Davenport City Council voted against ratifying employment agreements for the interim city administrator and interim city attorney during a chaotic meeting Wednesday night.Â
The city council voted unanimously to ratify Mallory Merritt's appointment as interim city administrator, but her employment agreement that laid out pay and expectations for the position failed to gain the required support to pass.Â
Interim City Attorney Brian Heyer's ratification and agreement was deleted altogether from the agenda in a 7-2 vote after a tense exchange between a council member, a staff attorney and members of the audience led to the mayor calling for the council chambers to be cleared.
Merritt has been serving as the interim city administrator since Nov. 17, the previous administrator Corri Spiegel's last day working in office. Mayor Mike Matson named Merritt to the interim position in addition to her chief financial officer job with an executive order he signed Nov. 8.
People are also reading…
Heyer was appointed interim corporation counsel by an executive order by the mayor at the start of the year. The previous city attorney, Tom Warner, said he was placed on administrative leave in late November, shortly before his retirement.Â
Matson, five council members, and then-city attorney Tom Warner also signed a memorandum of understanding, setting expectations and pay for Merritt, also dated Nov. 8. The agreement kept her base salary of $174,000 and would award her a lump sum of $50,000 on the May 3 payroll cycle for the additional duties.Â
Merritt's memorandum did not come before council for a public vote in a meeting in 2023.
It did appear on an agenda in March on the advice of outside legal counsel, according to city council background documents, alongside ratification of Heyer's appointment as interim city attorney and approval of an agreement setting expectations and pay. Heyer's agreement would have kept his base salary at $123,700 and paid a lump sum bonus of $50,000 on the May 3 payroll cycle.Â
Heyer told the Quad-City Times last week that he had previously advised that the city council vote on his and Merritt's appointments in the fall, but there weren't enough meetings left to get everything done. Warner was the city attorney that signed Merritt's agreement.Â
The council delayed a vote on the matters last month and they reappeared this cycle.Â
At-Large Ald. Jazmin Newton said she voted against Merritt's agreement not because of her performance but because of the process of how the agreement was brought before the council.Â
Merritt's appointment "did not come before the council in 2023," Newton said. "I heard that there wasn't time for it. There was time in December of 2023 to ratify three settlements. A new council was seated in January 2024 consisting of five new alderpersons, myself included. Sometime in January, Jan. 23, 2024, I was asked regarding Heyer's appointment. I did not sign. I raised concerns and thankfully, my concerns were listened to and then subsequently is when we received advice from outside legal counsel that these should be ratified. I do believe that things of this nature should always be done in the public. Unequivocally, no ands, ifs, or buts. Should be done in public. Should be done simultaneously. That is how government can be transparent and accountable to its people."Â
Several members of the public urged the council to vote down Merritt and Heyer's agreements, questioning why Merritt's agreement was coming before council months after it was signed and questioning whether the work of Merritt and Heyer warranted $50,000 bonuses.Â
Alds. Ben Jobgen, Kyle Gripp, Paul Reinartz, Marion Meginnis and Rick Dunn voted for Merritt's agreement and Alds. Newton, Tim Dunn, Jade Burkholder and Tim Kelly voted against. Ald. Mhisho Lynch was absent, so the agreement was one short of the six required to pass.Â
During the city council discussion of Heyer's appointment ratification and agreement, Kelly had a tense exchange with staff attorney Mallory Bagby, which led to an outburst by some members of the audience, and Matson called to clear the council chambers.Â
Most of the audience filed out of the chambers, and several aldermen did, too, in solidarity of the public being kicked out of the chamber.Â
Aldermen returned to the dais. Newton refused to participate in the meeting until Matson called the public back into the council chambers. Matson did so, and people filed back in.Â
Kelly motioned to delete Heyer's ratification and agreement from the agenda, and the council without discussion voted 7-2 to delete. Meginnis and Gripp opposed the deletion.Â
Burkholder, the new 4th Ward representative on the council, told a reporter after the meeting she voted against both agreements because she thought the agreements should have come before council right away for a vote.Â
"Ratifying doesn't sit well with me," Burkholder said.Â
Newton said in addition to her concerns about transparency, said she opposed a clause of both Merritt and Heyer's memorandums that required unanimous approval from the four council committee chairs, the mayor and mayor pro-tem to terminate their employment as interims.Â
Newton said removal of a permanent city administrator requires the 2/3 vote of the city council, and said although the law is silent on appointment or removal of interims, she thought the city should follow the same process.
Gripp said he voted in support of Merritt and Heyer's agreements because he believes they're doing an excellent job in the interim, and continuing will be the best way to move the city forward until permanent successors can be chosen. Especially in Merritt's case, Gripp said she's been operating under the agreement and has held up her end of the bargain.Â
Reinartz said the disruption of the council meetings makes it difficult to come to decisions on the dais. He said he voted for Heyer's item deletion because of the chaos of the moment.Â
It was not immediately clear Wednesday night what next steps are for Heyer and Merritt's interim appointments or the pay and expectations for the positions.Â