The City of Davenport Can Still Choose Openness: Supreme Court Victory Doesn’t Change the Path That Has Always Been Available to the City Council

The Iowa Supreme Court, in mid-April, sided with the City of Davenport in its quest to keep secret the recordings of closed city council sessions, which State Auditor Rob Sand sought access to as part of his inquiry into the city’s payment of $1.9 million to three former employees in 2023. 

[NOTE: The Reader has covered this issue extensively, please see these articles.  And, the oral arguements on March 31, 2026 at the Iowa Supreme Court are available for video playback below.]

This is disappointing to those of us in Davenport who were hoping Sand’s investigation would shed more light on this matter. Unfortunately, the court has rejected his attempt to get access to these recordings, ruling they are covered by attorney-client privilege, and in a previous filing, Sand’s office said without this information, his reaudit would end.

The case now goes back to the district court, but I’m not sure where it will go from here. I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t speculate. But as someone who has spent more than 30 years in the news business in Davenport, I can say that I don’t remember an uglier, more disappointing episode at City Hall.

Let’s review the basics.

Just a few weeks before the 2023 election, the mayor and council met behind closed doors and chose to award former City Administrator Corri Spiegel $1.6 million to settle harassment allegations. They also chose, under the cloak of secrecy, to award two other employees about $300,000 between them to settle similar claims.

They then decided, with an election looming and their jobs on the line, to keep all this hush-hush.

A few weeks later, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, when they knew that few people would be paying attention, city officials decided to dribble the news about Spiegel out to the public — and arrogantly state they would not answer any questions about it.

Long-time watchers of City Hall were stunned at the audacity. To say nothing of the dollar figures involved.

At the time, I wrote a column about “the stench” at City Hall.

Much of what has taken place in the two-and-a-half years since then has been aimed at reinforcing the city’s attempts to maintain a blanket of secrecy. In the process, the city has drawn criticism from the state Legislature, as well as those who have worked for greater openness among Iowa governments.

In short, the authors of this decision have gravely damaged Davenport’s image. Both outside its borders and within them.

I have my doubts whether the recordings Sand was seeking would reveal any smoking gun, or that they would tell us a great deal more about these secret deals. But one never knows until the evidence is presented, right? At the least, I had hopes that this information would, even if incrementally, improve our understanding of the thinking behind the council’s decisions.

But even if these recordings never see the light of day, what we have learned from this episode are the lengths that some people in power will go to in order to keep their secrets.

Even now, as the court made clear in its opinion, the city could waive attorney-client privilege in this case. The mayor and aldermen could themselves choose to release the recordings. They could choose openness.

I’m not naïve. I know they won’t. The truth is most elected officials voice support for transparency as a concept. But many, if not most, will discard it when their own interests and convenience are at stake.

To be fair, I know there are sometimes reasons for confidentiality in pursuing the people’s business, just as there are good reasons for maintaining attorney-client privilege. As the Supreme Court said, attorney-client privilege holds “an enduring and universal role in our legal system.”

However, each case is different. The City of Dyersville some years back waived attorney-client privilege in an open records case, and while the state Supreme Court has called this decision a “tactical” one, it nonetheless demonstrated this privilege is not inviolable.

Sometimes the interest of the public supersedes this privilege. Sometimes, elected leaders may decide that preserving or, in this case, restoring the public trust is so important it can only be served by radical transparency.

Alas, this question was not for the court to decide. Ultimately, it’s up to elected officials to decide whether the public’s interest supersedes their privilege.

The city council made its choice in 2023. So far, it is making the same choice in 2026.

This column was originally published by Ed Tibbetts’ Along the Mississippi newsletter on Substack. It is republished through the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative and at Iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/04/21/the-city-of-davenport-can-still-choose-openness.

The author Ed Tibbetts, of Davenport, has covered politics, government, and trends for more than three decades in the Quad Cities. A former reporter and editorial page editor for the Quad-City Times, he now is a freelance journalist who publishes the Along the Mississippi newsletter on Substack. He is a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.