Former Davenport City Administrator's Missing Demand Letter Revealed: $1.6MM Nothing Burger

On May 28, 2023, my wife and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary at our home in Davenport with family and friends when we began to hear police and ambulance sirens racing downtown. News reports soon made it clear that there had been a horrific disaster: 324 Main Street, a 116-year-old, six-story building housing numerous low-income tenants partially collapsed from top to bottom.  Given the gravitas of what had transpired in 2019 with the flood wall disaster and in 2023 with 324 Main St. disaster – both of which occurred on (former city administrator) Corrin Spiegel's watch as the top paid city official – compared to the school-age-girl-thin-skinned complaints in the finally released September 2023 demand letter, one could say Spiegel's demand letter is a “nothing burger.”

Demolition Site at 324 Main Street in Davenport, Iowa on June 13, 2023

How Did the City of Davenport, Iowa Allow This Disaster to Happen? All citations below linked to source documents regarding the history and demise of the building and lives inside 324 Main Street in downtown Davenport, Iowa and were either acquired via Freedom of Information Act requests made to the city of Davenport, or are publicly available documents or links to published articles.