DAVENPORT, Iowa — This year, residents in the city of Davenport will be casting their ballots for the mayoral race. This election consists of 4 candidates; current Davenport Mayor Mike Matson, Iowa representative Ken Croken, Yvonne Collins and Brandon Westmoreland.
News 8 was able to meet with three of these candidates and were able to ask them questions about this year's election. Brandon Westmoreland was unavailable to speak with News 8.
See below for the answers that each candidate provided.
Question 1: Why is it so important for you to run for office?
Mike Matson - "We need to continue the momentum of all the positive things we've done. Our financial situation, we get awards for it every year. But just recently, we got another one for financial planning, management accountability. We also just had, for the first time, in over 25 years, a credit rating upgrade. So that saves millions for the taxpayers because of how we're managing our budget, how our policies, make at least the financial world understand that we're in (a) good place. Crime reduction, shots fired, our GVI program group violence intervention program is doing great things and I want to continue to work on that. I want to continue to work with our state, county and federal partners to bring millions of dollars to Davenport to do great things. All of those things are positive momentum and if I stay as mayor, we'll continue that. That's my focus to make Davenport the safest large city in Iowa, we're on the path. We got to continue moving down that road to do that and keeping me as mayor will help do that."
Ken Croken - "I'm running for mayor because I believe that my hometown, the city I love is moving in all the wrong directions."
Yvonne Collins - "It's important for me to run for Davenport because I want to put the city back into the hands of the people. I don't really want to be labeled as a politician, I want to be labeled as a public servant for the people. That means listening to the issues going on, talking about the issues and finding that solution."
Question 2: What are some issues in the city you want to address? How should these issues be addressed?
Mike Matson - "People talk to us about the infrastructure, right? I get the comment about 'Mike, fix the streets. What are you doing now?' I get the comment and have so many barricades so sometimes I can't get to that street. I'll take that criticism because that's what we're gonna do. We have 900 miles of streets and It's hard to get them all done quickly like people want. We put record funding into it, we'll continue to do that. We got to work on housing, we got to work on a lot of things. I always say we're never satisfied on anything. We got to continue to work and improve but I can't do it by myself. Relationships are important and I've established many over the few last years. We have a working relationship again, with our county, state and federal partners. That's critical to having to get things done and by keeping me as mayor we'll have that."
Ken Croken - "The first thing that I'll focus on when elected is to rebuild and restore the trust in local government that the people of Davenport have lost over the last four years. We've not been treated fairly and we've not had the kind of communication we deserve. Over the last couple of months, we find ourselves in a very dire situation, where not only do we have the horror of May 28, still on our minds but now we're facing a tsunami of lawsuits that will threaten the financial vitality of the city going forward."
Yvonne Collins - "Respect for one another to start with. You should always treat others the way you want to be treated. So having respect for the community and community having respect for the people. That's one. Next thing I want to accomplish is infrastructure, housing, and work on improving the quality of life for our teenagers and senior citizens. There's a lot that I want to accomplish. I am a people person so it I'm all about the people. It's all about the people for me."
Question 3: What are some strengths you see with the city? How can you build upon those strengths?
Mike Matson - "The best strength is the people being so willing to participate in whatever it is we're trying to do. We send out community surveys, we talk to them and you see, I get a fair amount of criticism, but that's okay. I need to hear things. I need to hear things that are not comfortable. So then I listen and then figure out what they're talking about. That's the key. Who can you work with to address these issues that people are concerned about? Again, going back to infrastructure, that's all we heard. Now, we are doing that with crime reduction, shots, fired. We're working on that by figuring out partnerships like the GVI program. The community working with law enforcement to help reduce shootings. I mean, we have notified over 100 folks that are potential perpetrators or victims of gun violence. Only five of those have reoffended, that's a 95% success rate. Our Coordinated Assessment Program has over 1100 referrals. We're working with our youth. We're not where we want to be. But if I stay as mayor, the focus will stay on these issues, and will continue to get better."
Ken Croken - "The people of this city still care. They haven't lost hope. They've lost trust, but not yet hope and that's what this election is all about. We're trying to restore the confidence that people should have in their local government. The right things will be done, that they'll know the information they need to know, and that they can still hope for a future better than the past.
Yvonne Collins - "Some of the strengths I see in our city, I would say is our customer service, but customer service can always be improved and should always be worked on."
Question 4: What are your thoughts on how the city handled the 324 Main St. building collapse? How should the city move forward following the tragic event?
Mike Matson - "All I can do is work with people to try to address issues. Again, I'm one person, but I'm the leader. I understand that and I understand that criticism. It was a terrible tragedy. And we have to do better. So you've already seen right away people said, 'You got to get out and inspect it. right away.' In fact, we've done that to other buildings around the city and they're no longer being occupied. So we have done that we're continue to do and that's why relationships are so critical. I am having conversations as we speak with our state legislators on how to adjust, whatever we need to do language, ordinances, laws, to hold landlords more accountable to up our inspections. We've been doing that and we'll continue to do that. So I understand all that. I'm not making apologies, but that was a terrible tragedy. People say to me, 'Mike, we need to know what the investigation is doing.' No mayor, no city council person, no elected official, quite frankly, should ever be part of an investigation. That's people on the outside. Some people keep asking me 'Mayor, you're not telling us anything about the investigation.' That's because I'm not part of it. And should not be. We'll see what comes out of it. We hired outside folks to give us some understanding of what went wrong. We provided all the documents of all the inspections we've done. So people see that and I get criticized for that. I get criticized for not being transparent even though we've given them all we could. But that's okay. I accept that and that helps me learn. It helps the city learn, and it helps us focus on what we need to do in the future."
Ken Croken - "It's sad that a 100-year-old historic building fell to the ground. What's tragic is that it fell on top of its residents. That was completely preventable. It never should have happened. The city should have approached the aftermath of that in a different way instead of rushing to remove the evidence. The building was torn down practically overnight. Without even a thorough search of the rubble to locate the three people that were in the rubble sooner. Some say that the basement of that building was a popular location for homeless people. We don't even know what fully went on and then we did a 90-day investigation of this, that we paid a great deal of money for. We failed to address the one critical question. To what degree is the city responsible for the catastrophe? The city officials took that issue out of the scope of the investigation in order to cover tracks. And it's tragic, it's deceitful. It never should have happened. And I would never allow such a thing to happen. The truth is the truth, and we ought to get to the bottom of it."
Yvonne Collins - "My heart goes out to the families of those that did lose family members or their lives were changed in that accident. I'm running because I want to help prevent it from happening again."
Early voting has begun at the Scott County Administrative Center. The center will be open on Monday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The primary election is on Tuesday, Oct. 10 and the two candidates with the most votes will advance to the general election.