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Tensions still high at 2nd Davenport city council meeting since building collapse

The meeting comes as almost all of the collapsed building on 324 Main Street has been torn down.

DAVENPORT, Iowa — People from the Quad Cities are still expressing outrage towards city officials over the May 28 building collapse in downtown Davenport which resulted in 3 deaths.

The community spoke out at the June 14 city council meeting, which is the second one since the building partially came down. The first meeting was on June 7.

Outside of a moment of silence at the start of the meeting, there were no agenda items that directly addressed the building collapse, which upset some people.

"The city is going to be on the hook for tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, and the city's acting like everything is normal," one man said.

Some of the frustration was directed at Andrew Wold who owned the collapsed building.

"Take away all of Andrew Wold's properties as he's very clearly incapable of keeping people safe and alive," another man said.

Much of the anger was thrown at city leaders.

"The time to act is gone," one man said solemnly. "We lost the most precious thing in this city — three of its citizens."

"Ya'll here are for public service, right?" one woman said. "Public servants — is that what we call them? So serve your community. Serve us. Give us answers."

Several community members who spoke were also at the June 7 meeting, speaking out again.

"You guys just seem a little too calm, a little too calm," one woman said to the council members. "I didn't even live in that building, but my heart cried out for everyone."

"My loved ones were in the building..." one woman said while holding back tears, people in the crowd saying "it's okay" and "we got your back." She later said "We're not out there to lollygag — we just want answers... It's terrifying that you could go to the store, and get groceries and come back to no home."

Some businesses nearby the collapsed building were forced to close, but have been able to re-open. Others are still shut right now, with no clear timeline from city officials yet on when they can resume business.

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