Davenport has the chance to elect a new mayor.

We meet the two candidates on the city's.

Davenport Mayor Mike Mattson announced earlier this year he would not run for reelection.

Opening up the chance to elect the first new mayor since 2020.

The two candidates who won in a four person primary are Judith Lee and Jason Gordon, both with experience on the dem Port City Council.

Both sat down with us to talk about the issues affecting Davenport citizens, their vision for their role as mayor, and their reason for running for the city's highest elected office.

Well, first of all, thank you both for being here.

I appreciate it.

Congratulations to both of you on your primary wins.

And and let's start with you, Judith.

This is tell me a little bit about yourself and and why you're running for mayor.

A little bit about myself.

I have been a planner and facilitator of experts on very complex projects and programs across the country.

As part of my business and as a planner, I know what information we need.

I know what experts we need in the room, and I know how to help them do the very best work that they can do.

I've also been a community organizer here in Davenport.

I've lived here since 2009, and I've been active with communities, successfully as a matter of fact, in my organizing.

And then I was asked to run for city council, which I did successfully twice and now is a member.

So I have attended all the almost all the meetings physically in place.

I've done my homework.

I've asked the hard questions.

I've done the challenges that need to be made in the city.

As a member of city council and as a member of the public, I've attended almost all the meetings, read all the agendas, worked with council members.

So I am absolutely prepared.

I know the issues.

I know the dynamics, and I'm prepared to understand the changes we need to make.

And I already have plans for how to go about empowering and training our city council, and it's going to be about half new so that they are prepared to work as soon as we can.

I can't say on day one because I can't put them to work before they're actually sworn in, but I certainly will as soon as they are.

So I'm prepared.

I'm ready.

I know the dynamics and council are the ones that need to be leading the city, and at this point they have not been empowered to do so in favor of staff because they're elected every two years.

The council is council.

Exactly.

And I want to get to that in just a moment.

So, Jason, let's let's go to you.

Sure.

Why are you running into a little bit about us?

A little bit about myself?

I'm, almost a lifelong native of Davenport.

Moved here when I was eight, and my dad was the John Deere employee.

That's what brought us to the region.

We're family's third generation Davenport school.

So my wife and I were Davenport school kids.

My kids were Davenport school kids.

And now my grandkids are in the Davenport school.

So I'm certainly all in on the school district, and I'm all in on the city of Davenport.

In terms of my professional experience, I've got kind of a unique mix of, about a third, federal government work, a third private sector nonprofit, and a third private sector.

So I started my career working for Congressman Jim Leach, and then Jim Nussle, worked for the quad Cities Chamber of Commerce, as you know, for about seven years, doing government affairs work, advocating for the Rock Island Arsenal and for the interests of our business community in Springfield and Des Moines.

And now I'm in the private sector.

And so I know kind of all the pinch points of what, the different industries that that function in Davenport feel and what helps make them be successful.

And I'm running just because I was on city council for eight years, I think I was on a council that is considered, a successful council, a high functioning council, a very civil council, and we had a lot of successes in my years on council, and I've seen some struggles in the city the last few years, and I'd like to step back into the arena and see if I can make a difference and get us back to a high functioning well organized, well-run city.

Well, let's talk about that, because, one of the biggest areas that is going to have to be settled is, a city administrator who is not a temporary person.

Somebody that can help run the city.

And let's start with you just on that.

What are you looking for as far as that is concerned?

And and what is the role of the mayor and the council and staff?

Because that has been the real big issue over the last few years.

Sure.

So in terms of what I think we need in the city administrator, and I think what we've been lacking, for the last at least two years, is just some stability in that position.

I think it's critical we hire someone who obviously is well qualified.

He or she has, the experience, both in running a city and, and also has is able to demonstrate some innovative ideas that they've implemented in past experience.

I think city administrators need to be innovative.

Unfortunately, elected officials, aren't always the smartest people in the room.

And so we need folks generating ideas on how to move the city forward.

And we can say yes or no was elected officials.

So I want to, city administrator that's going to provide some discipline, some consistency and some innovative ideas in terms of how that all fits together between the city administrator and the mayor and the council.

