DAVENPORT, Iowa -- Among the six candidates for Davenport Mayor is current city employee Dean Weber. This is his second campaign for mayor. He placed third in last mayoral election three years ago.
He tells News 8 this time would be different, with more contested positions and more interest likely leading to a higher voter-turnout in the upcoming primary election on Tuesday, October 8, 2019.
Weber said he is running for mayor because he is fed up, and he believes others in Davenport are too.
"If they haven’t been happy with what’s going on, it’s time for a change. It’s time to fix Davenport. I’m the guy that’s going to do it for them," he said.
Weber is an equipment operator with the city's public works department. "I have lived and breathed Davenport for the last 17 years. I have been on call all the time, winters, floods, other disasters."
He said he's seen the city go downhill.
"The council just doesn’t fund this stuff enough," he said, adding that the city has spent money in the wrong places.
"Financing the public works department is not getting from the council," said Weber. "They’re only allotted so much and they’re expected to work with that and do more with it. Well the stuff’s getting old. The city sewers are old."
Asked about his priorities as mayor, he said: "You've got to do the infrastructure first, and then the streets."
He said he wants to put resident's priorities before businesses.
"They have the River Vision plan. I want to divert some of that money and that’s going to go into our streets and our roads."
Weber's third priority is flood protection, using berms around critical assets while protecting the riverfront view: "It would not take that much to put a berm around the water treatment plant. That would save them right there."
"Where people want to see the river, they want the river view, then I want to use panel walls, the same kind of walls that we use to protect the stadium," he said, referring to Modern Woodmen Park.
There is one other thing he would like to see more of - dog parks in more neighborhood parks.
"It's a great place for neighbors to get to know neighbors, and if you put them in neighborhoods, it’d be a six or eight-block area that they get to know one another. They could talk to one another about what’s going on in their neighborhood," he explained.
He said it would be a way for people to get engaged that won't cost a lot of money.
Weber said he would leave the Public Works Department to dedicate himself full time to the mayor's job if elected.
The Davenport primary election is on Tuesday, October 8, 2019. The two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election in November.
