Davenport Elections: The Case Against Tom Fellows

_{In the name of truthfulness, honesty, and the integrity of Darhlene.com as a fact-based site,}

_{I am releasing this post to my reading audience.}

---

In my letter to the editor of The Ledger (2/9/25), I used the word “appointed” to refer to commissioners who won their seats without the people’s vote. Apparently the powers-that-be think I should have used the phrase “ran unopposed” in spite of the fact that they didn’t run at all, as running indicates that there was a campaign. There were no campaigns.

I’ve seen it before – when a candidate in-the-know approaches the Board of Commissioners after an election cycle, then is asked if they really want this job, and they say Yes. Boom! They’re on the Board. Thus the use of my word, appointed. In addition, the difference between appointed and ran unopposed may very well have different processes however they both yield the same results: the person who ran against nobody won their seats on Davenport’s Board. What a tremendous advantage for incumbents!

One of the commissioners I mentioned in The Ledger letter was Donna Fellows-Coffey, who took offense to my word choice. I believe she thought I was referring to some hierarchy or monarchy or maybe a clique of insiders I call the Good Ole Boys who live in the City of Davenport. Yes, I was.

The long and the short of it is that while Donna was correct to critique my usage of this word insofar as politics are concerned, she was not correct about anything else. Read her retort below and I will explain.

In all, Donna Fellows-Coffey was right about one thing in her letter to the editor (Ledger, 2/16/25): Davenport deserves better. We deserve far better than her father, Tom Fellows, who is running for his eighth term on our Board of Commissioners. (Tom was commissioner from 2004 to 2024. Twenty years!)

Tom also served during Davenport’s Decade of Decay (2007-2017). As best as I can tell, Tom Fellows did nothing during this period to stop this degradation of an otherwise quaint community. I believe that if Tom really loved Davenport in any of his 20 years of “proven leadership,” he would never have allowed the Decade of Decay to happen.

Fellows did some good things but nothing discernably great as commissioner, gained tremendous love from some sectors of the community (For what? We don’t know yet.), and got a building named after him. He’s also a wealthy fellow (pun-alert), who doesn’t hesitate to use that money to persuade the outcome of local elections. Good for him.

Term Limits Addressed in Brief

In the City of Davenport Charter, Article II. Section 2.01 (2), it says, “At the expiration of the … term, that person shall not be eligible to serve as a Commission Member, either by appointment or by election for a period of one (1) year. Based on this information, I have found that former commissioner Tom Fellows was not eligible to run in this year’s election.

This is an ongoing issue. I’ll get back with more information on this quite interesting topic in a future Darhlene.com post.

As Though One Isn’t Enough

Another reality in Davenport is that there is a rise in nepotism, not in the area of government staff but right on the buttocks of our Board of Commissioners. This was clearly evident in the formation of the city’s Charter Review Committee wherein the majority of the members of the committee were related to the individuals on the Board. So much for diversity. (Oh, that’s right. DEI is now bad.)

If Tom is elected, there will be two Fellows on the dais: one daughter, one father. One family possessing two out of five very powerful local government Board positions. Is that really what Davenport wants? A reigning family? A little monarchy? Donna was indeed right when she said, “Davenport deserves better.”

Yes, Donna, we deserve far better.