And, former alderman Lee Judith is correct that the city council is the where the real power is.

They are the voting ten member voting members of the of the city.

The mayor has no voting authority.

He or she can break a tie.

They can veto legislation.

But it really is not something that happens very often.

But the city administrator is the is.

I describe that person is the CEO of the organization, and the mayor is more like a chairman of the board.

And the council are the decision makers.

Judith, I know that you've you're chomping at the bit on this one because you're known for having several run ins with city staff.

So what do you want to see when it comes to an administrator who is the liaison between the staff and the council?

First of all, it hasn't been with staff.

It's the run ins I've had are because of what I believe were serious concerns with activities that previous, management, not the directors, not the staff have had with the city.

So I believe I had a right and a responsibility to make those challenges, first of all.

Second, we need to have a partnership.

The city administrator has to be ready, especially a new city administrator has to be ready to look at the organization of staff.

Are we efficient?

Do we have the right people in place?

Are they prepared to do the homework, to provide the information to the city administrator, to the mayor, and to especially to city council as mayor?

The city code says, I have the authority to get information from staff.

I would do that as a partner with a strong and effective city administrator.

They have to be prepared to make the hard calls, not to be friends with their, staff, but to look at what the city needs to be running more efficiently.

And I believe we have a lot of efficiencies we need to do.

That's going to say, what does it mean to be a city that runs efficiently?

How do you see that?

Because I would argue that there's two ways of doing this.

You can have a council that in public and when the meetings occur, look like they're all in lockstep and everyone's friendly and everyone's happy, which makes people think there's no transparency here.

The deals have been made elsewhere.

Sometimes they have so, so explain to me what you mean when you do say that that that you want this working relationship to go smoothly.

What my experience has been as both an older person and as a member of an active member of the public, has been that we don't get answers to questions.

And when we do, it's not in a timely manner.

The city admin, the City council, gets the agenda at 5:00 on a Friday for a meeting the following Wednesday.

If they have questions, they can't do anything until Monday or Tuesday.

Some of them have jobs, and I do believe they can be the smartest people in the room.

They just need the training to do so.

But the agenda is there.

I mean, because but they don't know what's on it.

But you also have committees and you have aldermen and women that are on these committees.

So they should know some of these topics ahead of time.

But you're exactly correct.

And I was vice chair of economic development.

But that information does not get shared with the rest of council.

Going back to an earlier point, we need to have more public deliberations with full council public in chambers video, where we're talking about these issues long before they end up on the agenda on a Friday afternoon at 5:00.

Well, Jason, do you have a problem with that?

I mean, because you were on the council for a number of years.

I mean, and you see what I'm saying about the smoothness or the messiness?

Yeah.

And I can understand why people don't want masks, but sometimes, you know, chaos creates.

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I have no problem with I mean, the more information, the better.

And the sooner you can get that information, the better.

I'm also sensitive to the fact that whether it's an economic development deal or a public works project or whatever the issue is, that's before council.

Things change.

And and so, and then you have to update the information that you've provided to council and, and so I yeah.

And it is okay.

And I'm so I'm for as much information as possible.

But I'm also mindful that there is a window of time that council needs to make a decision whether that six weeks if it's an ordinance, or two, two weeks once one council cycle, if it's a resolution.

And really there's one of two ways to deal with that.

If there's an information issue, I think table the issue until you have the information you need or make the best decision you can with the information you have, the city has to continue to function at a high level.

We can't grind the city to a halt because we continually say we don't have enough information, so we just continually kick the can down the road on issues.

So I think there's a healthy balance between those two.

I want to get to another one of the big issues.

I have a lot to cover real quickly.

And one of his finances, of course, and as you well know, the state of Iowa is really, changing the way municipalities are looking at their finances and the ways they can raise money caps on, property taxes.

Sound like the next big thing in 2026?

One of you is going to be mayor in 2026.

Let's start with you, Jason.

Is are you a little concerned about what you're hearing, the rumblings out of Des Moines and how it could impact revenues for the city of Davenport?

