DAVENPORT, Iowa — A former Davenport city administrator is now an “expert witness” in one of the half-dozen lawsuits brought by tenants of the collapsed Davenport building against building owner Andrew Wold and the city of Davenport.
In a sworn affidavit, Craig Malin calls the deadly collapse at 324 Main St. “predictable and preventable.”
Malin served as Davenport City Administrator from 2001-2015. He was the city’s longest tenured city administrator before he stepped down as part of a separation agreement with city council. It came after then-mayor Bill Gluba called on Malin to resign, accusing him of withholding information about a deal to bring Rhythm City Casino to land.
"He has special knowledge of a certain area, and actually if you read this, a number of different areas. And he's allowed to express opinions about what should or should not have happened under a certain set of circumstances," said John Flynn, an attorney representing six building tenants, and who will call Malin as an expert witness.
"...the collapse of The Davenport was foreseeable and the loss of life, injury and loss of property by residents of the Davenport was preventable had City staff acted upon information they possessed, with authority and resources the City had at its disposal," Malin wrote in the affidavit.
He further wrote: “The deadly collapse of The Davenport was not just foreseeable, it was predictable and preventable. It was so predictable that, when first notified by text on May 28, 2023 by City Administrator [Corri] Spiegel, ‘sounds like part of 324 Main collapsed,’ Mayor [Mike] Matson responded, ‘324?? Is that the Red wall?’ correctly deducing the exact wall that had collapsed.”
Following Malin's departure, then-assistant city administrator, Corri Spiegel, was appointed interim city administrator. She was appointed to the position on a permanent basis in 2016.
"I have observed deficiencies in the qualifications of individuals appointed or hired in leadership roles in the City of Davenport since June 2015," Malin wrote.
He argues Spiegel did not meet the city's minimum qualifications of eight years experience "developing organization-wide policies and supervising management level employees." He further argues she "had no experience leading a local government of any size."
Malin claims Spiegel replaced the city’s department heads with less experienced people, including the Public Works Director and Fire Chief.
"In the case of the Public Works Director, Ms. Spiegel replaced a civil engineer and retired Lt. Colonel in the Army Corps of Engineers with a non-engineer with a vastly inferior base of experience," he wrote.
He said she moved rental inspections under the control of a new Neighborhood Services Department. The director of that department reports to the Assistant City Administrator and Public Works Director Nicole Gleason.
"These organizational and personnel changes are such that there appears to be no civil or structural engineer, or public-safety professional, in the chain of command of rental inspections, in a city with over 15,000 rental housing units," Malin wrote.
He further argued that Spiegel was less transparent, saying she no longer posted responses to all public records requests online or incoming and outgoing emails to the city administrator. He references an April 12, 2023 email referencing unpermitted work and structural issues at 324 Main St.
“Anyone could have seen the email [...] and questioned the city about the unpermitted work and structural issues,” Malin wrote. "That locked-down City Hall was across the street from The Davenport, with the buckling and brick-shedding west wall in full view from windows in the Office of the City Administrator."
News 8 reached out to Spiegel about these claims. We received the following email from Assistant City Attorney Brian Heyer:
"Corri is not allowed to answer your questions given the pending litigation, but will fully and completely ascertain Mr. Malin's competency to offer such opinion through court proceedings."
Malin points to documents provided by the city after the collapse, including engineering reports and fire marshal violations as evidence that the city "had extensive knowledge, across multiple departments, of the extreme public hazard The Davenport presented."
"Any code enforcement officer, chief building official, fire officer, code enforcement director, public works director, or city engineer who knows a load-bearing wall of an occupied century-old six-story building is visibly buckling at its base has a duty to act in the public interest to immediately notify the city administrator of the danger, so the city administrator may director the structure and site be secured, and residents vacated, utilizing public-safety personnel," Malin wrote. "Any code enforcement officer, chief building official, fire officer, code enforcement director, public works director, or city engineer who has notified the city administrator of a public danger of the magnitude of a six-story residential building with a buckling load-bearing wall and learns the city administrator has not taken immediate action to protect lives has an immediate duty to notify the Mayor of the public danger."
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