CROKEN CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OF DAVENPORT CITY ADMINISTRATOR
Davenport, September 16…. In a news release issued today, Davenport mayoral candidate and Iowa State Representative Ken Croken called for the resignation of the Davenport city administrator. According to Croken, mismanagement of the months-long investigation of the Davenport apartment building collapse is “the final straw” exhausting all public patience with on-going efforts to cloud accountability for the tragic events of May 28. “City taxpayers have waited more than three months and paid $300-$500 an hour for answers to one basic question: what role, if any, did city incompetence or indifference play in the needless loss of life, limb and property in the collapse of 324 Main Street. Instead, we received a113-page report explaining why an improperly maintained, 100-year-old building fell down,” Croken said.
Croken noted that the only significant reference to city policy or procedure in the September 7 report is a disclaimer: "Evaluation of municipal procedural and policy-related implications and any contributing factors thereof is beyond the scope" of the investigation. Why? “The people of Davenport are not nearly so naïve as city officials imagine us,” Croken said. “We understand that the ‘scope’ of the investigation was established by the city official who contracted for the investigation. And we also understand that it was City Administrator Corri Spiegel who signed these ambiguously constructed contracts,” Croken said.
“Indeed, the contracts in question fail to specify any detailed statement of work or work product expectation. Since such guidance is missing from the formal contracts, it is only reasonable to assume that all direction from the city to the investigators was provided verbally or in some form independent of the controlling contracts. This is not only poor contract management; it contributes to the growing mistrust among city residents for city government. Limiting this investigation to a review of structural issues and poorly managed repairs is an insult to the taxpayers and the families of those who lost their lives. I say ‘Enough!’”
Croken is a former Scott County Supervisor and currently represents Iowa House District 97, consisting of much of central and eastern Davenport. He is a lawyer and currently serves as adjunct faculty at St. Ambrose University. Until his retirement in 2017, Croken was the chief marketing and government relations officer at Genesis Health System and is a past member of the Quad City River Bandits baseball club ownership group. Prior to moving to Davenport more than 20 years ago, Croken held a number of executive and managerial positions with organizations, such as Edelman Public Relations Worldwide in New York City; IBM Corporation in Dallas, New York, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.; legal aid organizations in Connecticut and Florida; Save the Children Federation in Connecticut; and, the United States Congress, among other organizations.