I'm extremely concerned.

And, at least in forums, I think I'm the only candidate that's brought this up.

And that is the last legislative session.

The legislature did try to get a bill across the finish line, kind of at the last minute.

It was the last couple of weeks of session.

So they weren't able to do that.

But both the governor and the House and Senate leadership came out of that session and said, we are doing property taxes in 2026.

So it's coming.

My plea, I guess you well or argument to the city of Davenport is who best to represent us in that conversation and lobby on our behalf at the Capitol.

I know the governor and our staff.

I know the Senate and House leadership from from past experience working for the Chamber of Commerce.

I know Gary Moore very well.

He sits in a very critical position on the House Ways and Means Appropriations Committee.

I know Gary personally.

I feel like I'm best positioned to get the best outcome for the city of Davenport in that process, but I am concerned about it.

And I'm also and just real quick on I think we should consider caps.

So, for example, I think, you know, if you're a retired individual, I'll let the legislature work out the details.

If you're retired and you're you're planning to stay in that home in until you can't or, you know, moving to a assisted living facility or whatever the circumstance, I think we should cap those individuals property taxes.

So they have certainty in what that bill is going to look like every year.

Those of us who are still working and have salaries that get adjusted, I don't mind paying a reasonable increased amount of property taxes every year, because everything else that I'm dealing with is also accounting for that.

But if you're retired, that's not the case.

The same question is what you're hearing from Des Moines.

2026 could be a very important year for cities like Davenport.

There's two things going on with property taxes.

One is the tax rate, and the other one is the assessment.

Des Moines has tied it to the assessment.

The assessment is based on an algorithm okay.

Based on market values.

My property assessment went up $30,000.

It's going up $30,000.

And I have a very small home on a very small lot.

That doesn't change the rate of taxes that can be capped.

But the increases are coming from the assessments and I'm concerned that people are not going to be able to afford their taxes and will lose their homes, and they will get flipped and turn into rentals all over the city.

I'm also concerned that we have bond debt, and I've been looking into that.

I'm just beginning, but we have been selling 30 year bonds for a very long time at millions, $30 million at a shot.

And just the last five years we have over $200 million worth of bonds out that we are paying dividends on.

And we run our city capital projects on bonds.

So what happens as the interest rates go up and as we have this cumulative bond debt because there are 20, 30 year bonds and we need to look into just what our bond debt is, exactly what Bettendorf just did, because we are not constricted, restricted in selling bonds based on referenda, because we are a charter city, okay, we can just sell bonds.

And I'm I believe that we need to look at what our bond debt is, what we're paying in dividends once or twice a year, every year on that, and then when they come due.

So I'm concerned about those two things coming together.

Plus I'm concerned that we've got a lot of litigation that may also be coming together.

And I'm worried about a perfect storm.

Well, let's talk about litigation.

That is I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Just real quick on the bonds I fully agree with, with the idea that the Judith just mentioned about a kind of a public conversation, about our bond debt and what it is, because I think it's a good story to tell.

Actually, the Davenport's bond, capacity right now is about 42%, which I think is a pretty healthy place to be.

Bonding is a pretty normal thing for cities in Iowa to do to pay for their capital projects.

So I fully support having a public, open public conversation about how we bond, how it works, what the interest rates are, what our capacity is, how much more we could do, or how much less we should do.

Because I do think it's a good story telling.

The mayor has a fiduciary responsibility to accurately communicate the finances of the city, but we are different from other cities because we do not.

We have to go to a referendum.

That's true.

We are Charter City.

That's what we do.

Our entire capital improvement on bonds without much discussion, public input.

Let's talk about, crime real quickly.

So all I did was went to the Google machine typed in Davenport, Iowa.

Crime.

This is what showed up.

Big headline.

The city's rate is 79.8% higher than the national average.

Banner is the fact that, Davenport has a higher crime rate than virtually 70% of other cities.

Denver police reported last month.

Violent crime has fallen 24%.

Property crime is down 6% in the past five years.

They say progress is being made early.

Prevention is what the Chief Blade is crediting in regards to this.

