds ways to get around this). There are numerous lawsuits still ongoing about the Spiegel, Thorndike and Torres payoffs. And, frankly, it’s still the same bunch of yahoos running City Hall now as were there before.
- Screw it. There is no item 5. Nothing of any importance was announced by Mayor Gordon at the shindig. The city of Davenport is in a ton of hurt and nobody is being honest about it. There are dozens of lawsuits against the city and the city keeps losing in court.
There are the victims of the 324 Main Street disaster, and if you need to be convinced of the city’s culpability, read this interactive timeline leading up to the disaster at this link: https://www.rcreader.com/324-main-street-how-did-city-davenport-iowa-allow-this-disaster-to-happen. On top of it, the city has paid Lane & Waterman almost $3,000,000 since May 28, 2023, the day 324 Main St. collapsed. The potential jury award for this could easily surpass $100 million and the city is just pretending it’s a minor inconvenience.
And then there are a flock of lawsuits naming the city and the elected officials individually. Full disclosure: I’ve filed two of them (and, yes, I’m suing the people in that picture, though I’m still not sure about the short guy behind Gordon’s shoulder).
The reason that I’m suing is because I put in a FOIA for the super-duper-secret Spiegel Demand Letter (she’s the former city administrator that got $1.6 million, but really the payoff was much bigger when you add in the free tuition and healthcare). For details see this interactive timeline: https://www.rcreader.com/the-decline-and-fall-of-davenport-iowa-a-timeline. Anyway, I put in a FOIA for the Spiegel Demand Letter in November, 2023 and guess what the city does? Nothing. They just pretend they can’t hear me. So, in February 2024, I put in another FOIA, for the same damn thing because I know it exists at this point and this time the city sues me. That’s correct. There were at least five other organizations and people (including Sarah Watson of the Quad City Times) but for some strange reason the city of Davenport decided to sue me. And I had to defend myself. And I won.
But the city had successfully hidden the Spiegel Demand Letter from me for 303 days (Iowa Code 22 says that the city had 20 calendar days to provide the public document). Under last year’s Iowa House File 706 (the city of Davenport was repeatedly mentioned from the floor, and the bill passed 94-1) I have the right to sue the city’s elected officials, as the legal custodians of the public records, for hiding the public document from me. I won’t get a penny. Hopefully, they will pay large fines (up to $2,500) to the city. Also, they will be removed and barred from office for a repeat offense. Cool.
So, what’s the real condition of the city of Davenport? Bad; and getting worse. The population of Davenport peaked in 1985. People are leaving Davenport. Every neighborhood has abandoned homes and houses for sale that have been on the market for months. Small businesses are failing and the only employers hiring are gigantic corporations like Amazon that treat their workers as temporary hires until they’re permanently replaced by robots.
At the beginning of Davenport’s annual report there is an organizational chart for the city. At the top is us, the citizens of Davenport. Below us is the city council. Below the city council is the mayor. And below the mayor is city staff. In reality the exact opposite is the case. City staff runs the city of Davenport. City staff tells the city council how to vote. Literally, right in the city council’s meeting agenda you will see the instructions: “City Staff recommends a ‘yes’ vote.” I’ve never before seen agendas with the city staff telling the elected officials how to vote. But, that’s how it is in Davenport.
And the problem with Davenport city hall staff is incompetence, corruption and cronyism. The city’s housing and rental inspection departments are sketchy at best. Again, read about the events leading up to the collapse of 324 Main Street. The city inspectors’ fingerprints are all over that disaster.
What Mayor Gordon didn’t mention was anything about cleaning up city hall; about removing the people responsible for the disasters and the lawsuits.
This isn’t the Davenport from a year ago, or five years ago or ten years ago? Don’t kid yourself. This is the exact same Davenport as a hundred years ago. The corruption may not be as blatant as when the brothel owners made their payoffs every month down at city hall to the police magistrate but the corruption still stinks.
Nothing will change until city hall is cleaned up.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.