So here's my question to you is, and I'll start with you, Judith, is when it comes to crime, it's perception sometimes more than reality.

That's the first thing.

Yeah.

Second thing is early crime prevention or having more cops on the street both require money.

More cops on the street is a lot of money does.

And I know you want to do both, but where would you prioritize?

Is it the crime prevention or is it making sure there's officers out on the street?

We have we have good programs for crime prevention.

I will hand that to our chief of police.

They have really up their game on that.

And I believe that that is being very effective, including with mental health issues, including with focusing on the individuals that are or may start turning into crime, particularly youth.

And so that's very important.

And we have crime analytics on staff now.

So that's important.

But we are also down 20 police officers and we are having trouble recruiting.

I also understand that we are looking at losing 20 more experienced police officers due to retirement.

That's a huge loss.

We increase the area for recruitment to 20 miles where somebody can live in Illinois, because we are having so much trouble recruiting for our police department, and then when you have this void and you bring in new police officers, they may be amazing, but they are inexperienced.

So we also have this time period where these new officers need experience on the street, on the job to become effective police officers and become more mature.

And I'm not talking about an age, I'm talking about inexperienced police officers.

So I believe we we can't prioritize one over the other.

We've got to focus on prevention, particularly in the face of this problem with recruiting and being under the number we are supposed to have according to our budget.

So we have the budget for these police officers were having trouble recruiting.

I agree with much of what Judith just communicated.

The, the, group, gvi, give, I think, group intervention program is working pretty well.

So the preventative things I think are working well and those are partnerships with, social service workers, mental health professionals.

So I think those things are good.

I agree, we need to continue those.

I also agree that we need to find very innovative and creative ways to recruit.

I think what we've learned in post Covid, and I don't necessarily know if this applies to, police forces, but in the private sector, we know that just offering more money to folks is not necessarily what they're looking for.

So I do think we need to talk about that.

But, flexibility in the workforce, you know, again, where you can work, obviously, if you're a police officer, you have to work in Davenport in a cop car on the streets of Davenport.

But I think we need to think about what are some other things that might be attractive to entry level police officers other than sign on bonuses or salary or things of that nature.

And the New York Times also had an article about how important the prevention is very recently.

So I just want to reinforce that you can do one over the other.

Yeah.

Economic development is so important to a city such as Davenport.

You get the big spotlight when you when you get the Amazons or the sterile lights, or when you keep Kraft Heinz because you had the shovel ready.

Location.

Jason, let's start with you.

I mean, what is the key to economic development?

As you well know, so often it is the small entrepreneur and the small businesses that are the backbone, but they don't get the highlight.

The limelight that the big projects are.

What is the role of Davenport in trying to make that mix work?

Well let's start.

And the other thing is that when when you have these large companies, I mean, a lot of people look at them as sweetheart deals and that the jobs don't necessarily always come with them.

Sure.

I know that there's that perception.

So first of all, since 2010, every major economic development project in Davenport craft towns, they're like Amazon, Fair, Oaks Foods.

I've been intimately involved, as in those projects, whether it was as an alderman or as the chair of the Greater Davenport Redevelopment Corporation.

We're the ones that owned the land and sold the land in the eastern Iowa Industrial Center.

And the challenge that we have now is that park is full.

So the challenge that the region has, the Quad Cities region has and the Quad Cities Chamber would back this up as we don't have site ready opportunities for site selectors.

So the site selector comes to town today and says I need 150 acres.

We don't have that for them.

So we need to get a new industrial park created.

And I think the place that makes the most sense is West Davenport, where the sewer line is being built.

It's going to follow Duck Creek all the way under 280.

So there's sewer access to about 50,000 acres that previously didn't have it.

So that's where we need to develop an industrial park.

On the business retention and expansion side of the house.

That's 80% of your growth rate.

So we always vote with the things that get the news are the Amazon's, right.

But 80% of your economic growth comes from existing business.

So we have to be business friendly.

We have to, have the business connection conversations that the chamber does in partnership with the cities where you identify the challenges to growth for our existing business and remove those barriers so that they can grow.

Due to the same question to you, I mean, you've got the big projects that people really watch, and then you have the small ones that people don't know that much about.

First of all, I served with Jason on the GDC for the industrial park we've got now, second of all, that sewer line was meant paid for by Covid funds, was intended for an industrial park north of Locust all the way out to 280.

So that's a given.

The intent of that now is, building it up.

We're looking at years at this point.

The sewer line isn't even built.

So that's all very important and good.

But I also believe the vitality of a city is in it's small businesses and the people who live here and work here, and the people who run these small businesses who care about their employees, that's our vitality.

And we are not paying enough attention.

I see too many small businesses downtown throughout the city, the West End, south of Locust.

They're struggling to keep going.

And I'm concerned that as the overall economy starts to retract these people, we're going to lose first.

And we need to, as a city, start looking at how we can support our small businesses, both highlighting them just like the the big.

I mean, I like smart growth, not just chasing job chasing jobs, but I want good paying jobs.

And I believe a lot of these small businesses do that.

They pay their people well.

So I want to focus because the, the, industrial parks are given.

I want to focus on small businesses in the city and how we can make them stronger and how we can help them help their employees so that they stick around.

We've lost too many.

The other thing is, we've had small businesses and some of these old buildings downtown, and the buildings are not in good shape.

Okay?

They're not having businesses there.

Those buildings have problems with water, have problems with, sewer and other issues that they're also trying to run a business in, in a building that is not up to par.

I think we can do that too.

I've literally less than 30s.

And I want one more question and a quick answer for both you.

What do you promise, Judith, to Davenport voters?

What I promise is an open government.

We're going to have open meetings where people can, you know, work sessions where people can come not talk, but people can come.

They will be live streamed, they will be up.

I am going to work with the city administrator for the city council to look at the administration.

And I have the authority to do that in city code.

And I also promise that we will be getting better information from the staff.

We have for City Council to make timely decisions.

Now, that's at the last minute.

That's in, Jason, your promise to Davenport voters.

That I love Davenport.

I'll wake up every day and I'll do my darndest to advance the city of Davenport.

For all the citizens of Davenport, I'll be accessible.

Cell phone in person, whatever.

Whatever is needed, I will be there.

Again, this comes from a place of loving a city that I live in and wanting to see it, continue to improve and get better for all the residents of the Davenport.

And I will also be in City Hall full time.

And that is critical.

And, the mayor is not a full time position.

It's clearly it's clear and code.

If you read code, the city administrator is responsible for the day to day, operations of the city and just look like I've run this campaign.

So I'm, I'm working full time.

I've been to every meeting that I've been invited to.

I've been come to this interview at 10:00 in the morning.

I'm able to build in the flexibility I need to do the job as mayor.

Our thanks to downpour mayoral candidates Judith Lee and Jason Gordon.

Early voting is now underway, or you can wait until Election Day, Tuesday, November 4th.

And a note about the upcoming election in a moment.

But first, a look at events that could be on your to do list.

Thanks to visit Quad Cities.

Check out the things to do this week in the Quad Cities.

Start your week off at this free family event.

There will be trick or treating music and a costume contest.

Then celebrate science, inventions, art, and history as you explore the amazing museums and our regional destination.

Next, enjoy the haunted sights and sounds without the jumpscares at Skeleton Manor.

All ages are welcome.

Get ready for a horror movie marathon from dusk to dawn at the drive in theater.

And finally, end your week by enjoying free, family friendly Halloween fun at the figgy Art Museum.

For more events like these, check out our events calendar at visit Quad cities.com.

You've just heard from the two candidates running for the office of Davenport Mayor Jason Gordon and Judith Lee.

But there are local elections throughout Iowa that will decide which candidate wins, which bond issues pass, and which referendums are ratified.

So we urge you to look up information about the races in your community.

Election day is Tuesday, November 4th in Scott County.

You can cast your ballots early at the county auditor's office on West fourth Street in Davenport, and you can get more information about this election and other issues on your ballot by heading to your county auditor's website.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us to talk about the issues on the city's.